Unlike the Premier League match at the Emirates last week, Arsenals League Cup clash against Chelsea was rather dull.

It only took a minute and a half for Alvaro Morato to get threaded through so the forward could run into the box. Fortunately, he only hit the side-netting with his shot but it was an early warning.

Chelsea continued to dominate play during the opening exchanges. In fact, Arsenal couldn’t even get out of their own half until the eighth minute when Hector Bellerin attempted to break. The wing-back’s attempt to get into the box was stifled by Marcos Alonso, who intercepted the ball.

The resulting corner was taken by Granit Xhaka. No one knows why. And, unsurprisingly, it wasn’t the best. The midfielder hit it hard across the ground and it basically missed everyone.

10 minutes later, after some pretty boring football from both sides, Xhaka took a free-kick, which he did exactly the same thing with.

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In the 22nd minute, it was Alexandre Lacazette’s turn to out-do Morata by practically missing an open goal. Jack Wilshere’s pass for the striker was good though.

Cesc Fabregas almost scored a tap-in at the other end after David Ospina fumbled Victor Moses’ shot.

Minutes later, after Moses went close for a second time, Arsenal got another corner, which Xhaka took again…

Unlike the Premier League match between the two London sides at the Emirates last week, the first half at Stamford Bridge was decidedly boring.

Chelsea had a few chances that they failed to capitalise on; the Gunners had some corners that they took awfully. But apart from that there was just a lot of passing, falling over and wandering around.

The most exciting bit was when Moses tripped Maitland-Niles over and the referee had to consult VAR to decide whether it was a penalty or not. It wasn’t. Well, it was as much of a penalty as Eden Hazard’s last week…

Ospina also made a save just before the break. That was fun.

After the break, Chelsea started strongly with N’Golo Kante having a shot deflected by his own player within a minute.

Jack Wilshere appeared to be struggling after catching his ankle during a Chelsea free-kick.

https://twitter.com/redcannoned/status/951199848656703489

The midfielder, who had been Arsenal’s best player so far, was subbed off for Mohamed Elneny.

Since the break, Chelsea took over the game and it was all one-way traffic. Maitland-Niles put in an exciting cross in the 61st minute, which almost looped into Chelsea goal, but it didn’t.

In the 66th minute, Alexis Sanchez was brought on for Lacazette. Fans booed.

The seconds later, Ospina came running out into the area to claim a corner and completely missed the ball, which was weird but totally not surprising.

Calum Chambers then got spun by Hazard and twisted his ankle. Thankfully he was fine.

Iwobi made a brilliant run through the centre of the pitch, which had the traveling Gooners out of their seats. He had Alexis to his right but held off passing the ball. It ran away from him after he poked it with his toe.

The traveling Gooners were not pleased.

Fortunately for Arsenal, although Chelsea got forward more, they were just as wasteful, especially Morata.

The Gunners would pass the ball around, give it away, Chelsea would break and then kick the ball off the pitch… thrilling stuff.

Arsenal had a strong spell around five minutes before the final whistle but it wasn’t enough. We had no creators on the pitch and it showed.

We almost conceded a penalty in the 89th minute when Welbeck came up behind Cesc and nabbed the ball. He got the ball and, thanks to VAR, it wasn’t given. Again.

0-0 and a pretty boring game but we can’t complain. Chelsea were the better team and we prevented them – somehow – from scoring.

At least that means there’s hope going into the second leg of the League Cup semi-final at the Emirates in a couple of weeks.

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