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Arsene Wenger: Wenger hails ‘different’ Theo Walcott at Arsenal

The former Blues forward was often a bane for Arsenal and has scored an incredible 15 goals in 16 matches in the London derby for his Stamford Bridge side.

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Chelsea have held something of a hoodoo over Arsenal in recent times.

He reaches his milestone on 1 October and, despite being in charge for two decades, the Frenchman had not tasted a Premier League victory over Chelsea in almost a quarter of that time.

It was Arsenal’s biggest league win over Chelsea since Wenger’s first game against them in April 1997 (also 3-0) and their most handsome home victory against the west London club in 26 years.

This week marked 20 years since Wenger’s appointment and whereas Chelsea had spoilt his 1,000th game at the Arsenal helm with a 6-0 win in March 2014, this milestone was memorable for the right reasons.

The England centre-back received the ball from Branislav Ivanovic under slight pressure and hesitated before playing an ill-advised and under-hit backpass that Sanchez pounced on to race towards goal and chip home a classy finish.

Arsenal climbed to third place in the Premier League table, five points below leaders Manchester City, after registering four successive league wins for the first time in over a year.

“I think you can not question his performance”, the Arsenal manager said of Walcott.

“I think that after today we are thinking that we must work a lot, because now we are a great team only on paper”.

Within three minutes, the Gunners had another.

If the opener was entirely Chelsea’s making, they could do little two minutes and 19 seconds later as Cazorla, Ozil and Alex Iwobi combined in a slick passing move before Walcott converted Hector Bellerin’s low cross.

The only surprise was Chelsea’s rearguard lasted until the 40th without crumbling again. In a rare attack from Chelsea, Coquelin got his body in the way of an attempted effort on goal from Chelsea midfielder N’Golo Kante.

But it was the hosts who would strike again before the interval as Ozil broke forward and found Sanchez, who lofted a ball to the back-post where the Germany worldwide arrived to hit a volley into the ground and over Courtois.

We got almost the flawless first half and that is not bad. “I think we played a bad game against a tough team, very organised, very prepared in the tactical physical aspect”.

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Willian flashed a drive across goal wide and Eden Hazard had a shot blocked as Chelsea’s creative talents sought a response, but their humiliation continued five minutes before half-time.

Alexis Sanchez opened the scoring