Wenger's humiliation: It was supposed to all hail Arsene in his 1,000th match but in the end there was only one stat that mattered

By Patrick Collins

Published: 17:30 EST, 22 March 2014 | Updated: 07:24 EST, 23 March 2014

The tables were laid, the drinks were poured and friends and colleagues were lining up to offer congratulations.

Then, sadly, the guest of honour stormed away, leaving only a few forlorn reflections to mark his departure. It was not the celebration Arsene Wenger had planned for his 1,000th match.

‘This defeat is my fault,’ said the Arsenal manager, as he took his leave. ‘I take full responsibility for it. I don’t think there’s too much need to talk about the  mistakes we made. We got a good hiding today. The best way is not to explain too much the mistakes.

Humiliated: Arsene Wenger can't believe what he was seeing during his 1,000th match in charge of Arsenal

Taking the blame: Wenger said he was at fault for the terrible 6-0 defeat to Chelsea

Rout: Chelsea celebrate after Mohamed Salah (unseen) scores his team's sixth goal

‘Yes, of course, it’s one of the worst days in my career. It was over after 20 minutes and it’s a long game after that. You don’t prepare all week to experience that kind of experience.’
He then went home.

We tried to come up with some equally disastrous parties. There was Abigail’s, certainly. The Mad Hatter’s, probably. Somebody suggested UKIP, which may be a tad harsh. But, from Arsenal’s point of view, the one they threw to mark a special anniversary was down there with the worst of them.

We knew how badly Wenger was taking this calamitous defeat when he left Stamford Bridge without facing the assembled media. Even on his worst days, he has always accepted all manner of questions with scrupulous courtesy. But this was apparently a defeat too far.

Mourinho: A great 10 minutes; fourth officials need a TV screen

Low ebb: Wenger admitted the defeat was among the worst he's suffered in his 18-year spell

Bright start: Chelsea won the game within 10 minutes, according to their manager Jose Mourinho

The ordeal of explaining and excusing the deficiencies of a side in whom he had placed such extravagant trust was clearly too much. He would have known, of course, that after such a victory Jose Mourinho would sing like a canary.

The two men cannot stand each other, and once again they wasted no time on courtesies. But  Mourinho is bright enough to know that you cannot be seen to gloat on such occasions, and he tailored his reactions accordingly. He said it had all been about ‘10 amazing minutes’ at the start of the game. ‘Within 10 minutes you can win the game. Within 10 minutes you can show everybody you don’t give any chance to any opponent.’

This is an excellent theory, but it was the manner in which  Chelsea put it into practice which had been so extraordinarily impressive. As he accurately observed: ‘We were very, very, very good’. But, as Wenger would know only too well, Chelsea didn’t really need to be as good as that to bury Arsenal.

For him, the game had proved a protracted embarrassment. He sat there in his dark suit with his head hanging in despair. He rarely had the heart to leave his touchline seat, as his players seemed beyond help.

Even on their best days,  Arsenal can seem on the brink of self-destruction. It is the great gift of this remarkable manager that he has guided them from the brink so often and so successfully.

Blitz: Samuel Eto'o opened the scoring with a beautiful goal after just five minutes

Quick double: Andre Schurrle scored just two minutes after Eto'o

Double: Brazilian midfielder Oscar scored twice for the home side

But at Stamford Bridge, from that first astonishing 10–minute spell of which Mourinho spoke, they knew the game was up. The fact that the Chelsea manager was not in merciless mood somehow made his barbs more damaging. ‘We are not a team who starts very well,’ he mused. ‘Sometimes it looks like the warm-up is the first 25 minutes of the game.’ But not this game, not the match to mark Wenger’s big day.

The nearest he came to hostility was the jibe: ‘It was the most important game of the season for them, as the manager told us yesterday’.

And he gave a small, innocent shrug. You could forgive him his mild malice, because the significance of the triumph was becoming clearer with every passing moment.

For all the nonsense about Chelsea having no chance of the title, Mourinho knows they are now the favourites. He has timed their run with consummate skill and they are currently oozing the confidence which may carry them all the way.

Farcical: Kieran Gibbs was wrongly sent off by Andre Marriner after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had handled on the line

Rejig: Gibbs sending off forced Wenger into a change, but the game may have already been won

He makes great play of his team’s European schedule, of how the Premier League are being quite unreasonable in their allocation of fixtures. But he knows that Chelsea are performing like a side who believe that everything is possible.

By contrast, Arsenal’s manager carries no such confidence. Because the game is cruel and vulnerability is seized upon with savage relish, he had to endure a flood of taunts at The Bridge.

As Chelsea’s second goal flew in, the whole stadium burst into: ‘Arsene Wenger, we want you to stay!’ It is what football fans call irony. More sinisterly, he would later hear a small, cruel chant of ‘Specialist in failure!’ which was Mourinho’s recent taunt. He did not react to abuse, any more than he reacted to his team’s collapse.

Collapse: Arsenal players can't believe they've conceded another

No show: Arsene Wenger did not do a post-match press conference as the team bus had to leave

This is a manager who has graced our game, who has produced teams and players of a quality rarely seen, who has set standards of behaviour and preparation to which English football had never previously aspired. And this is a coach who has insisted that the game deserves respect, that football must  be played on the floor, that there is beauty in what was once called ‘The working man’s  ballet’.

But as he watched his hopes of the Premier League title taken to pieces on a bright afternoon in early Spring, none of these achievements was of any consolation to him. This was a day which started well for Chelsea and Jose Mourinho, and just kept getting better and better.

Later, a message was sent to the journalists waiting to speak to the Arsenal manager. It expressed his regret at failing to show, and explained: ‘Jose was talking for quite a long time, and our bus had to leave.’ For Arsenal, and for its eminently distinguished and currently distraught manager, the bus had left a long time ago.

Mourinho: I'll donate to charity if we win Champions League

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