Ashley Cole and Gael Clichy swapped shirts after a pulsating last half hour of a 1-1 draw at rain-soaked Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
How wrong can you be?
Arsenal almost won the game, even though Chelsea hit the post three times, twice in stoppage time.
Flamini scored with a shot in 78 that Hilario should have saved and then Essien equalised in 84 after a clear foul by Ashley Cole on Hleb earlier in the move.
Referee Alan Wiley had a very good game but he missed that tackle from behind and then Essien hit a swerving Stevie G-cannonball which went in off the post.
This Arsenal squad CAN win the title. But not before 2008.
Arsenal started the game with Robin van Persie wide on the left in a 4-5-1 and they were the better side for 16 minutes until Ballack sent a scorching shot just past the post and then Lampard hit the post as Djourou dithered.
At that stage Arsenal began to look vulnerable every time Chelsea attacked, as you might expect from a team which had lost its last three away games in the Premiership.
On 22, when van Persie hit a diagonal shot, Hilario panicked and went for it, even though the shot was well wide. That signalled a possible weakness in the Chelsea keeper.
On 36, Hilario flapped at van Persie’s excellent right wing corner and two minutes later Lehmann flapped and Fabregas had to kick an Essien shot off the line.
Eboue showed his immaturity as he lashed out at Lampard after they tangled.
Second half, one wondered if Mourinho’s formidably mean machine would grind Arsenal down in the rain and score from a header or a knockdown. But Chelsea’s play was quite scrappy and constipated, although they won a few free kicks in central positions
Play got even scrappier as Drogba and Lehmann threw themselves down in farcical fashion. Neutrals thought : what a pair of tarts !
The game burst into life as Robben and Wright-Phillips came on for Geremi and Shevchenko and when Robben got in for a shot and Lehmann parried, Gilberto saved Arsenal with a brilliant tackle to deny Drogba.
But now it looked as if it might be still be a draw and a case of the Arsenal boys earning the respect of the Chelsea men.
Excluding the goalkeepers, Arsenal’s average age was 23 against Chelsea’s 29, so that was impressive.
Then Arsenal produced a patient move and when Hleb squared the ball from the right, Flamini fired a shot, and Hilario slapped it into the net. He should have saved it.
But what a moment !
Could Arsenal be the first team to beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge under Mourinho, who had not lost in 51 league games there ?
Then came that foul by Cole and that astonishing shot by Essien.
In stoppage time, Chelsea pressed fiercely and Arsenal rode their luck as Essien jabbed an awkward ball against the underside of the bar.
Then, in 94, Lehmann spilled a ball and Lampard hit a shot which deflected off Flamini’s boot onto the post and away.
It looked like a tiny deflection but it might have been just enough to prevent the winning goal
A VERY DRAMATIC FINALE!
A game that (eventually) stirred the blood and left Myles Palmer gobsmacked.
Chelsea were nowhere near as powerful and efficient as I expected.
Drogba, with five attempts wide, looked like the striker of last season.
And Ballack and Shevchenko have come from two teams that showcased them and were laregly built round them, so they can’t quite grab the headlines.
And of course Chelsea’s harassing of the ref on almost every decision that went against them was boring and wholly unsportsmanlike.
With Gallas, Toure and Rosicky in the side, Arsenal would have won.
So my reaction was : Bloody hell ! How wrong can you be !
On effort and bottle, Arsenal deserved their point, despite all those near-misses.
And skipper Gilberto was superb.
I was surprised. Very surprised. And it’s nice to be surprised. I can’t remember the last time I was surprised.
But I wasn’t the only one.
Reader Alex2 wrote to us this morning : “Without Gallas and Toure, we are dead,” he said. Many felt the same way before this game.
But that view was proved to be mistaken by a manager who pulled another big result out of the bag.
Individually, Arsenal were inferior, but collectively they were superior. Their guts and resourcefulness got them through a major test and the goal, scored after 11 passes, was a vindication of their style of play, which I have often doubted.
Playing like this, Arsenal can win at Wigan on Wednesday night.