Arsenal, Man City stay on Blues’ tail

Reuters/London

The Chelsea captain strained every sinew to get a faint touch to a Frank Lampard free-kick in the 93rd minute and keep his team a point clear of Arsenal who thrashed Sunderland 4-1, and three ahead of Manchester City, who beat Stoke City 1-0.

Olivier Giroud netted twice for Arsenal while Yaya Toure was the match-winner for Manchester City who have a game in hand on their two rivals.

Champions Manchester United, in sixth spot, are no longer challenging for the title but manager David Moyes celebrated wildly as Robin van Persie’s penalty and a goal from Wayne Rooney secured a 2-0 win at Crystal Palace.

After drawing their last league match against West Bromwich and suffering a chastening FA Cup defeat to rivals Manchester City, Jose Mourinho’s side were looking for a morale-boosting return to form. 

Yet they looked sluggish for most of the match and after finally sparking into life they came up against a stubborn Everton rearguard that only crumbled deep into added time.

“The feeling when you lose points in the last minute, like we did at West Brom, is obviously a bad feeling. When you win in the last minute it’s the opposite so this is basically compensation for the points we lost at West Brom,” Chelsea boss Mourinho said.

With Chelsea having never lost a home league match under the Portuguese, and Everton without a win at Stamford Bridge in 20 years, it came as a surprise to see Roberto Martinez’s men make all the running in the first half. 

Predictably Chelsea changed things up at the break and the energetic Ramires was prematurely summoned from the bench to replace an injured Oscar. It had an immediate impact on the flow of the game and the pressure built on the Everton goal but Chelsea’s attacking waves broke down at the final hurdle until the third minute of stoppage time.

At the final whistle Everton’s feeling of injustice was heightened as it looked like Brazilian Ramires had gone down easily under a challenge from Phil Jagielka to bring about the free-kick that led to the only goal.

“It was one of those situations where players were trying to buy too many free-kicks,” said Martinez. “You need a strong referee... You can see they are trying to get a dead-ball situation because they couldn’t get any joy from open play.”

“You can see the reaction and the way he loses his footing, it’s not because of contact, he is looking for the free-kick,” added Martinez of Ramires.

At the Emirates Stadium, the bullied became the bullies as Arsenal recovered from the 2-0 home defeat by Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Wednesday to inflict a bruising on relegation strugglers Sunderland.

Having spent most of their match against the Germans chasing shadows, the home team jealously hogged possession against Gus Poyet’s side, scything through them with a swagger that has been absent recently.

With Mesut Ozil rested after his penalty miss against Bayern, Arsenal took the lead after five minutes when Giroud put the finishing touch to a sweeping passing move. The Frenchman, returning after being benched in midweek, capitalised on shocking defending to double the lead after 31 minutes and Tomas Rosicky capped another excellent move to make it 3-0 three minutes before the break. 

Manchester City also gained redemption for a painful 2-0 Champions League defeat by Barcelona on Tuesday by returning to winning ways against Stoke City.