Drogba has final say to end Arsenal Cup dream
CHELSEA 2 ARSENAL 1
Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba embrace after Chelsea secured their place in the FA Cup final
Sunday April 19 2009
Roman Abramovich would probably agree with the old joke that the problem with instant gratification is that waiting for it takes too long.
Guus Hiddink seemed to be the man to give Abramovich everything he wanted yesterday if not before. Hiddink might have been lowering the bar when he said his mission when he accepted the Chelsea job was to qualify for the Champions League, but he has transformed the side in a manner which suggests that the idea that a manager must patiently build a side in his own image is just another foolish myth. Abramovich will be thinking he can do the job next.
Reaching an FA Cup final was undoubtedly lower on Abramovich's wish list than Champions League qualification, but Hiddink's last match for the club will be back at Wembley after Chelsea beat Arsenal with a Didier Drogba goal seven minutes from the end.
The last ten days have been testament to Hiddink's extraordinary powers as a manager. Liverpool were overwhelmed in the Champions League and another fierce rival was knocked out at Wembley yesterday.
Drogba alone has taken it upon himself to bring Chelsea closer to glory this week. The player bashed Liverpool around Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night and ultimately did the same to Arsenal yesterday with a performance that was full of menace and meanness.
"He is a winner," Wenger conceded. "He always scores goals in big matches. Perhaps he dives a bit too much but he is a great player."
Hiddink had asserted on Friday that all his players were fit, mentally and physically. The spotlight has fallen on Petr Cech after a bumbling performance against Liverpool during which he conceded four goals and attempted to throw in a couple more.
The Arsenal goal was not entirely his fault. Chelsea were casual in defending a Kieran Gibbs cross which fell to Theo Walcott and his left-foot shot deflected off Ashley Cole's hand and Cech, who had dived too early, couldn't recover.
The game had started openly and Walcott had room to run into, which is all he craves.
Cech could have played for Arsenal but if he went into the game under scrutiny, it was Arsenal's goalkeeper, Lukasz Fabianski, who ended it needing consolation. Both goals were partly his fault, the second in particular, and he never looked comfortable behind an unfamiliar defence.
From the moment he came from his box for an aerial tussle with Drogba and lost, he was struggling with the nerves. He failed to collect a Malouda cross which shot under him, was beaten on the near post for Chelsea's equaliser and then found himself looking on for Drogba's winner as he had crazily run 30 yards from goal.
Like Cech, he could point to the defending in front of him for both goals but few in a dejected Arsenal dressing-room would be listening. When Malouda cut inside Emmanuel Eboue too easily for the first Chelsea goal, there was a persuasive case to be made that the Arsenal defenders were not offering any reassurance.
When Nicolas Anelka robbed the ball in the box and drove it against the post shortly before the interval, Arsenal seemed to have abandoned any attempt to defend correctly, another thing Wenger sometimes gives the impression is just one more encumbrance.
Arsenal seemed panicked and Chelsea powered forward, marrying the physical strength and collective purpose which has been their strength since Mourinho's time to Hiddink desire to see his players attack as well as defend as one.
If at times it seemed like men against boys that's because it was. But Wenger doesn't doubt his youthful team and with Walcott dangerous whenever the ball was played to him and Gibbs an effervescent presence on the left, it was sometimes easy to see why.
Elsewhere Arsenal struggled, particularly in midfield where they could not compete with Ballack, Lampard and Essien. Few can, especially on a pitch which Arsene Wenger described as "laughable".
They spent £700 million on Wembley but in their haste to install a record number of toilets forgot to make a flat pitch. Although Hiddink disagreed. "The pitch was good," he said.
Walcott's abilities weren't affected. He was always available, offering his own kind of torment, running at defenders and scaring them even when he didn't -- just by thinking about it.
Drogba was even more effective when he made his presence felt and he did so in the game's deciding moment. He hunted down a Lampard long ball, brushed Silvestre aside, dismissively went past the stranded Fabianski, who had come from nowhere and was heading there too, and finished from a wide angle.
Arsenal substitute Andrey Arshavin had a shot blocked by Alex and then Arsene Wenger's side of pure footballers had no option but to hoof the ball long and hope that something would happen.
Hiddink has proven in an extraordinary week that he is the man who can make things happen. "Whatever you do with this team, they always react," he said in praise of his side. That wasn't the case but he has changed things quickly and for Abramovich that must be immediately gratifying.
- Dion Fanning
