The Beautiful Game

Chelsea 2-1 Arsenal. A gripping game. Goals, fisticuffs, controversy, near-decapitation and the occasional flourish of sweet passing football. Shame Chelsea won though.

I am a Man United fan, but I must confess that I love the football Arsenal play. And they began today’s game with such gusto and enterprise. Walcott took his goal so well, and I began to secretly hope that they would swarm all over Chelsea’s expensively assembled team of strop-throwing primadonnas, proving once and for all that, in the long term, you really can’t buy success.

But, inevitably, Chelsea came back at them. And when Drogba notched the winner, Wenger’s ‘Young Guns’ proved that they are just as much a bunch of strop-throwing primadonnas as Mourinho’s ‘men’. It was a shame the game had to end that way – particularly after the injury sustained by John Terry – but it did make bloody good television.

And yet, when the dust settles, how happy can Chelsea be? Yes, they have the season’s first piece of silverware - and Mourinho’s attachment to the League Cup is commendable - but they are now nine points behind United and once again without their inspirational skipper. Methinks the Premiership trophy is beginning to inch its way back towards the M6…