Chelsea's Andre Schuerrle, right celebrates with teammates after scoring his sides second goal during their English Premier League soccer match between Chelsea and Arsenal at Stamford Bridge stadium in London, Saturday, March 22. (AP Photo)
Chelsea blew away Premier League title rivals Arsenal inside 17 madcap minutes at Stamford Bridge as Arsene Wenger's 1,000th game in charge turned horribly sour and ended in a humiliating 6-0 defeat.
London, March 22 (agencies): Jose Mourinho, who now boasts an 11-game unbeaten record against his bitter rival, saw his leaders roar into a 2-0 lead after just seven minutes courtesy of goals from Samuel Eto'o and the outstanding Andre Schurrle. That was dramatic enough, but the main talking point arrived soon after as Chelsea were awarded a penalty when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain dived to push an Eden Hazard shot, which looked to be heading wide anyway, past the post.
Referee Andre Marriner took his time before awarding a spot-kick and then brandished an inevitable red card, only to show it in the face of a bemused Kieran Gibbs, who protested his innocence, while replays appeared to show Oxlade-Chamberlain approach the official to say: "Ref, it was me."
Marriner would not be swayed, leaving Gibbs with no option but to trudge disconsolately down the tunnel, while Hazard kept his nerve to convert down the middle of the goal after waiting for Wojciech Szczesny to commit himself.
The Gunners chose another meeting with a title rival to produce one of their most meek displays, with the astonishing capitulation amidst a raft of basic passing errors reminiscent of their recent drubbing by Liverpool at Anfield.
Arsenal were never in the game, such was their profligacy in possession, and once the unfortunate Gibbs had been given his marching orders they were simply in damage limitation mode, only for Oscar (two) and Mohamed Salah to add further gloss to the scoreline before the final whistle sounded.
A warning of what was to come arrived with only three minutes gone when Laurent Koscielny's poor pass only found Schurrle, whose through-ball towards Eto'o was cut out by Szczesny. Play switched to the other end and Petr Cech produced an excellent low save to deny Olivier Giroud following Tomas Rosicky's pass, although the French striker failed to make a clean contact.
Schurrle and Eto'o then combined to devastating effect in the fifth minute, with the German feeding his forward colleague after Arsenal ceded possession in the centre and the Cameroon forward turned Oxlade-Chamberlain before curling a left foot shot beyond Szczesny's despairing dive. Arsenal did not learn. They gave the ball away once again in the middle and then allowed Schurrle to advance unchecked to the edge of the box before he drilled a low shot into a static Szczesny's bottom corner.
