Blue belting puts Wenger in his place

Chelsea 6 Arsenal 0

Nevertheless the Arsenal manager must face serious questions today about the mentality and psychological make-up of his team as they bid to come to terms with, and recover from, a six-goal mauling at Stamford Bridge.

Arsenal face Swansea at the Emirates tomorrow knowing nothing less than a victory will do to begin the recovery; and history tells you they will get it when you consider the way they came back from heavy defeats against Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool in the past.

But that only intensifies the debate over why a team with the mental resolve to cope with disaster is completely unable to cope with playing against a title rival in the first place.

How can a team that came back from an 8-2 defeat Old Trafford to claim a Champions League spot against the odds, or a team that went top of the league despite being booed off for losing at home to Aston Villa in August, look like rabbits in the headlights the moment they travel to Anfield, Stamford Bridge or the City of Manchester Stadium?

Make no mistake about it, Arsenal’s performance on Saturday was a low point that comfortably matched the ineptitude shown at Anfield during a 5-1 defeat earlier this year; over-run in midfield, out-battled across the pitch, back-tracking alarmingly as Eden Hazard and Andre Schurrle ran at them from all angles.

And yet Chelsea are by no means the finished article. This is a team that, if held at 0-0 for long enough, is likely to snatch at chances, that lacks an out-and-out striker and prone to occasional lapses in concentration at the back.

You wouldn’t have guessed it on Saturday. Chelsea were sensational and took another step in their development as Jose Mourinho’s new revolution starts to take shape. But Arsenal must have known it; and yet they once again failed to deliver.

Wenger’s decision to leave out Matthieu Flamini didn’t help, and nor did injuries to a string of key players including Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Mesut Ozil and Theo Walcott. However the real question mark hangs not over the quality of Arsenal’s players but a lack of winning mentality.

Has nine years without a trophy had the same kind of effect that successive penalty disasters has had on the England national team? Do Arsenal, like Roy Hodgson’s side, need a sports psychologist to rescue them? Or do the players selected by Wenger simply not have the mental grit required in the first place? Certainly, the Arsenal manager seems incapable of finding a way of instilling it and some supporters genuinely worried about an FA Cup semi-final against Championship side Wigan at Wembley next month, fearing it could become the most humiliating experience of all.

Wenger only spoke to the broadcast media after Saturday’s debacle and last night the club cancelled a scheduled press conference today to preview the Swansea game.

On Saturday he tried to take the heat off his players by accepting blame for their problems, saying: “It all went wrong and I take full responsibility. It is my fault that we failed completely today because we did not turn up.

“The most disappointing thing is that we were never in the game.

“There is not a lot more I could say. You could blame and blame but it does not help. What is important now is we show we have the capacity to respond on Tuesday night.”

That, of course, is every manager’s stock reply in the case of disaster but there was something more in Wenger’s words that hinted at deeper problems with the psyche of his squad, problems not even he is able to explain.

“The team is healthy and willing,” he added. “But still the way it happened today, we have to think deeply about, because it’s not the first time.”

For Chelsea there are no such problems because the one thing nobody ever questioned about the squad at Stamford Bridge is a will to win. If anything they are a polar opposite of Arsenal — sometimes lacking in quality, sometimes guilty of ugliness, but 100% focused on winning trophies.

Jose Mourinho’s side started so quickly and so forcefully on Saturday that the game was over by the 17th minute when they were already 3-0 up thanks goals from Samuel Eto’o, Schurrle and Hazard. The latter, a penalty, became the talking point of the match as referee Andre Marriner sent off Kieran Gibbs for handball when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was clearly the perpetrator. But that, really, was just a side show. Chelsea’s demolition of Arsenal’s league season was the main attraction.

Two more strikes from Oscar and a late sixth from substitute Mohammed Salah completed an impressive victory, although Mourinho still hinted at transfer activity this summer to add to his squad.

“My strikers are playing very well but I keep saying they are not the profile of players who score a lot of goals,” he said. “If we can add that to the good team we are building this will be a plus and give us more chance to be stronger and win more matches.”

Inevitably, before he left to enjoy the celebrations, Mourinho was asked about those chants from the crowd, which he claimed not to hear, and invited to suggest that, unlike Wenger, his specialist role was in winning trophies.

“I’m not a specialist in success,” he insisted. “But a specialist in enjoying big matches, enjoying derbies. My team showed from minute one that they enjoy the challenge.”

Now that, in a nutshell, is the difference between Arsenal and Chelsea.

CHELSEA: Cech 6, Ivanovic 7, Cahill 6, Terry 7, Azpilicueta 7, Luiz 7 (Mikel 72), Matic 7, Schurrle 8, Oscar 7 (Salah 67; 7), Hazard 8, Eto’o 7 (Torres 10; 7).

ARSENAL: Szczesny 5, Sagna 7, Mertesacker 6, Koscielny 4 (Jenkinson 46; 5), Gibbs 6, Arteta 5, Oxlade-Chamberlain 5 (Flamini 46; 7), Rosicky 6, Cazorla 6, Podolski 5 (Vermaelen 24; 5), Giroud 5.

Referee: Andre Marriner