Chelsea suffered a shock defeat to a depleted Arsenal team at Wembley in the FA Cup final, as John Terry’s fairytale ending to life at Chelsea didn’t come to fruition.
Antonio Conte’s men started slowly and could not get on the ball in the opening stages as Arsenal’s midfield three dominated N’Golo Kante and Nemanja Matic. As a result, Arsenal took the lead, in dubious circumstances, when Alexis Sanchez appeared got handle the ball before running past a static Chelsea defence and placing the ball past Thibaut Courtois.
Chelsea grew into the game but were only afforded a handful chances, with Pedro the main beneficiary of Arsenal’s lapses in concentration. Arsenal, however, had multiple opportunities to put the game beyond Chelsea as Danny Welbeck hit the post and Mesut Ozil’s shot was cleared off the line by Gary Cahill.
In the second-half Chelsea took control as Arsenal sat back to protect their lead, but found it increasingly difficult to draw level. With 70 minutes played Victor Moses, who was already on booking decided to dive in the box and was rightly given his marching orders by the referee for his act of madness.
The game became more stretched with Chelsea down to 10 men, but it was the Blues who’d score next as Diego Costa chested the ball down and fired a volley past David Ospina via a deflection. Chelsea’s lead didn’t last long however as straight from kick off Arsenal went up the other end and scored, as Aaron Ramsey headed the ball into an empty net following shambolic marking from David Luiz.
