Chelsea 1 Arsenal 0: Mugged by a jammy goal at the Bridge

Gilberto challenged by Terry

Their rather limp chant of ‘Champions’ was met with ‘We’ll be running round Chelski with out trophies hanging out singing we’ve got eleven more than you’ from the travelling Gooners – which turned out to be chant of the day.

Chelski have of course spent in the region of about £250,000,000 on players since the Chavski branch of the Russian Mafia arrived at the Bates Hotel. Their long list of tapped and plundered personnel have of course in the main been loaned out, or off loaded, at vastly discounted prices but they still have a lot left. Those left numbering approximately two dozen vastly over-priced internationals some of them took the field at Stamford Bridge in their perpetual role as League underdogs. But they did little or nothing worthy of a Championship side during the course of the match. Playing as they do like Cambridge United of old, their principle ploy was to hit long balls forward usually into wide channels. Arsenal countered with some real passing football, which looked fine till we got to the edge of their box where it petered out all too often.

With Arssenal kicking away from the away fans the first half saw us on top for most of it. Our first strike came from Henry whose shot from Freddie’s pass went over. Five minutes in and the same prat who streaked at Highbury went through the same routine at the Bridge. What a w*nker! Two long balls from the blues were greeted with the standard ‘Hoof’ response. An Arsenal spell followed and a left to right ball from Thierry found Freddie with a chance for a shot from wide with a narrow angle that had the power but not quite the acuracy. ‘Your support is fecking shit.’ A quite brilliant tackle by Toure on Crespo, Kolo has been our best defender to date this season.

‘You’re just Tottenham with money’ Ashley Cole was booed whenever he had the ball. How sad is their chant of ‘Chelski reject’ – I expect Gerrad and Ferdinand will get the same Chav welcome. Fine tackle by Del Horno on Freddie as the long ball game of multi-million pound ‘Wimbledon’ played the short skilled game of ‘Brazil’ minus their strike force. Lampard fouled Henry, Cole was upended. Nice dive by Robben who hardly had a sniff today. Freddie gave up on his injury and was stretcehed off after 26 minutes to be replaced by Robin who made it more of a 4-4-2 rather than the 4-5-1 we’d been playing with Hleb as the added man in midfield. Cech hit a standard long ball that reached Lehmann. Van Persie tackled Del Horno who did the double roll-over agony injury routine, poor dear – great recovery though. Helb on a fine run followed by a big punt up to Crespo. ‘Boring boring Chelsea’

Cole and Robben competing

Henry battled back well to take it off Gudjohnsen and followed up by finding Van Persie, whom in turn found Pires to win a corner. Our second corner saw a handball claim but I was up the other end and can make no vallid comment. Pires aimed at Kolo and we won another corner, which Henry hit too deep for Senderos. Chelsea resonded by hoofing upfield for an Arsenal goal kick. Do their fans watch that crap every week? Kolo beat Gudjohnsen in what looked like it might be a dangerous attack. Arsenal continued to build and Chelski retreated to the edge of their box and then defended well in numbers. Another Cech pass found Lehmann before Chelski’s best attack of the game saw Lehmann block from Robben following a deep cros from their left. Chelsea pressed for the first time really late on and Jens at one point had to head clear from outside his box, but play was soon up the other end again. Hleb hit a cross from our left, which was headed on to Pires by a blue shirt. Rob’s first time volley was wide but it didn’t look too far off target, although that was hard to see from the other end. Half time and it had nil-nil draw written all over it. Certainly there had been nothing from Chelsea to brown any trousers, but we hadn’t exactly carved their defence to bits either.

Drogba replaced Crespo at half time and handled the ball soon after in a vain attempt to beat Senderos. Naturally he moaned about the free kick given against him by our very good friend Graham Poll. Poll must have realised how annonymous he’d been to date because he booked Van Persie and Gallas for squaring up, nothing else happened other than two yellow cards. Cesc then went on a tasty solo but ended it with a naff shot. Brilliant play by Hleb, who took on and left for dead three players and then found Cole, his to pass to Henry at the far post was fired wide. Senderos then had to clear from Drogba. Lampard held onto Cesc as Hleb and Cole broke left. Pires went down at the edge of the box before Henry and Van Persie played some very tight one-twos that were typical Arsenal nearly but not quite stuff.

Drogba blasted one over while running wide right. Then Chelsea slung on about 45 million quids worth to replace Gudjohnsen and Robben. Slight clue who it might have been as Essien and a ball boy came on to the tune of ‘Your father is a Gooner’. The ex-City man was immediately beaten to the ball by Ashley. Great cross from Van Persie but no one was onto it. A number of free kicks seemed to stop-start the game for a while and what flow we had was now quite hit and miss. A great speedy Kolo solo down the right was crossed for Robbin who knocked it wide, possibly off his shin.

What followed was a travesty. A long free kick from Lampard, round about the half way line, sort of found Drogba who reports indicated might well have been offside. The big lump appeared to try and control it and failed miserably. Instead it hit the side of his shin, wrong footed Lehmann and dribbled home for a flukey and undeserved goal. Low and behold at one-nil and 74 minutes on the clock Chelsea fans woke up.

Makelele tried wresting Van Persie to the deck, suceeded and was carded. Henry then came as close as were going to get when his shot aimed inside the near post was blocked by the keeper onto the upright and away for a corner. Chelsea only attacked us after this on the break, exactly as they had done prior to their freak goal I suppose. One break called upon Lehmann to save. Fouls became more niggly, Chelsea’s were designed to stop our passing game and ours were born out of a ratiness and frustration. Henry had another shot saved. Del Horno meantime was trying out the grass again for his own little game of rolly-polly as Flamini replaced Cesc.

Cole welcomed Essien to the Premiership and got a yellow card for his pains. Then Poll gave Senderos one as well, either for his shove on Drogba or for kicking the ball away afterwards. A poor header back by Senderos, a rare mistake today, nearly let Drogba in but his control was as bad as when he greased his goal.

In short we failed to break Chelsea down despite playing the better football. Chelsea did very little to worry us other than freak a goal. The law of averages dictated that they must win a league game against us some time, they finally suceeeded again at what I think was their 20th. most recent attempt. Jammy ****s!