Monday

Results

Date	Time	C	Opponent	F	A	R	S
29 Nov	4:00 PM	P	Chelsea (H)	0	3	Lost

Let me take you on magical journey through time and space... Let's go back to 4.19 on Sunday afternoon and a vibrating phone. Let's have a look at the phone and the message that has just arrived. The screen of my Sony Ericcson displays the following message: "Dominate, dominate concede? Too negative an attitude?"

It is from Ben, who has given up his season ticket this year as he's off travelling in the near future. I'll you give the PG-13 version of my response: "Isn't that what always happens against these horrible chaps?"

And so it proved. You will have picked up by now, I think, that I was and remain a big fan of The X-Files. One of my favourite episodes was one called Monday and a storyline that had Mulder and Scully doomed to repeat the same day, dying in a bank, over and over until Mulder worked out that he needed to remember the villain of the piece was carrying a bomb.

Watching Chelsea erect a big blue wall between the edge of their penalty area and their goal yesterday and watching Arsenal trying to sneak their way through non existent cracks reminded me of that episode.

Watching Chelsea make the most of the chances created - 3 goals from 4 shots on target reminded me of that episode (7 goals from 9 shot on target in two matches).

Watching Didier Drogba destroy the Arsenal defence reminded me of Monday.

Watching the Arsenal defence so panicked that they conceded an own goal, their third one in consecutive league fixtures against Chelsea reminded me of Monday. Vermaelen's own goal unfortunately seeing him follow in the footsteps of Djourou and Touré rather than those of Adams, Keown and Campbell, alluded to yesterday afternoon.

Watching the referee harshly rule out an Arsenal goal, the third in five home fixtures against Chelsea reminded me of Monday; the inevitable booking of Traore for his first foul, whilst a similar one from a Chelsea player - Ivanovic, maybe? - yielded only a free kick, not to mention how many fouls Obi Mikel made before being booked just seemed symptomatic of this season.

Not that I blame the referee for our fate, though it's difficult to understand how he can wave away a challenge on Vela and then blow for the foul by Cesc that led to Drogba's exocet. So it turns out that I'm either mental or dyslexic. Perhaps the headline I really saw was "Rampant Blues Stun Gunners".

I haven't checked today's press to see if it's there. I think a description of "rampant" would flatter Chelsea somewhat. But they were ruthless, they were professional and cynical, committed and very, very good. With Drogba and Anelka able to hold the ball up so well, that allowed Chelsea to defend in numbers and defend well. The most sobering aspect of this match was the fact that we, aside from fifteen minutes at the beginning of each half, were never really in it.

When we lost those games in Manchester we at least exercised a degree of control during the games. Chelsea never allowed us to. Why we have not worked out, nearly five years on that we can't really hurt Chelsea by going through the middle, is beyond me. Yesterday it was like watching the Rebel Alliance trying to take the Death Star down with water pistols.

Having haemorrhaged chances to a team as crap as Standard Liege undoubtedly are, the warning signs were there. As it was, we didn't give away half as many, but then Chelsea didn't need us to.

Not a good day for Arsène's "A team", was it? A seemingly disinterested Andrey Arshavin briefly roused himself from giving the ball away practically every time he got it, to put the ball into the net, only to find the referee had blown already for a foul on the keeper. Alex Song was sacrificed at half-time, despite being one of our better performers, as Arsène belatedly looked to introduce the width we'd been lacking and as for Manuel Almunia...

Yes, Mr "True Colours" had a game to forget as we probably all suspected he might. I think it's known as the curse of Robbie Keane, it might also be down to not being very good. We can look at the instinctiveness of Drogba's finish for the first goal (after great play from Terry and Cole - that hurts) and say it was unavoidable, but for the same thing to happen just three minutes later and then for Almunia to watch Vermaelen needlessly put through his own net speaks volumes to me. Granted, he made a great reaction save from Frank Lampard's belly, but Didier Drogba made him, well, "flop around like a fish on a line" with the late free kick that rubbed extremely coarse salt into our open wounds.

It seems to me too, that with only Nick Bendtner the only likely candidate to play the target man role our formation requires effectively, the manager is going to have to rethink his formation. Eduardo and Vela really did look like little children beating their fists against the chests of adults. Eduardo in particular seems a player shorn of confidence. If the manager is not prepared to rethink than he must look to sign a striker in January and, please God, a goalkeeper. A proper one. Not someone pretending to be one. The only crumb of comfort I can take from yesterday afternoon is that it's not every day we will come up against a side with the quality of Chelsea, but that is small consolation this afternoon.

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