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Arsenal 3-1 CHELSEA: The Alternative Report

Carlo signalling our new aspirations?

Carlo signalling our new aspirations?

I really don’t know what I can say about the game. For a start I still feel too gutted to talk about it and as if that’s not bad enough, Arsenal actually deserved the win. I know I should probably cut my tongue out now but the sad fact is, it’s true. So, for once I’m not going to report on the game as such – they won 3-1, so what’s to say about it anyway? We weren’t dire but we weren’t good enough either, enough said.

Let’s have a right old moan instead eh?

As cynical as I am, I’ve never been a defeatist but the reality is, whilst we’ve been able to write off some recent results as a blip, last night’s game showed us it’s worse than that. It’s been 12 years since we’ve had a run as bad as this one – back then we were finishing 4th in the league – and we’re heading that way again.

During the last few weeks, I’ve passed it off as simply a run of bad form. We’ve had injuries, key players still aren’t 100% but it would get better, wouldn’t it? The trouble is, we’ve run out of time and the longer we go on getting these sorts of results, the harder it’ll be to turn it around. For me, we won’t be in a title race now – again, not defeatist, just reality – but we need to get our act together and get whatever else we can out of the season.

Chelsea, as a team, no matter what the results or how the table stood at the end of a season, could never be accused of not wanting it enough. We might not always have had the pretty feet of Arsenal or United’s history but one thing we’ve had for years is the balls for a battle. And when things have been going right for us, we’ve had all the key ingredients – the heart, the stomach for it, the balls and someone in the background to remind us of that.

I was talking about it last night and going back to Ranieri, that’s probably what he was missing. He knew how to put a decent side together and he could even get them to play but lacked the cutting edge, the grit – or simply the motivating factor.

Mourinho, well we all know about his managerial skills. Here was a man who could get his players to believe they were the best. Yes, it may have turned them into a bunch of cocky fuckers who felt the footballing world (and the refs) owed them a living but whilst the attitude left a bit to be desired at times, the results generally didn’t. We won because we felt we deserved to.

Even when Mourinho went and we had the hapless Avram Grant thrust on us, it was the sheer sense of injustice that drove our players on – well that and Steve Clarke, because Chelsea had made a smart move bringing him in as Mourinho’s assistant. So even in the wake of Mourinho’s departure, the players still had that one constant to remind them – that motivating factor.

Of course, the fact that Clarke was sidelined by Scolari was evident in our results and woeful football under the Brazilian and you’d have thought the Scot’s departure would have taught the club a valuable lesson – not so though because whilst Chelsea made a very smart move in appointing Ray Wilkins as his successor, they failed to see his true contribution alongside Carlo Ancelotti.

You see whilst Ancelotti might have been heralded as the man to have brought us our Premier League and FA Cup double last season, it’s become all too evident in the weeks since Wilkins departure that he was our real motivator, that constant reminder to bring the key ingredients – the heart, the stomach, the balls – together and without him, Ancelotti hasn’t got the recipe for success anymore.

Hardly surprising we’ve gone off the boil is it?

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