Chelsea and Arsenal appeared to exchange moods in Wednesday's Stamford Bridge derby. The blues and the Gunners arrived at opposite times and those from the north ended up infecting those from the most elite neighborhood of the capital. Those of the Bridge left three points between errors of bulk and bad luck, something very typical of Arsenal this season. Kepa Arrizabalaga was involved in this.
Jorginho was the detonator of the final 0-1 with a pass back that was going to become one of the incredible goals of the campaign. Incredible, in the worst sense. Kepa was caught out of goal and dived to avoid an own goal, but could not prevent Arsenal from finishing and Smith-Rowe scoring on a pass from Aubameyang.
They looked for a bad day for the Spaniard and he did not have it, as on other occasions, but he saw himself coming out in the photo. Still, this did not take its toll on the coach. Tuchel publicly confirmed Jorginho's mistake and his intention to give Kepa the title yes or yes in the FA Cup final. “The rule is not not to pass to the goal, the rule is to pass the ball to Kepa's right foot. It does not matter if he is in goal or out, the rule is to pass it to Kepa,” he said about the error. At a press conference, he spoke about his ownership. “We thought about giving him this game because I trust him and he deserves it. He is so good in training that we wanted to give him minutes and for him to play both games in a row. It was also an unfortunate night for him,” added the German coach, who did not take long in taking responsibility for everything publicly, assuming an error in the line-up and talking about a “wake-up call” before four games that seem key with two finals (FA Cup and Champions) and six points at stake to ensure a place in the top -4 of the classification before Leicester, a direct rival and an Aston Villa that has already acted as 'giant killers' in this Premier.
Nightmare at Stamford Bridge
In addition to the mistakes, the bad luck already intoned by Tuchel or a lack of sharpness, the game was a nightmare for practically every line of Chelsea. Everything that could go wrong, went worse.
Jorginho's pass back and Arsenal's subsequent goal was the culmination, but first, Havertz missed a clear chance against Bernd Leno, who hit to avoid any blue goal. To theat game time, Chelsea scored, but was correctly disallowed for offside and also, in the final stages of the match, Zouma and Giroud had a double chance that crashed twice on the crossbar of the Gunners' goal. The head-butt of the central went to the wood due to a great intervention by Leno, but in Giroud's it was lack of precision or precisely excess of it to crash it into the wood.
The defeat complicated the objective of reaching the top of the Premier and appears as a warning or a bad feeling before entering the most important point of the season. The blues expect you to stay in a bad dream.