Mikel Merino’s 20th-minute header settled Arsenal in a rhythm Chelsea struggled to cope with, but the second half fizzled out as a contest entirely, both teams perhaps resigned to their fate. There was just one shot on target from either side after the 64th minute.
Merino continues to do his best for the Gunners in the interim — and his header ultimately settled the contest — but nobody left this ground under any illusions that he will ever develop into anything more than a stop-gap.
“It is the emergency situation that we are in at the moment but the way he’s approaching it is incredible,” Gunners boss Mikel Arteta said postmatch.
“He wants to understand everything, he wants to learn from it, he’s very critical of himself all the time and at the end, the reality is that he’s winning football matches for us, which is incredible; he’s never played in that position before in his life.
“But today, I would like to see a different scoreline to be fair, with the amount of things that we do so well, the end product there has to improve because the moment you [don’t do that], you are very far away from the position.”
Pedro Neto has had his moments leading the line, but the winger looked lightweight against the robust center-back pairing of William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhães, while Jadon Sancho and Christopher Nkunku struggled to impact the game from the flanks and Enzo Fernández seemed primarily interested in turning this game into a scrap.
Chelsea remain in fourth place and firmly in the hunt for the Champions League spot they crave.
