SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

Chelsea have Finally beaten Arsenal, in the Champions league semi-final !


Chelsea have forght hard to become victorious over Arsenal ...and it is about time that Chelsea have beaten Arsenal after 6 years playing against them either in the premiership or Champions league! now that Arsenal have been knocked out of the FA cup and now the Champions league, will they crumble in the premiership

Chelsea will play Monaco in the first Champions League semi-final after Claudio Ranieri's men beat Arsenal 2-1 (3-2) Frank Lampard and Wayne Bridge scored for the Blues.

moses

i as gutted i luv arsenal awesome team

Scooby96

I expect they will now be awesome in the PL - no other competitions to concentrate their efforts on.

As long as Man U dont take the title I dont care if the gooners dont!

P1Fanatic

Quite a record of bottling it now for the Gooners. Pressure is on in the league. Two big games this easter weekend.

I actually dont mind if chelsea win the league. They may have bought all their players will romans gazillions (and I will be the first to admit that I didnt like them for this at start of season) but theyve still shown great passion and desire to win rather than arsenal who have been rather bigheaded and have on times showboated rather than getting the job done, and that has just come back to bite them.

Simon.

SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

Just think for a minute about these three names – Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn and Silvinho – and savour the revenge. The above is a list of Arsenal full-backs who in recent living memory have broken Chelsea hearts with late and highly unlikely goals against us. Tonight, thanks to left-back Wayne Bridge, it was our turn. Just Monaco stands between Chelsea and the Champions League Final!



So Plan B did it! Let Arsenal score first this time, at the most psychologically draining moment possible too, and then storm back with a second-half performance that the supposed best team in Britain just could not match.



Bridge as the winning goal hero may be a little hard to pass off as a pre-planned manoeuvre but what a goal it was! Just four minutes remained of normal time, the score was dead level on both aggregate and away goals, and extra-time was beckoning. Chelsea were looking the stronger and Thierry Henry had already been withdrawn.



But this Chelsea team wanted to finish the game there and then. Wayne Bridge, still full of running stormed in from the left wing towards the penalty area and found Eidur Gudjohnsen. If there was one player likely to produce the touch and vision to give the perfect return pass, he was the one.



Bridge galloped on and cracked the ball low past the helpless Lehmann, barely breaking stride as he reached the Chelsea fans in the Clock End to join in the wild celebrations.



Arsenal were dead. They needed to score twice now but barely crossed the halfway line that number of times in the minutes remaining.



It was a dramatic contrast to how the tie had looked just an hour earlier. The first-half had mirrored that of the first leg. It was football of incredible energy, speed but also quality from both sides. It had the passion and aggression of a typical big London derby but controlled by a European referee, the yellow cards came early.



However it was Arsenal that were looking just that bit tidier and it was Arsenal who were shading the first-half on genuine chances.







Inevitably all the home side’s menace had come down the left-hand side but then with stoppage time being played before the break, their first true right-sided attack saw Lauren send over a cross which Ambrosio failed to deal with allowing Henry to head back across goal. The ball took a touch off Ljungberg that sent it into the path of Reyes. He finished from 15 yards.



Oh how, how, how cruel it all seemed. And how, how, how would Chelsea be able to muster the mental strength to come back and win, even if the task of scoring a goal to remain in the tie remained much the same?



There must have been many an Arsenal follower who believed their team would stride on from this point to the finishing line with some style. There had been first-half warnings that they had the potential.



Reyes’ quick passing in particular caused problems in the opening period. He drew Gallas into a foul that was punished with a yellow card early on while his strike partner Henry saw a fair amount of service but failed on this occasion to produce the goods.



He cracked one powerful shot over after Edu had feed him with speed and efficiency and then the Frenchman side-footed two chances well off target from positions where he more often scores. John Terry had to be at his very best to block twice in the space of 90 seconds during Arsenal’s best spell shortly before they scored.



In that same period Reyes floated a cross to the far post that Henry nodded back to no-one in particular and Pires struck a Cole cross into the side-netting.



Chelsea had to pin second-half hopes on the fact that there had been some chances. Lampard brought the first save of the game with a straight shot from distance and midway through the half we nearly executed an Arsenal-style break when Lampard dummied a ball across the pitch to Bridge who found Duff. Off on a typically twisting run, he left Campbell in his wake but was tackled by Edu at the exact point of shooting and the ball went wide.



On two other occasions Hasselbaink and Gudjohnsen missed making contact to ***** across the goal from Lampard and Bridge – the first excusable, the second wasteful.



At half-time, Scott Parker’s wide right berth was given over to substitute Jesper Gronkjaer in an attempt to force Pires and Cole into retreat. Chelsea ourselves didn’t look back.







Gudjohnsen went round the outside of Touré and headed for goal but the Arsenal centre-back had the pace to tackle back. Within six second-half minutes we were level.



It was Claude Makelele of all people picking up an Edu clearance some 30 yards out and drilling a powerful shot back that Lehmann could only block with his chest. Frank Lampard was there to turn the rebound in.



He nearly added to his goal soon after, sending a curling shot into the side-netting after Gronkjaer had made initial in-roads.



The game at last slipped out of top gear for a while and thoughts that Arsenal’s collective energy reserves may be beginning to feel the effects of a small squad weren’t looking idle ones.



They did force Ambrosio into two saves, a smart dive to keep out Reyes and then a tip over from Touré who tried his luck from 40 yards, but that was it.



Henry, who had been well marshalled by Gallas for sometime, was withdrawn with what was later reported to be a hamstring problem. Bergkamp replaced him.



Chelsea made two switches, Joe Cole coming on for Duff and Crespo replacing Hasselbaink to leave each team’s main penalty taker out of the action.



Cole almost made an instant difference, turning brilliantly inside Touré and finding Gudjohnsen with the goal in sight. Somehow, and with not an inch to spare, Ashley Cole cleared the cleanly hit shot off the line.

That was with five minutes to go. Two minutes later Wayne Bridge gained possession of the ball and the rest is already Chelsea history.

BTW, i'm a Chelsea supporter!

jasey

Let's hope you can go on and win then - I just hope your boys show the same determination against "lowly Monaco" - underestimating openents has been Chelsea's major undoing in the last few years !


Good luck

Vette_76

Having supported Chelsea for the last 17 years (since I was 8) I can honestly say that this was the greatest moment of my life (hope my gf isn't reading this!!) - I was still shaking 10 mins after the final whistle and had to give up sending text messages until I'd calmed down!!

We've endured getting beaten/drawing Arsenal for what seems like an eternity!! What better way to break that run than to put the scum out of the Champions League!!

Granted, all season Arsenal have been by far the best team in the premiership, but last night they were outplayed, at home and with arguably their best 11 on the pitch!!

We're gonna make it a blue day..........