Arsenal blown away in embarrasing defeat to Chelsea

Arsene Wenger's 1000th game in charge of Arsenal could not have gone any worse. A 6-0 defeat at the hands of Chelsea in a truly terrible display from the players. It was like Liverpool all over again, but 10x worse. Time and time again the players seem to bottle it in the big games and this time was no different. Jose Mourinho's previous comments about the club and Wenger were proved right, which made the defeat even harder to take. The defeat now means that our part in the title race has come to an abrupt end. That's unless for some reason Liverpool, City and Chelsea themselves drop a few points between now and the end of the season.

Kieran Gibbs was sent off in rather bizarre circumstances

Wenger said he took full responsibility for the defeat, and people were accusing him of playing the wrong line-up. It was an unchanged team from the win over Spurs last weekend and because of the huge amount of injuries there wasn't room for many changes. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain once again started in central midfield but although putting in strong performances against Palace and Bayern in that position he seemed to give away the ball far too often. He was meanwhile at fault for the penalty. A quite bizarre moment. Eden Hazard's shot looked to be going wide but the Ox who at first glance looked to have headed it round the post actually tipped it wide like a goalkeeper. It was a penalty and a red card. The red card though, was given to the wrong man as Kieran Gibbs was shown red for doing absolutely nothing. The referee had simply got the wrong man.

The Ox is definitely better in a wider position where he can penetrate defences with his pace and power. Mathieu Flamini may have been a better choice in midfield alongside Arteta or had Kallstrom already played before then he may have featured, but was instead on the bench. Lukas Podolski was therefore sacrificed after only 23 minutes, but there was already no way back and the game plan had gone out the window.

Ultimately it was the players individual errors that cost us the game though. Kieran Gibbs and Bacary Sagna were caught napping up the pitch which resulted in Chelsea finding the space to score their first two goals. Meanwhile giving the ball away far too often didn't help. It didn't appear at any moment that any player looked to have an inch of fight in them, not even the so called leaders such as Arteta and Mertesacker. We were totally outplayed, and the performance really was embarrasing.

Our best chance of the game fell at 0-0. Tomas Rosicky played a lovely ball in behind and Giroud hit a rather tame effort that Cech was able to get down to. Had the Frenchman buried that chance then the game could've gone very differently. As it happened, we got hit for six and now sit seven points behind the leaders.The game had gone from celebrating Wenger's tenure at the club to completely slating him. I have a strong feeling that whether or not we win the FA Cup will have a bearing on whether Wenger signs a new deal with the club.

In the build up to the game some of the players were talking about how they owed their career to the boss. This was a game for the players to stand up and be counted but they didn't show Wenger any of the faith he's shown so much in them. The team we fielded was good enough, but they just didn't show up. It was an inexusable performance and it'll take a big comeback against Swansea and then City to get ourselves back up and running again.

Next up is indeed Swansea City at home in midweek whilst we then face another very tough game in the form of Manchester City. A repeat of April 2012 wouldn't go a miss.

The teams line-ups:

Chelsea: Cech, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta, Luiz(72), Matic, Schurrle, Oscar(67), Hazard, Eto'o(10).
Subs: Schwarzer, Kalas, Mikel(72), Lampard, Salah(67), Ba, Torres(10).

Arsenal: Szczesny, Sagna, Mertesacker, Koscielny(45), Gibbs, Arteta, Oxlade-Chamberlain(45), Rosicky, Cazorla, Podolski(23), Giroud.
Subs: Fabianski, Vermaelen(23), Jenkinson(45), Flamini(45), Kallstrom, Gnabry, Sanogo.

Referee: Andre Marriner.