Lucky break for the Blues overshadows a breakout performance
The big derby fixtures always cause players to rise to the occasion and although in this case the spotlights will be focused on Costa and Mourinho for negative reasons, nobody on the pitch had a better outing than Chelsea’s young centre-back. Integral to the much-needed victory, Zouma not only opened the scoring with a composed header in the 53rd minute, but also put in a defensive shift where he won every attempted tackle on the ground and duel in the air.
Outside of Zouma’s individual effort in absence of the veteran skipper Terry, there was not that much different that Mourinho did compared to the disastrous weeks prior and had Arsenal been knocked down to nine men the score line would have been less flattering. Rather, a few key names which have lately been mere shadows picked a perfect time to start finding their feet. The widely-criticised Ivanovic recorded three interceptions, five clearances and two shots on goal, Matic was a wall across both midfield flanks and Fabregas assisted the opener with a perfectly-weighted free-kick to the back post.
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