FA Cup final: Chelsea v Arsenal, Wembley Stadium, kick-off 8.30pm (UAE), live on beIN Sports HD
It was an insight into Antonio Conte’s driven nature. The Premier League crown had only just been secured but, amid the jubilation, the Italian’s thoughts had already turned to his next aim.
“It is a great season, but to be a fantastic season we have to win the FA Cup,” he said after Michy Batshuayi had scored the title-deciding goal against West Bromwich Albion and Conte’s players had given him the bumps.
They have tossed him into orbit and taken his mantra alike. The sense from the Stamford Bridge dressing room is that the job is only half done. Chelsea have gone from 10th to first, procuring 43 more points than last year and posting a record number of Premier League wins, but they need the FA Cup for this to be “a fantastic season”.
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Across London, few have reached for the superlatives. The year when Arsenal’s ever-present streak in the Uefa Champions League ends cannot be called fantastic, especially when the other five of England’s top six clubs should all advance in their stead.
But is it good if they win at Wembley? Arsene Wenger is the man who long insisted that fourth place was like a trophy. Now he could invert his old ethos by ending with silverware but without fourth place.
Conte’s relentlessness may mean he is reserving judgment on Chelsea’s season but the jury really remains out on Arsenal’s. From the depths of despair and the most prolonged slump of Wenger’s time in England, they have mounted an impressive recovery. They have won eight of their last nine games, separated only by a limp defeat to Tottenham.
A team often accused of failing the stiffer tests beat both Manchester clubs. Defeat Chelsea and they can argue they have shown a renewed aptitude for the big occasions. Lose and it may be mentioned that they overcame a decidedly weakened United team and spring setbacks to Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Chelsea will form part of a grander narrative about a side who come up short on the major stages too often.
More than most, Chelsea have contributed to that impression. They have only lost six of their last 33 meetings with Arsenal. The day Wenger won an FA Cup final at Chelsea’s expense en route to completing the double was as recent as 2002, but it was another era, before Roman Abramovich’s investment at Stamford Bridge.
Since then, Chelsea’s abrasiveness has been symbolised by strikers who have tormented Arsenal, whose frailty has been epitomised by defenders who have floundered against their London rivals. It may prove Diego Costa’s final Chelsea game but the possibility history will repeat itself looms large at the last.
It feels somehow typical that Conte’s side go to Wembley at full strength and Wenger’s venture there with a defensive crisis. “Absolutely unbelievable and unpredictable,” said the Frenchman, although absentees tend to be a regular feature of Arsenal life. Now Laurent Koscielny and Gabriel Paulista are definitely out. Shkodran Mustafi and Kieran Gibbs may be. Per Mertesacker may have to make his first start in 13 months against the aggressive Costa. The rookie Rob Holding is certain to start.
Wenger has won FA Cup finals without key players before, triumphing in 1998 minus Dennis Bergkamp and in 2005 when shorn of Thierry Henry, but not against a team who finished 18 points and four places above Arsenal.
They still have the distinction of inflicting Chelsea’s heaviest defeat under Conte, 3-0 in September, but even that backfired when it proved a catalyst for change at Stamford Bridge.
But beating an all-conquering side, rather than a transitional team, would be a greater feat. It would reshape perceptions of what seems a season when Wenger declined.
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