Pre game yesterday the nerves had returned. I was in the pub talking to the lads and I had the not-very-nice feeling that there could be a banana skin being placed before us in the shape of Chelsea. They had some injuries, they were woefully out of form, they had a manager in Frank Lampard who clearly isn’t cut out for elite football management, they were away and they have looked like they were on the beach for some time. So in my head all that was left was for them to have the game of their lives and finally kill our title bid attempt (even though it’s probably already done) with a victory over us.

Oh how wrong I was, because this iteration of Chelsea is absolutely horrendous, I have to say.

The ‘nerves’ I’m talking about relate to how I’ve felt in previous recent seasons; going in to games at home knowing that we should beat the opponents on that given day on our own turf, but also knowing that we could easily turn in one of those performances that have me punching my slightly faded red seat in the ground.

I needn’t have worried, because in that first half Arsenal just blew away a Chelsea team who couldn’t live with us.

Lampard thought he’d throw a ‘Hail Mary’ with the introduction of Aubamyenag in to the first XI in an attempt ton play the ol’ “former player comes back to haunt his old club” trope for the evening, but it never worked as the Gabon intermnational dropped the kind of stinker of a performance that we saw towards the end of his time at the club (the stats guys tell me he had nine touches before being hooked at halftime). Arteta rang the changes with Kiwior coming in for Holding, Jorginho in for Partey, as well as Trossard in for Martinelli. And I’ll admit I did worry if it was a few too many changes for a coach who loves to keep consistency in his side. But I guess the fact we’d gone three matches without a win showed Arteta enough line to be able to drop a few players who had been out of form, certainly from the City game.

And I guess you have to give him props, because the changes worked and we looked much better with the fresher faces in the team. I thought Kiwior was excellent on the night; he one headers, distributed the ball well, got his foot stuck in and looked assured. I think both he and we needed him to have a game like that. At halftime I reflected that I think even with Holding in the team instead last night we’d still have been fine, because in the first half Chelsea offered absolutely zero threat whatsoever, but Kiwior is more of the future than Holding is right now and so for him to get a good performance under his belt after a couple of shaky games since he joined in January, we have to be pleased.

And it’s just as well that he did play well, because he’s almost certainly going to be used on Sunday when we travel up to St James’ Park, with Big Gabby unfortunately unable to carry on and limping off having gone down three times in the second half. Honestly…why aren’t we allowed nice things? You would hope that we could at least finish this season a little differently to last season, eh? Last season our bid for top four fell apart when our defence fell apart with injuries and when we went up to St James’ Park last season we had barely a functioning/capable set of four players who could play in defence. This season it feels like Deja Vu as Arteta admitted to Gabriel will now be a doubt for Sunday’s game. I can’t see how he makes it and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he’s picked up a knock to keep him out for the next few weeks, aka his season is over.

But let’s save that angst for another day and get back to The Arsenal, who were imperious to smell blood and dispatch Chelsea in that first half with consummate ease. First was Odegaard with an absolute belter of a finish, then it was another fantastic ball across by Xhaka to see the Norwegian sweep the ball beyond Kepa. So we’re a third of the way in to the game, we’re two-up, then just as I’m starting to think “we need one more, just to make sure”, up steps Gabby Jesus to bag our third and at that point you’re hoping that Arsenal could rack up a cricket score.

As we know it wasn’t to be and in the second half whilst we started brightly and Kepa made a couple of saves, we just weren’t as clinical as we were in the first half. And that is Arsenal to be fair. Even going back to the early days of Wenger, we’ve always been a team that would rather play with its dinner a bit rather than ruthlessly dispatch a dying opponent. We probably should have taken one of those early chances in the second half, but perhaps to be fair to Chelsea we should acknowledge that they rallied and did at least show some fight in the second half. Enough to get a consolation goal, but in reality that was more about us switching off at the back, rather than any kind of scintillating come back.

I’ve talked up the performance of Kiwior, which is great, but let’s also hand some flowers out to a few other players, like Granit Xhaka, for example. I thought he was back to his early season form and picked up a couple of assists and looked very good in the final third again. Hopefully we see more of that from him and afterwards the pundits on Sky were talking up his unofficial leadership qualities. He showed it last night and you just feel like he’s going to need to step up again in the next four games, as we’re going to be missing some key defenders and that is going to cause us some issues.

Martin Odegaard was also excellent and bagged himself another couple of goals. He’s been quiet in the last couple of games but I thought he too stepped up yesterday. As did Gabriel Jesus, who was once again a handful and got himself on the scoresheet again. He’ll have been hurting after a few misses in games like the Southampton one, so to get him back scoring again will be good for him. Let’s hope he maintains a bit of a streak now because you feel like we’re going to need to get a few goals up at Newcastle to actually win that game.

By then we could already be back in second, as City will beat a West Ham side who look to have secured promotion and will offer no threat to them at the Etihad. But we have to keep trying and keep trying to do our thing. As Arteta said in his post game conference, we just have to win our remaining four games – that’s all we can do.

Catch you all tomorrow. James and I are podding tonight at 7.30pm on the Same Old Arsenal pod so come say hello if you’re free.

Laters people.