There was a moment, with Arsenal already 5-0 up and hunting a sixth against their beleaguered London rivals Chelsea, when the ball found itself in the orbit of one Martin Odegaard at the edge of the visitor’s penalty area.
Instead of attempting to simply control it and making a yard to get the shot away, the Gunners captain tried to backheel it through the legs of a nearby Chelsea defender and lost possession.
But if anyone could be forgiven for throwing a piece of skill at the wall and seeing if it sticks, it was the man who had just produced a genuine all-timer of an Arsenal performance during a win which not only cemented their superiority over their humiliated neighbours, but also lifted Mikel Arteta’s side three big points closer to their first Premier League title in two decades.
Martin Odegaard was simply unplayable. The Norwegian, pulling the strings like a prime Cesc Fabregas and picking out passes like Mesut Ozil at his peak, set up two of Arsenal’s five goals, including an assist for Kai Havertz which had a real ‘men against boys’ sort of feel about it, Chelsea chasing shadows and pulled to and fro by his wand of a left foot.
Martin Odegaard inspires Arsenal’s Chelsea thrashing
“Arsenal have got better players,” was the explanation of former England international Danny Murphy, speaking to talkSPORT (24 April, 10am) after Chelsea trio Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Conor Gallagher were filleted by Odegaard and a typically all-action Declan Rice.
“I did not see a lack of application (from Chelsea). I saw two players for Arsenal in Rice and Odegaard who are at the top of their game, I saw three in the Chelsea midfield who are young, not at the top of their game and trying to aspire to those two.
“(Fernandez, Caicedo and Gallagher) got completely dominated.
“The philosophy of Chelsea was to buy all this potential and see if they succeed. With that, you are going to get inconsistency.”
Fernandez and Caicedo, Chelsea’s £122 million midfield duo, endured another evening to forget.
The former, briefly the Premier League’s most expensive ever player, only lasted 67 minutes. Just to apply a healthy dose of salt to those gaping wounds, Kai Havertz – the man who left Stamford Bridge last summer and made the short trip across London – netted twice in the second-half before Ben White grabbed a brace of his own, his second a classic case of a mishit cross taking everybody by surprise.
Arteta triumphs over Pochettino at the Emirates
“I feel disappointed. Really bad,” said Pochettino. “The performance wasn’t good, we didn’t start the game in the way we were supposed to start.
‘We conceded the goal too easy, we made things so easy for Arsenal, started the game losing the game and after that it was really tough. 10 or 15 minutes after we conceded, we started to play a little bit and create some chances, like we started the game again.
“We were talking at half-time, saying it is not possible to start a game like that at this level. But we started in a bad way again in the second half and conceded two goals. Then, I think the team gave up and we were not in the game.
“The most difficult thing to accept is the way we started, because the last 30 minutes of the first half we competed well and the game was even and we started to force them to make some mistakes to create some chances.
“Then, in the second-half, the way we started when it went 3-0… I think in this moment the team started to suffer a lot and struggled to manage the game.”
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