Chelsea Lose As Arsenal Win

Oh dear, not a good day for Jose Mourinho as all the other leading contenders for the title this season won this weekend whilst his team suffered their first defeat, losing 2 - 0 to Aston Villa.

It also meant Chelsea missed the chance to go back to the top of the Premier League. Missing England midfielder frank Lampard, who suffered a thigh strain in training on Friday and Chelsea struggled for any attacking rhythm. They were beaten by second half goals from the debutant defender Zat Knight and the very quick striker Gabriel Agbonlahor.

Zat Knight makes his dream debut for Villa

So this result has left Chelsea in fourth, level on points (10) with the leading trio of Liverpool, Arsenal and Everton and one point ahead of Manchester City who are in fifth place. City lost 1 - 0 to Blackburn Rovers after a Benni McCarthy strike. However, both Liverpool and Arsenal have only played 4 games due to their Champions League qualifying. And if Rob Styles hadn’t awarded that penalty, it would be even worse for Chelsea!

Chelsea gave debuts to both of their recently recruited Brazilian defenders, right-back Juliano Belletti and centre-back Alex and they dominated the game for long periods. But crucially, they were unable to turn their possession into shots and fell behind when Zat Knight, who signed from Fulham before the deadline and who was a schoolboy Villa fan, headed in from an inswinging corner from Gareth Barry just after half-time.

Chelsea then threw everything into attack for the remainder of the second half (think they would do that from the start, wouldn’t you?). They even moved their captain, central defender John Terry, up front as an auxiliary striker but it was without reward.

In fact Villa then scored their second just a couple of minutes from the end when Ashley Young, who has been called up into the England squad, ran past Belletti on the wing and from his driven cross Agbonlahor shot crisply beyond keeper Petr Cech.

This was Chelsea’s first defeat in 19 league games and it also has to be said that Villa Park seems to be a bit of a bogey ground for them. This was their ninth match in a row there without a win. That’s some record for one ground for a team like Chelsea. Villa Park is the only stadium in the Premier League where Jose Mourinho has not tasted victory. Bet you wouldn’t have got that question right at the pub on Quiz Night!

Mourinho said after the game, “It was a good game between two good teams, but the result was one that Chelsea did not deserve. We deserved to score a goal and to score a point. Their second goal was out of context because we were chasing and it came in the last minute.”

Earlier in the day Arsenal had beaten Portsmouth at the Emirates Stadium in an action packed and exciting game. Despite being reduced to 10 men following the dismissal of Senderos early in the second half, Arsenal ultimately proved too strong for Harry Redknapp’s men.

Senderos sees red after pulling down Kanu just outside the box with only the keeper to beat

Arsenal were already two goals ahead at half-time in their game against Portsmouth, thanks to an eight minute penalty that was extremely coolly scored by Togo striker Adebayor. The second came from Cesc Fabregas on the 35th minute.

Then came Senderos’ sending off. You have to say it was a very clumsy challenge on the former Arsenal favourite Kanu. Following the sending off Portsmouth had a few chances to make things very uncomfortable for Arsene Wenger and his men but they just didn’t have that killer touch.

Instead it was Arsenal through a clever free kick taken by Fabregas, that scored to make it 3 - 0. Fabregas laid the ball off to Rosicky, the Czech midfielder, who was unmarked and scored from close range just before the hour mark.

The Arsenal fans wouldn’t even have had time to sit down in their seats again before Portsmouth actually scored and reduced the deficit through a Kanu goal that he didn’t know too much about. He tried a cheeky bad heel. The execution didn’t work but the result was what he wanted as the ball cannoned off his other leg to beat the Arsenal keeper. The goal was time at just 18 seconds later. 3 - 1 and at that point the game was still wide open due to the sending off, but Portsmouth couldn’t make the advantage count.

The big boys are gathering at the top, but they can not afford to drop too many point even at this early stage. Jose will not want to drop any more in the near future! Rob Styles should be on his Christmas Card list this year, that’s for sure!

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Many thanks
Rik