Chelsea 0 Arsenal 0: Second-string Gunners leave Stamford Bridge with heads held high after hard-fought draw
Visitors grabbed crucial draw in first-leg of Carabao Cup semi-final despite no Mesut Ozil or Alexis Sanchez
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THEY have forgotten how to win football matches.
Two draws with Arsenal in a week, an FA Cup replay to come against Norwich after a 0-0 draw at Carrow Road, is not what they are used to around here.
It is three in a row now. The latest, in a game they never really looked likely to win, came in this semi-final.
Instead they will have to sort it all out at the Emirates in just under a fortnight. Nobody was desperate enough to win it.
The sense of urgency, the intensity, the mentality to conjour the little bit of magic needed to win this tie.
At times they played at testimonial pace. They spent far too much time feeling each other out.
Last week’s 2-2 draw at the Emirates, when they spent 90 minutes toe-to-toe in the Premier League, was a treat.
The stakes were raised here, with early-season silverware at stake in the Carabao Cup. Someone had to go for it.
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Instead it was all very respectful, a few gentle prods here and there as they tried to find a way through these defences.
Arsenal, bruised after their City Ground shaming in the FA Cup on Sunday, started off without Alexis Sanchez.
He is on his way in the next few days, benched against Chelsea because his mind is already at Manchester City. They could have done with a special Sanchez send off.
Instead the B team was out, with party animal Alex Iwobi picked to play the biggest match of Arsenal’s season.
Iwobi, incredibly, got the nod against Chelsea just a day after he was exposed for being at a party less than 48 hours before the defeat at Nottingham Forest.
Wenger really does have some strange ideas at times. At least the team responded, sort of, with a half-decent shift in the first half.
Iwobi brought the best out of Thibaut Courtois, forcing Chelses’s keeping to fling himself to the right after 39 minutes.
Before that Alexandre Lacazette should have done better when he lashed his effort wildly over the bar from Jack Wilshere’s clever chip.
Wilshere, named captain, is loving life again. The skirmishes with Cesc Fabregas, the opportunity to show off his skills, the back-chat that goes on between players in high-profile fixtures.
The disappointment, as is so often the case with Wilshere, is that he could not finish the game.
He came off after 55 minutes, forced off after failing to recover from another one of those clattering challenges in the centre of midfield.
Shame because he had been up for this. So too were some of his team-mates, with Granit Xhaka (on Eden Hazard) and Hector Bellerin (on Fabregas) escaping bookings in the first half.
Martin Atkinson, the best ref in the country, should have had his cards out.
He set the tone when N’Golo Kante nipped away at Iwobi, clipping his ankles when the Arsenal forward made his way through a congested midfield.
Chelsea vs Arsenal
Eventually, 51 minutes in, he booked Granit Xhaka for a foul on Antonio Rudiger.
Chelsea had spluttered into life, with Victor Moses, Marcos Alonso, Kante and Fabregas all having a pop in the first half. None of them came to fruition.
They were crying out for a bit more creativity, the sort of spark that Ross Barkley will give them when he is fit enough to pull on the blue shirt.
The former Everton midfielder was paraded at half-time, given a decent enough reception from the punters.
Nobody quite knows where he will fit in at Chelsea, but last night he would have been able to pick his spot.
Antonio Conte’s players looked tired out there at times.
Alvaro Morata, who missed so many chances at the Emirates last week, is struggling to find his form.
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He brought a save out of Ospina after 55 minutes and hit the base of the post when he jinked his way around Arsenal’s keeper after that. Boy does this fella need a goal.
He seems short on confidence, over-running the ball when he tried to wrong-foot Arsenal’s defence on the edge of the area. The chances were starting to come Chelsea’s way.
Shkodran Mustafi threw a leg out to deflect a Moses effort and Andreas Christensen should have hit the target with a far post header.
By then Arsenal had started to make more changes, with Sanchez replacing the miffed Lacazette up front.
The forward has not scored in nearly 600 minutes and never looked likely to here.
Instead they turned to Sanchez, possibly in his final game in an Arsenal shirt, to try to make a difference.
Instead Chelsea piled forward, trying to get Hazard on the ball in search of a winner. Sadly for Hazard, he never came close.