The polite thing to do would be to continue drooling over Eden Hazard’s sumptuous 40-yard solo effort that achieved the twin effect of strengthening Chelsea’s already vice-like grip on the Premier League title and prising Arsenal’s last pinkie finger off of it.
A closer look under the microscope reveals that the same strand of defensive frailty ingrained in the latter team’s DNA for more than a decade is still mutating.
Not since the halcyon days of Jens Lehmann, Sol Campbell, Martin Keown and Patrick Vieira have Arsenal had anything even approaching a dependable gloveman, an intimidating rearguard and a bulletproof vest in midfield.
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There is no denying the brilliance of the Chelsea player’s effort – displaying strength, guile, twinkle toes and cerebral finishing. But the ease with which Hazard was allowed to set off on his mesmerising run, bamboozling Laurent Koscielny not once but twice and leaving Francis Coquelin twisted, tangled and briefly on his backside, only serves to highlight how Arsene Wenger’s side are inferior to their more heralded predecessors in almost every way.
It is hard to imagine what any individual would do different to another in any given situation, but it is unfathomable to think Vieira would ever have bounced off a figure as slight as the wispy Belgian, or that either Keown or Campbell would have allowed Chelsea’s most dangerous player to carry the ball unchallenged into their area without intercepting or crudely “taking one for the team” as it were and snuffing out the threat by leaving him in a crumpled heap.
And while Petr Cech will rightly be ridiculed for his clearance that ended in an assist for his former Chelsea teammate Cesc Fabregas to add a third, the only blemish – if you can even call it that – on Hazard’s masterpiece is that the finish was not quite as outrageously good as the chain of events that had led him there in the first place, and could have been thwarted.
When the giant Czech was signed by Arsene Wenger he was inevitably hailed as the proverbial missing piece of the puzzle to fix Arsenal’s suspect rearguard, but Cech’s performances since switching to Emirates Stadium in 2015 have seldom scaled the heights that made him arguably the division’s dominant goalkeeper for a decade at Chelsea.
Arsenal’s thirst for the fight could also be summed up by Chelsea’s first goal. While Hector Bellerin was prepared to put his body on the line in an effort to thwart Marcos Alonso’s goal-bound header, Theo Walcott was not, standing and staring blankly as his man charged with conviction to beat Bellerin to the ball to head Chelsea into the lead and his Arsenal teammate down the tunnel to be assessed for concussion.
The players’ failings are Wenger’s, too. The question of his future looks to now be settled once and for all. With the Frenchman’s contract set to expire in the summer, the dilemma of whether to offer him fresh terms to extend his 20 years in North London is now surely a moot point for the board with a title drought to extend to a 13th year.
And while it would be unfair to cast Koscielny as anything other than a top-class defender, when push came to shove Hazard showed that this Arsenal team are no match for the heavy hitters in what boxers refer to as the championship rounds.
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