best choice would have been to pretend it's a Friday and there was no football on today!

Apparently the Forest tickets sold out in under an hour lol a few of my mates broke their backs trying to get tickets... well worth it I reckon!

I disagree Stu.

Oxalde was not the problem. He is raw and gives the ball away but today is down to Wenger.

We setup to play the high line, as we did in the past to Man City and Liverpool away. Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool are very adept at counter attacking. We do not have the players to defend the counter.

Now I think Wenger did that because precisely as you identified Giroud, Rosicky and Santi have very little pace. And Giroud also has very little ability to hold the ball up under pressure when isolated. Therefore it is very difficult to score goals against top defences. I suspect Wenger didn't want a repeat of Spurs, without understanding why it happened. It is very difficult for Wenger to admit to a mistake and imo Giroud is one of the biggest gaffs he has made in his career. IMO It ranks alongside his belief in Denilson and Eboue.

I bet Wenger chastised Gibbs for not attacking enough against Spurs. for sitting too deep. As a consequence Gibbs was positioned very high up. When we lost the ball in midfield, Arteta was not fast enough to cover for Gibbs and as a result we were completely open on the left side. Mert, Arteta are very slow and Chesney is very inexperienced and not deceive in sweeping behind his back 4. Fab should have been starting against the top teams. As a result deep runners were cutting us open at will at the back because we could not turn and defend on the recovery. We should have never played with a high line.

Wenger should have dropped Arteta and Giroud after Spurs but Wenger stuck with them and we know from our past discussions that Wenger is too loyal to his players. We should have defended deep with Sanogo as the battler up front as we did against Liverpool at home in the FA Cup. Flamini is a faster defender than Arteta and would have covered better. IMO thats where we lost the match even before we started.

jenius, I'm not actually critical of Chamberlain being played as a midfielder per se; in fact, like you, I actually think that could prove to be his best position in the long-run.
But when we don't have any other attacking players with any sort of pace or any players comfortable/capable of playing wide, I feel he needs to be played as a winger/wing-forward to give us some pace and directness in the final third.

To be honest, I stopped watching after the red card and penalty, so perhaps this evaluation isn't a great reflection of the match as a whole, but with so little pace in the team, Chamberlain was seemingly instructed to push forward from his deep-lying midfield position to try and penetrate the Chelsea defence; this left Arteta isolated, caused Cazorla to come back deeper, and ultimately left huge gaps in the midfield for Chelsea to exploit on the counter - which they did. This isn't a criticism of Chamberlain; this stemmed from an inherent flaw in the system and team selection today.

I actually agree with everything you have to say though; I said in a previous comment that we should be looking to play Flamini instead of Arteta, since the Spaniard isn't quick enough to cover Chelsea's counter-attacks; I also felt the athleticism of Gnabry and Sanogo should have been brought in in place of Podolski and Giroud.

All the mugs abusing the OP should apologise to him but they won't because they are stuck too far up their and Wenger's arses.

Doubt he cares about an apology to be honest. I get the impression that Stu isn't 5 years old?

Where are all the AKBs today and that stupid "plastic" tag they besmirch everyone with who has the temerity to say something against Arsene?

Arsene has done great things at Arsenal but surely the most fervent AKB must be able to see that he needs to move on.

Apparently the Forest tickets sold out in under an hour lol a few of my mates broke their backs trying to get tickets... well worth it I reckon!

===

I got "lucky" as my cousin had a wedding to attend and he gave me his.

And then we lost the game in 10 minutes to Chelsea Fack my life.

In the big games or even physical games away from home you cannot afford to play lightweights such as Arteta, Carzola and Wiltshire in the same team (I know Wiltshire wasn’t playing today and tries his best to get stuck in when he plays).

The unbalanced midfield cannot cope with less time on the ball and players such as Cazorla and Arteta spend much of the game on their backsides complaining about challenges, the 50/50 type of challenges that normally go in favour of home teams in the premier league.

When you add players like Rosicky and Ozil to the mix the technical capabilities of the team may improve significantly, but this is only when you are allowed enough time on the ball which does not happen in the big or physical games.

We need pace in midfield to give the opposition something to think about, players who are prepared to track back, and players that do not spend half the game on the floor rolling on the floor and leaving team mates to defend a counter-attack because they lost the ball. Does anyone think any current players could develop this ethos or do we need to bring in replacements?

Mourinho has had to deal with similar players but he has done something about it. I recall Joe Cole being subbed off in the first half of a game for his lax attitude, Juan Mata being frozen out because of he did not want to help out defensively, same with Arjen Robben, and Edin Hazard is now tracking back under Mourinho.

^Very true We need more athleticism all over the park, IMO.