After much speculations on what the team line-up would be as – with many Arsenal fans supposing Arsene Wenger is facing a conundrum in the manner of; To, or to not, field babies? The Arsenal manager named a rather experienced side, with Ryo Miyaichi about the only player green with inexperience in the starting XI but even he had already made his international debut for Japan. Even at that, you’d reckon Ryo’s inclusion is chiefly down to the injuries that have docked the more established players in the squad like Podolski and Walcott – to name just two, which also belies claims against Arsenal’s lack of squad depth. You’d imagine Arsene Wenger’s hands were forced into the (surprise) inclusion of Aaron Ramsey who, many Gooners through their crystal balls, had suggested would sit this out having featured heavily already this season. If anything was crystal clear though, it was that Arsene Wenger was not taking the Capital One Cup lightly as widely, and perhaps, wrongly believed. Not this Chelsea match at least, not when the media had made their sides known by constantly churning out tired statistics of Mourinho’s ”unblemished” record against Arsene Wenger.

And so the match began with early exchanges being all fair and square, Santi Carzola was showing glimpses of his last season self with amazing trickery and delightful passes – it’s been a slower than thought/wished return to full fitness for him but after playing so many matches last season, one can understand how knackered he could be. Still, Santi was combining well with the rest of the team, most notably Rosicky, and Monreal whose decision-making in the final-third looked significantly better than Gibbs – it’s a good thing we have such good options at left back. Not that one can say that of Jenkinson who, under very little pressure, crumbled as he attempted to head a ball floating in the air back to Fabianski but he hit the ball so tamely, that Harry Redknapp’s dog would be kicking itself in the groin for not being from an Arsenal-supporting family and attended games at the Emirates Stadium. Azpilicueta having pounced on the loose ball put Chelsea ahead and from then on, it was always going to be a huge task to overhaul an admittedly, defensively-organized Chelsea side, not when your striker is Bendtner who had a very, mildly put, indifferent game.

As we’ve seen too often against Chelsea – and other big sides in recent years, when we do much of the playing and keeping possession we end up falling short of ‘killing’ them off and causing any real damage but rather, conceding against the run of play. It was only a matter of time before Chelsea, through Mata, scored a second – a beauty, if ever Chavs are capable of such kingly art. It was heartbreaking for me, more so as it was moment after Ozil was brought on for a subdued Ryo and it looked like finally the piece of ingenuity to unlock the Chelsea side had arrived.It was such quite an anti-climax from a usually orgasmic Arsenal.

Jenkinson, Bendtner and Ryo have come off this game without covering themselves in thick layers of glory; each for different reasons. Jenkinson appear to be short on confidence which often affects his decision-making, his athleticism and work ethic could perhaps help him over come that soon. Ryo, on the other hand, looked like he needs to pack his bed to a gym and bulk up quickly as he was being thrown out of every challenge by the air from Bertrand’s nostrils, his future at the club is under intense scrutiny with so much options when everyone is fit – if ever, but I’m really keen to see him play as ‘Ryonaldo’.

While both Jenkinson and Ryo can partly be excused for reasons like inexperience, lack of confidence and being young or, to their credits, working hard for the team. Nicklas Bendtner doesn’t fall in any of such categories and has an attitude to working hard for the team which is of semblance to Berbatov, then again, he – beyond a corny hair – is nothing like Berbatov in skill-set. In his defense, the team could be said to not have played to his main strength – aerial prowess – as no one in the team put a decent cross in the box the entire 90 minutes. And such was the energy of the Chelsea side that they practically stifled him of making any meaningful knock-downs or interchange passes in and around the box. Yet, fans on social media have so harshly picked him up for bashing and wanting him hanged despite not doing so much wrong. He didn’t do much at all.

In the end, it was to be another loss to Chelsea. Another loss which, if we hadn’t shot ourselves in the foot early-on, could have seen this review written quite differently, another loss which has seen the vultures crawl out to flog their ‘X years trophyless’ dead horse, another loss which isn’t disastrous in isolation but still we would have preferred to progress to the next round but now we’ll have worry about what impact this might have on the team. I doubt we’d see the wheels fall off just yet, never mind the anti-Arsenal Arsenal ‘fans’.

That said, our result against Liverpool in the weekend means 3 points more than this and in this world of ours, ‘3 points’ is another word for ‘invaluable’.

’til next time, be a fan…and a supporter.