A gorgeous goal from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was the difference as Arsenal won England’s curtain-raising celebration match
Arsenal are the FA Community Shield winners and Arsene Wenger has finally gotten one over on Jose Mourinho, as his Gunners beat Chelsea, 1-0, thanks to a gorgeous goal from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
In a match intended for spectacle and glory, we didn’t really see a ton of it — Chelsea were a bit more pragmatic than normal, seemingly wanting to avoid injuries to key players in a relatively meaningless match, and Arsenal looking a little rusty and discombobulated with an ineffective Theo Walcott at striker. There was plenty of action, but by and large much of it wasn’t terribly effective.
That changed when Arsenal forward Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain got set free down Chelsea’s left side, sending Cesar Azpilicueta spinning around trying to find any way to contain the young winger. A step to his left saw Ox burst out of a line of shadow just as he fired a rocket of a shot across the face of goal to the top corner, and Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois was utterly helpless to save it.
Chelsea started exerting more control of the match in the rest of the half, though Oxlade-Chamberlain’s pace down his flank continued to cause them troubles whenever Arsenal managed to win the ball back. That continued into the second half, and Chelsea slowly started creating more and more danger — but their best scoring chance came to naught when Eden Hazard, clear through on goal, blazed his shot high after a heavy first touch.
That moment spurred Arsenal to slowly wrest more control of the match back into their hands, with Oxlade-Chamberlain and substitute Olivier Giroud creating a fair amount of danger. As the match wore down and more substitutes were brought in, the pace of the game slowed along with it, with Chelsea seemingly to mostly be content to take the result as it stood, not wanting to give up more goals. They did make an apparently attacking substitution when they brought on Victor Moses for John Terry, but with how things ran after that, it seemed more like a substitution to get Moses time on the pitch than anything overly tactical.
It’s hard to take too much away from this match competitively — Chelsea clearly never go into top gear, and while Arsene Wenger finally beat Jose Mourinho, this isn’t exactly a match with big meaning in a competitive format. When the chips are truly down with league points or FA Cup advancement on the line, you can be sure that we’ll see a much more aggressive and lethal approach from Chelsea.
The question then is whether or not Arsenal can step up enough to meet that higher level — that much isn’t entirely clear just yet, but it certainly seems hopeful with some of their solid performances today.
Arsenal: Petr Cech; Hector Bellerin, Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny, Nacho Monreal; Francis Coquelln, Santi Cazorla; Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Mikel Arteta 77′), Mesut Özil (Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain 82′), Aaron Ramsey; Theo Walcott (Olivier Giroud 66′)
Goals: Oxlade-Chamberlain (24′)
Chelsea: Thibaut Courtois; Branislav Ivanovic, Gary Cahill, John Terry (Victor Moses 82′), Cesar Azpilicueta (Kurt Zouma 69′); Nemanja Matic, Ramires (Oscar 54′); Willian, Cesc Fabregas, Eden Hazard; Loic Remy (Radamel Falcao 46′)
Goals: none
3 things
1. Theo Walcott wasn’t a great center forward
Walcott’s a talented player, but his movement and linkup play with his Arsenal teammates were both lacking. Too often of was easy to force out of ideal positions, and he rarely made himself easily available to receive passes in the final third. Walcott’s a talented player out wide, but he needs that extra space in order to be effective — move him centrally where one or both center backs can key on him, or have a defensive midfielder drop back to shield him, and he struggles. Case in point: among Walcott’s very few touches in the first half, he completed just two passes — though one of them was the assist for Arsenal’s opening goal.
2. Chelsea looked solid, but didn’t push particularly hard
In a pre-match interview, Jose Mourinho didn’t sound as though he would be particularly bothered if Chelsea lost, and you could see some of that attitude in his side’s play during the match. They played well and were effectively setting up their gameplan, but they rarely put in that extra bit of effort to really push through and find scoring chances. Chelsea never looked poor — aside for some iffy midfield play on Arsenal’s opener — but they also never looked quite as sharp or efficient as they normally do. Again, though, that looked to be more a result of the “winning would be nice but not all that necessary” mentality Mourinho brought into the match than any failing on Chelsea’s part.
3. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain looks primed for a breakout season
“Ox” scored the opening goal in the match with a gorgeous finish, bursting out of a shadow to fire a rocket to the top corner across Thibaut Courtois’ face. Even beyond that, though, he had a pretty stellar match, tearing up his side of the pitch even while facing down an excellent fullback in Cesar Azpilicueta. He was lively, he was effective, he crossed and passed well, he tracked back excellently — there was nothing not to like about Oxlade-Chamberlain’s performance. It’s early days, but between this match and Arsenal’s earlier pre-season matches, it seems like the soon-to-be 22 year old could finally start to realize his significant potential this season.
