Work in progress.
You can't start moaning about the defensive line 2-3 months into the season, the reason it was glaringly awful today was because the pressure on the ball was ridiculous. You had no organisation in the midfield/wide areas, simply Mikel vs Arsenal at times.
Mikel is a highly immobile footballer, you leave him with 3 Arsenal midfielders running at him it's going to be difficult for him. Ramires/Lampard tracked back, but were rarely in front of play they were clipping at the Arsenal players heels.
The lack of pressure by Chelsea players is what split Chelsea's defence, not necessarily awful positioning. I thought Sturridge, I know this is not a statement a lot of Chelsea fans will share, was poor.
I have nothing against Sturridge, I just don't buy into all the hype that he's the future for Chelsea and he's going to be a superstar in 4 years. He openly admits he wants to play central striker for Chelsea, despite them having Torres until at least 2016, which is something I don't want a Chelsea first team (Chelsea are now dependent on him to play RW) winger saying he wants to play central. When Walcott says it we brush it off and say 'get your head down Theo you joker' but at least Walcott actually has the sense tactically and stays wide most of the time. What I notice about Sturridge is when the ball is in the central area of the midfield he seems to think it's fine to come inside and stand next to the LCB of the other team... Leaving Bosingwa with little option, and as for his display today it proved the point which I've worried about since the summer. The lack of a genuine winger down the right, there was an opportunity for him to cross to Torres along the floor who was open in the middle and he took 4-5 extra needless touches and then kicked it pitifully into the goalkeepers hands. Is he a good young striker who can finish? Yes. Is he a Chelsea-worthy RW? Nope, not in my opinion.
He wasn't the only one guilty of doing that to Torres, one of the first attacks Cole got in behind and instead of simply rolling it across to Torres first time he took a touch to control it and then fired it in and it ended in nothing. Torres positionally was superb today and not a lot of people will recognize that, there was a Ramires chance where he got down the side and Torres pulled off the shoulder inside the box with acres of space (An area of the box you would expect Torres to score) and Ramires took it to the byline and crossed it which ended in nothing.
I'm not being overly critical of AVB, I don't think I have at all yet tactically at least, simply because he is stuck with Anelka/Drogba/Malouda/Kalou and not much else to work with. If Sturridge/Mata go down, the players behind them are Anelka/Kalou/Malouda (We saw Lukaku play wide today). Clearly the depth isn't there yet, especially in the wide areas, and AVB is attempting to get the best out of what he has.
I'm hopeful that January will see Anelka/Malouda/Drogba/Kalou move on, I wont hold my breath, and some fresh players brought in especially in the wide areas because Ashley Cole isn't getting any younger and Bosingwa's working extremely hard to push fullbacks back.
Saying all of that, a thrilling game and Arsenal deserved to win it just as much as Chelsea did. Gervinho played well and the partnership between him and Van Persie seems to be coming along nicely.
The only Arsenal player I could lay in to is the man mountain Mertesacker who, having watched for 90 minutes, confirmed my fears about his mobility. The one piece of good defending he did was some sort of matrix speed lunge to intercept a Mata ball in behind to Torres everything he did header wise was shambolic and his turning circle is that of an electric wheelchair.
Great advert for the Premier League though, Scudamore must be rubbing his hands with glee after the start to the season.