Terrace Talk: Arsenal - Gunners will miss Ramsey spark when he’s gone

It didn’t take long for all that early season enthusiasm to evaporate. With the Ozil and Ramsey omnishambles, Emery’s depressing loan-signing admission and the apparent departure of ‘Diamond Eye’ Mislintat, our vaunted head of recruitment, the spectre of some of the decidedly jaded displays that we’ve endured of late left the Gunners perceived as a club imploding into disarray.

With so little cause for optimism, it proved an awe-inspiring revelation the way Unai’s reinvigorated troops came out of the traps on Saturday, like a team possessed.

It took some of the gloss off to return home, only to hear Sarri slaughtering Chelsea’s lack of spirit, and we’re well aware that our creaking defence’s rare clean sheet came courtesy of their thoroughly toothless attack.

Yet this was the sort of dominant triumph against top-six opposition that couldn’t have been better timed, both to stem the tide of doubters about whether Emery’s offering anything different and to inject a renewed sense of self-worth into the Arsenal’s flagging campaign.

Albeit the contrast between the sedentary lack of artistry witnessed at West Ham and our energised incisiveness on Saturday was so stark, that it only served as a reminder of quite how much more competitive we’re capable of being, when Emery doesn’t play five at the back to compensate for our defensive frailties and when there’s a committed No.10 out on the park, pulling the creative strings.

All credit to Ramsey’s diligence in denying Jorginho the space he’d enjoyed to direct traffic in our defeat at the Bridge.

But if we’re to sustain such sumptuous entertainment levels, either Unai has to continue to motivate a player who might soon be more focused on house-hunting in Turin than on the commitment necessary to guarantee the Gunners’ European travels next term, or he has to solve the Ozil quandary.

Without both, Emery’s team has the distinctly blunt appearance of mid-table mediocrity.

We’ve grown so accustomed to handicapping ourselves with under par first-half performances, that it was an entirely unfamiliar novelty to find ourselves 2-0 up the break, for once not having to ponder on Emery shuffling his pack to produce the necessary second-half transformation. Although it was the air in the stadium that turned blue with all the cursing early doors, as our high-octane start left us ruing our failure to score from three golden opportunities.

Until Lacazette spanked the opener, I was beginning to wonder if we might end up being punished for such profligacy. Beating Chelsea is only slightly less significant than sticking it to Spurs nowadays, but with two nephews on a rare trip over from Dublin, I was much more desperate for Shane and Jake to enjoy a triumphant derby outing.

The Gunners’ failure to press home an advantage and kill opponents off has been a perennial Achilles heel, but it would’ve been impossible to maintain the scintillating intensity of that opening spell for the entire 90. So it felt like merely a matter of time until Chelsea gained some sort of foothold on this game.

When our captain glanced the second goal in off his shoulder, five minutes before the break, I began contemplating whether we could fly Shane and Rory back from Ireland every week. I feared for what might transpire if we began to flag and when Sarri eventually relented from his obstinate refusal to involve Giroud. Yet as evidenced by the opposition’s solitary effort on target, Chelsea failed to put us under the cosh and even as the Gunners inevitably dropped deeper to ‘hold what we have’, there was a pleasing and much missed maturity to our game management, in denying them any real opportunity to build up a head of steam.

I felt for Maitland-Niles when no sooner had he been given a rare run out on the wing, than he was forced to revert to right-back, after Bellerin was stretchered off.

Critically, Ainsley needs to fill Hector’s boots, as Martial, Rashford & Co. are capable of running riot against Lichtsteiner, but hopefully such a confidence boost will instill sufficient belief to face Solskjaer’s rejuvenated United with ‘no fear’ come Friday.