The action genre was announced from the very beginning. Drogba began to pull up with Lehmann, Ebouet and Lampard with unimaginable enthusiasm began to tear pieces of each other out of their thighs, and Ashley Cole showed in a series of ordinary martial arts with former partners such an amazing combination of fearlessness and ruthlessness that it seemed - just about to sparks will fly. Even more surprising is the fact that the intensity curve of the match (if expressed in the form of a graph) along its entire length almost steadily went up, leading to a very infarct endgame. Perhaps the final 25 minutes of the match, “Chelsea” - “Arsenal” have become the brightest game segment of the current championship. They contained half the yellow cards shown in the match, two-thirds of the scoring chances and all the goals. And a couple of seconds before the final whistle, Lampard struck the post.
Finding himself without the two leading central defenders (Galas injured, Kolo Toure disqualified) and the captain (Henri unwell), Arsene Wenger put on the Stamford Bridge a cautious scheme 4-5-1. The young (middle age - 21 years old) quartet of defenders was helped immediately by two support, Mathieu Flamini and Gilberto Silva, and Emmanuel Adebayor was advanced forward. This saturation of the central zone greatly complicated the nominal owners of the penetration into the penalty area of Lehmann. But Chelsea have someone to hit because of its borders. Particularly dangerous in the first half were the long-range shots of Shevchenko and Lampard - but still not scoring.
Ahead, Arsenal relied on its usual penetrating attacks, mainly flanking, as well as on the ability of its midfielders to control the ball under the most merciless pressure. It was from such an attack that the Flamini goal was born in the 78th minute, putting Chelsea in the face of the first defeat in their field since February 2004. The Frenchman played a long and some surprisingly cold-blooded “wall” with Gleb, after which he struck Ilariu’s gloves with a strike from 15 meters. This goal can hardly be classified as a goalkeeper mistake. But to illustrate the difference in class between the first and third Chelsea goalkeeper, he will fit: such a Czech would not have missed.
Chelsea put up their usual 4-4-2 scheme for this season, but spent their best game period after a rebuild at 4-3-3 at the 66th minute, when Mourinho immediately picked up Robben and Wright-Phillips from the bench. Sunday's match gave another reason to worry about the place of Andriy Shevchenko in the starting lineup of the “blue”. He scored not so little in recent matches (4 goals in 8 matches - as much as brilliant Drogba) and was not so bad in this particular game. But Robben still managed to do more in the 34 minutes allotted to him, acting as the instigator of at least three potential assists.
However, the most useful player of Chelsea, for the umpteenth time, was Essien. Drogba’s valor this season has diverted some attention from the progress of the Ghanaian midfielder, but he is phenomenal. Indefatigably hardworking, mobile, able to connect to attacks and perfectly feeling the rhythm of the game, Essien was good at the start of the season, which all the other Chelsea leaders gave a considerable effort. And after Sunday's exploits, there is no way to resist the proclamation of Essien as the best defensive midfielder of England, if not Europe at all. At the 66th minute, after replacing Jeremy with Wright-Phillips (again showing himself depressingly useless on the field), Essien closed the right flank of the defense, and tightly. And in the 84th minute Essien with a powerful, slightly twisted shot from 28 meters threw the ball under the bar from the right of Lemann. This was Essien’s third goal this season.
The 8-point lead over Manchester United in the championship looks significant: this is a completely new situation for Jose Mourinho, who has won four recent national championships with Chelsea and Porto. But the Portuguese, heated up by the final assault on Chelsea, held the post-match press conference fiercely and warned Alex Ferguson against complacency: “With all due respect to Newcastle, but playing with him on Wednesday, we will be only five behind.”
Chelsea - Arsenal - 1: 1 (0: 0)
Goals: 0: 1 - Flamini (78), 1: 1 - Essien (84)
Chelsea: Hilari, Ricardo Carvalho, Terry, E. Cole, Jeremy (Wright-Phillips, 66), Essien, Ballack, Makelele, Lampard, Shevchenko (Robben, 67), Drogba.
ARSENAL: Lehmann, Ebouet, Jura, Senderos, Clichy, Alexander Gleb, Fabregas, Gilberto Silva, Flamini, Van Persie (Jungberg, 83), Adebayor.
Warnings: Ashley Cole (24), Flamini (55), Lehmann (65), Drogba (66).
December 10th . Stamford Bridge, 19:00.
Judge : Alan Wiley (Staffordshire).