Gunners embarrassed at Stamford Bridge

Although a trip to Stamford Bridge is never easy, Arsenal's 3-1 defeat at Chelsea was rather embarrassing.

We knew it was going to be a totally different challenge against the leaders than we had demolished them 3-0 at the Emirates back in September. Chelsea have since been in much better form, while we were looking to bounce back from a shock home defeat by Watford. Instead we produced a largely poor performance to fall further behind the leaders. We are now 12 points behind Chelsea and down to fourth and our league campaign is already fading away and it would take nothing short of a miracle to catch them.

Although the result was disappointing, it is the manner of the performance that hurts the most. Getting points from this fixture was never going to be easy, but the lack of fight on show and the fact we didn't create too many decent opportunities is a big cause for concern.

The Gunners, in fact, started well and it looked fairly positive for the first quarter of the match, with Alex Iwobi having a shot deflected wide early on. At the other end Gary Cahill sent a header over the bar, but as soon as Marco Alonso's 13th-minute opener went in we fell apart and were outclassed by the league leaders for most of the rest of the match.

There was slight controversy surrounding the opener as, after Diego Costa's header hit the crossbar, Alonso beat Hector Bellerin to the ball to nod in the rebound. Alonso elbowed the defender in the face in the process, but I don't believe there was any malice in the challenge and even though some saw it as a foul I don't have too many complaints about the goal. The challenge did, however, force Bellerin to be withdrawn from the action with Gabriel coming on in his place.

Costa fired a shot into the side netting and Pedro was denied by a save from Petr Cech as Chelsea threatened to add to their lead.

Arsenal wasted the opportunity to level the scores after 37 minutes when a dinked ball over the top was met by the head of Gabriel, but the defender's effort was well tipped over by Chelsea goalkeeper Thibault Courtois. The visitors wasted another chance in first-half stoppage time when Mesut Ozil found himself in space in the box, but the German international's tame shot was comfortably saved by Courtois. Ozil maybe should have crossed it back in for one of his team-mates running in and we really should have made a lot more out of what was a decent opportunity. It was a big waste, but at least we were only 1-0 down at the break as it could have been a lot worse.

Chelsea controlled the second half and could have doubled their advantage within five minutes of the restart had Eden Hazard not sent his effort high and over the bar. But the Belgian made no mistake soon after as he ran from halfway, beating Francis Coquelin and Laurent Koscielny, to score what some described as a great solo goal. Although it was a decent goal, I also can't help but think that it was a lot more down to very poor defending from the Gunners than excellent attacking play. Hazard did well, but the defending was unacceptable and we really should have done better.

Danny Welbeck looked lively when he came on and I wish he had been introduced sooner or maybe been given a start. The striker got his head to Shkodran Mustafi's cross, but Courtois got down excellently to push his effort past a post. From the resulting corner Mustafi sent a header wide. That was about as good as it got for us in a game in which we were largely on the backfoot.

Former Gunner Cesc Fabregas then turned our afternoon from bad to worse when he lobbed Petr Cech following a poor kick by the Arsenal goalkeeper.

Substitute Olivier Giroud headed home from Nacho Monreal's cross late on to at least end our long run without a goal at Stamford Bridge, but it didn't prevent a poor result or hide what had been a woeful performance. Mustafi then tried his luck soon after, but his header was comfortably saved by Courtois to complete a terrible afternoon for Arsenal.

OPPOSITION VIEW
Chelsea fan Paul Boulter was happy with the result and feels it was a rather routine win for his side.

"It was unexpectedly comfortable for Chelsea," said Boulter. "Arsenal looked like they were up for it, but once Alonso scored the goal, I couldn't see Arsenal getting back into it.

"I don't think there was a foul on Bellerin, Alonso was at speed and Bellerin should have been stronger. It was a stroll in the park at times, Arsenal huffed and puffed, but there was no end product.

"For the first time I actually feel confident of Chelsea getting our title back. Same old for Arsenal I'm afraid. No fight, no instruction. I think Wenger needs to leave for Arsenal to get back to where they were."

MY FINAL THOUGHTS
Our title hopes were already slim, but had we managed four to six points this week we would have at least given ourselves some hope. But instead defeats to Watford and Chelsea left any slim hopes in tatters and the recent performances have been simply not good enough.

Although we are mathematically still in it, we realistically have no chance and we deserve to be where we are in the table after our current poor performances.

We will have to up our game dramatically to avoid any slip ups in our next league match when Hull visit the Emirates before the mammoth task of the trip to Bayern Munich for the first leg of our Champions League tie.

The players and the manager need to take a long hard look at themselves after this week and a big improvement is needed.

COME ON YOU GUNNERS