​Premier League Wars: Return of the Jedi – Reviewing Arsenal vs. Chelsea

Among the original trilogy of Star Wars films, the second stands out as a bit of a downer. The opening movie concludes with everyone smiling and winking at each other while being awarded medals. After all, they'd only blown up the bloody Death Star. In contrast, the second instalment ends with Han Solo being frozen, Luke having his hand chopped off, and the bad guys generally winning at everything.

Of course, the bad guys need to win sometimes, so that when the good guys triumph again it feels that much better. So it was with Luke killing the Emperor with the help of bad-dad-turned-rad Darth Vader, destroying the Galactic Empire, and generally having a laugh with the ghosts of his dead mates.

Now, I'm not saying Arsene Wenger is Yoda. I'm not suggesting that Arsenal are the Rebel Alliance, nor that Chelsea are the Galactic Empire and Diego Costa the Emperor; then again I'm not not saying all of that.

Maybe Laurent Koscielny could be Luke? I dunno. I'd say Antonio Conte is Vader because, though he's working for the bad guys at the moment, you get the impression that maybe he still has some good in him, that maybe at some point he might snap and throw Diego Costa over a ledge or something. To be honest, the analogy breaks down pretty quickly when you try to introduce the Ewoks and Princess Leia.

The thrust of what I'm trying to say is that last year Arsenal were twice taken to the cleaners by Chelsea, and Costa in particular. In the first game at Stamford Bridge, the Brazilian got away with lightsabering Koscielny multiple times, provoking Gabriel into getting sent off (using the Dark Side), and was inspirational in earning Chelsea a comfortable 2-0 victory. The return fixture at the Emirates saw Costa get Per Mertesacker (Han Slow-lo, amirite?) sent off, then rub salt in the wounds by scoring the only goal of the game. Truly, the Galactic Empire had struck back.

Fast-forward to Saturday evening. To mark Arsene Wenger's 20th anniversary at the club, Arsenal played a Chelsea team whose form had dipped, but featured a rejuvenated Costa and a master tactician at the helm in Conte. It felt like a nailed-on win for the away side.

And the omens were worrying. Every time Arsene has reached a milestone game – 500th, 1,000th – his side have played Chelsea and lost. Number 500 was 2-0, while the 1,000th was a chastening 6-0 defeat. But this time Wenger did something he has never seemed open to before: focus on one player to single out, namely Costa.

"We have to be completely cold-blooded, just focus on the game and not respond, we have talked about discipline because in the last two games against Chelsea, we couldn't play 11 against 11. Discipline and results are strongly linked."

It was a warning that perhaps, for once, Wenger was willing to accept the Dark Side of the game and deal with it accordingly.

Like a digitally remastered Star Wars edit, the result made for compelling viewing. In this excellent video by Twitter user @TerryAFCx, Koscielny and Shkodran Mustafi roundly kick the shit out of Costa in a highlight reel that epitomises the term 'physical defending'. Truly, this was a 'cold-blooded' performance of the highest quality from an Arsenal defence not known for such robust behaviour.

Crucially, Costa was kept quiet as a mouse (except for his histrionics towards the referee) and Arsenal waltzed their way to a 3-0 win, finally allowing Wenger to mark one of his anniversaries at the club with something positive. We can only assume he celebrated by raising his lightsaber to the sky and dancing amidst a group of Ewoks all the way to Holloway Road station.