Chelsea can end Arsenal’s title chase for good on Saturday

As a fixture, Arsenal against Chelsea may not have the neighborly disdain of the North London derby or the historical cachet of Manchester United against Liverpool, but it’s often a lot more fun. Ever since Roman Abramovich’s money arrived in West London and Arsenal transitioned into the Late Wenger era — these two events are not unrelated — this game has tended towards the chaotic, the entertaining, and occasionally the downright peculiar.

Generally speaking, at the end of these games, Chelsea win and Arsenal look silly. Since Abramovich took over, the record reads Chelsea 18 and Arsenal nine, with eight draws. Sometimes the North Londoners are out-fought, other times out-thought; most of the time they’re just straight-up outplayed. Sometimes there are amusingly incompetent officials to blame.

And occasionally, in accordance with the rule that truly great comedy is always surprising, they manage to make victims of their bullies. The sight of John Terry on his hands and knees in the middle of a 5-3 hammering is one that will live long in the memory of all who cherish football for its emergent, spontaneous farce.

There was another such reverse earlier this season, when Arsenal dissected Chelsea 3-0 thanks to first-half goals from Alexis Sanchez, Theo Walcott, and Mesut Ozil. It was a performance of swagger, verve, and style that suggested that this time, finally, Wenger’s team was coming together into something properly good.

It also meant that Chelsea were three points behind Arsenal, eight off the top, and in for a long, hard road back. Yet, four months later, despite the two sides similarities in terms of squad depth and strength, Chelsea are nine points ahead of Arsenal and cantering to the title.

That 12-point swing illustrates several things. It shows that Antonio Conte — rather unlike Arsene Wenger — is not a manager that takes a thumping and decides to make a couple of small tweaks. After that defeat he tore apart Chelsea’s formation, built a new one around the talents of Victor Moses, David Luiz, and Marcos Alonso, and his team responded by embarking on a near-record-breaking unbeaten run.

It shows that Chelsea — rather unlike Arsenal — are capable of maintaining focus and application from game to game. Not all of that unbeaten run was thrashings: there were narrow 1-0 wins, overturned deficits, and a couple of scraps with Manchester City and, er, Stoke. And when they eventually did lose, to an excellent Tottenham, the bounced right back with five straight victories. Meanwhile Arsenal’s latest hiccup came midweek against Watford, a 2-1 home loss that had Wenger lamenting:

“It was obvious we lost duels and were not sharp enough. It looked more mentally that we were not ready for the challenges.”

Ultimately, it shows that while the games between the big teams are the headline attractions, it’s the games in between those games that truly define the season. The day after Arsenal lost at Everton, Chelsea edged past Sunderland 1-0. The day before Chelsea lost to Tottenham, Arsenal were clowning around in Bournemouth. And while Watford were taking advantage of Arsenal’s mental unpreparedness, Chelsea were grinding out a draw up at Anfield, an object lesson in “job done.”

Quite where this mental bluntness comes from isn’t clear. The grumpy, harrumphing old men of the British media will insist that its a congenital weakness in Arsenal’s character; that any squad so keen on dressing-room selfies simply cannot hack the relentless grind of league football. It’s a tempting line, and it was hard not to laugh when Olivier Giroud’s self-lionising celebration against Bournemouth was interrupted by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain pointing out that perhaps they should push for the win.

Alternatively, while all teams have games where they just don’t click, the regularity with which Arsenal fail to turn up for tricky, medium-sized games suggests that there’s some flaw in their preparation. Just as under-warmed muscles sustain injuries, so inadequately prepared minds underperform. This tallies with how Arsenal look during these games: like a group of players who’ve failed to persuade themselves, and haven’t been persuaded by anybody else, that beating Watford is going to be hard work.

Either way, it all leads back to Arsene Wenger: these are his players, these are his preparations. If he’s right in his diagnosis, then any solution — buy a terrifying captain? ban all external signs of pleasure? hypnotism? — will have to come from him as well. Until then, we can rest assured that while this weekend’s game should be fun, it will likely be irrelevant, in the wider scheme of things.

If Chelsea play for a point and take one, then job done once more. If they go for the win and get one, then the crowd will cry “FINISH HIM” and Conte will dragon-punch the limp body of Arsenal’s title bid into the Thames.

But if Arsenal overcome the odds and their lack of midfielders, get the win, and cut the gap to six, it won’t matter. Like a cocky teenager on a bicycle, any time they get up a bit of speed, they smile, take their hands off the handlebars, and crash into a hedge. Over the last four months, while Chelsea have reinvented themselves as champions, Arsenal have only managed to become ever more Arsenal. Look Arsene! No hands!