Arsenal 2 Chelsea 1
Sanchez 4 Costa 76 Ramsey 78
The 2017 FA Cup Final surprised us.
While Chelsea were complacent champions, Arsenal were fiery underdogs who always looked like winning the game because they wanted it more.
The early goal by Arsenal was a very strange one, like a goal from a pre-season game in late July.
Ozil’s inswinging corner flew down into the gloves of Courtois, the keeper rolled the ball to Kante but when Diego Costa sloppily ran across the front of the midfielder, and when Monreal regained the ball, Arsenal were still on the attack.
When a lob by Alexis Sanchez failed to find Ramsey, the unbalanced David Luiz headed the ball down to create a 50-50 outside the box between two compact warriors, Kante and Sanchez. When Kante’s boot jabbed the ball up against the high arm of Sanchez, the rebound landed just in front of Ramsey, then Chilean pounced and poked the ball past the leg of Courtois into the net.
The flag was up because Ramsey was in an offside position. He moved towards the ball and then stopped to allow his mate to shoot. Referee Anthony Taylor consulted with his linesman and, after what seemed a long delay, gave the goal.
Technically it was handball AND offside.
First half, Arsenal did everything right except score the four goals they should have done. They had multiple chances and breakaways, hit the post twice, and wasted many promising positions.
The score was still 1-0 at half time.
After that, Chelsea improved and by the 68th minute they were ahead on second-half goal attempts.
Then Victor Moses took on left wingback Oxlade in the box and Oxy did well not to stick out a leg for Moses to fall over.
When Moses collapsed his knees and fell flat on his face, Taylor had a good view and gave him a second yellow card and a red.
I detest diving, so it was wonderful to see a cheat sent off.
After that it was always gonna be Arsenal’s day, I thought. Surely they had to win now?
Not yet though. Chelsea’s reaction was to wake up and turn on the slick passing that won 30 of their 38 Premier League games.
David Luiz is a now-or-never gladiator who can seize the initiative, so when he got to Ozil wide on Arsenal’s right touchline and won the ball, he passed infield to Kante and took off towards the penalty area, while Kante found Hazard, who laid the ball off to Fabregas, who laid it off the Willian. His cross found Diego Costa, who chested the ball down and fired a shot that deflected and bounced, beating Ospina to make it 1-1.
About a minute later, Arsenal took the lead again.
Having scored the first goal, Arsenal’s main man found the run of substitute Giroud, who crossed the ball blindly but beautifully to where he thought Ramsey would be. The Welshman’s header made it 2-1.
The two Germans were excellent. Ozil had a fine game and amazed us by making tackles, while Per Mertesacker, starting his first game of the season, was colossal, his performance far beyond expectations
My mistake was believing that Chelsea would turn up, thinking that they wanted the Double.
I should have realised that Chelsea had won the league at West Brom two weeks ago and since then they’d been having a party.
Costa looked as if he was already in China, Kante had the worst game I’ve ever seen him play, Matic was stranded and irrelevant, Marcos Alonso peripheral.
Eden Hazard should give last week’s wages to charity,
So the French professor collected his 7th FA Cup after finishing 5th in the league.
A good FA Cup Final that Arsenal deserved to win and Chelsea certainly deserved to lose.
Gooners ask: Why not do that every week? Why not play collectively like that 30 times and win the league?
I thought Mertesacker’s comments gave the game away.
He talked about how calm the manager is and how much he trusts his players. He said the team had realised that they had to be more competitive: “We had to improve a lot because we saw teams doing a better job than us, being more physical, having a better work rate. It was time for us to have that learning experience again this season. We went through it, and what comes out of it is such a performance where we put the work rate in, put the intensity in, and up front we are capable of winning against any team.”
In other words, Arsene Wenger is a permissive educator who gives his players three or six or nine years to figure out that they need to concentrate, work harder and be more physical.
Pochettino would have told them that on Day 1.
So would Conte, who now knows that the FA Cup is not the Coppa Italia.
It’s a bit more important than that.
VERDICT: The FA Cup is only six matches. If he wanted to stay, Alexis Sanchez could win five more FA Cups for Arsenal.
And I was the one who told Wenger to sign him.