League leaders Chelsea held Arsenal to a draw at the Emirates in a game that could have had very little impact on the title race. Although the blues had a healthy lead at the top, Jose Mourinho decided to play it safe and went with a very compact style of play just like last week.
The game had more talking points in the form of refereeing decisions as Michael Oliver was probably the center of attraction instead of the player of the year nominees Eden Hazard and Alexis Sanchez. It was always going to be difficult as Chelsea have defended resolutely in the last few weeks. Arsenal started brightly, but it was their opponents who created the first talking point of the game in the form of a potential penalty. Oscar went down in the penalty area but did not get the decision from Oliver.
The Brazilian was once again taken down in the Arsenal penalty area buy David Ospina in the 17th minute in what looked like a stone-cold penalty, but it was once again waved away by Michael Oliver. Chelsea had their astonishing third penalty appeal turned down after just quarter of the game as Santi Cazorla stuck out a leg and looked to have brought down Fabregas. However, Oliver decided to show the former Arsenal man a yellow for simulation.
Chelsea, being on the wrong end of at least a couple of decisions, themselves had a stroke of luck when Gary Cahill’s attempted block for a Cazorla shot struck his arm. Arsenal’s penalty claims, however, were futile. There were very few chances for either team, but Arsenal perhaps had the best with just a couple of minutes to play after Mesut Ozil was found by Monreal just six yards out, but the German bottled it and failed to hit the target.
Mourinho retaliates to Arsenal fan’s ‘boring boring Chelsea’ chants
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho was clearly unhappy with Arsenal fan’s chants and replied in typical Mourinho like fashion. The Portuguese used hard evidence and said that boring is a team who haven’t won the league for ten years.
He said, “I think boring is 10 years without a title – that’s boring. If you support a club and you wait, wait, wait for so many years without a Premier League title, then that’s boring.
“Maybe Arsenal’s fans were not singing to us. When you want to win the game and you take your striker Olivier Giroud off maybe they want more, maybe they want Giroud and Theo Walcott up front.”
“This boring team has got the second highest number of goals, has the best goal difference. Only Manchester City have scored more goals than us.”
Despite a shaky performance by Michael Oliver, Mourinho refused to criticize him, “I want to forget the penalties because I think the referee Michael Oliver had a very good performance and also the assistants. They gave a very solid performance so I’m happy with the referee.”