Chelsea 2 Arsenal 0: Deadly Didier Drogba rifles Blues to the summit as John Terry stands tall to wreck Gunners' title bid

By Martin Samuel - Sport for the Daily Mail Updated: 19:44 EST, 7 February 2010

Here comes another one, just like the other one. Cast your minds back to November when Chelsea went to Arsenal. Yes? Well, it was like this. Didier Drogba unstoppable, Chelsea irresistible, Arsene Wenger certifiable.

Arsenal had 70 per cent of possession, he claimed. They were always on the front foot and in the game, apparently. It was not an exhibition of football from Chelsea. Not in the purest sense, maybe.

Not in terms of beauty for its sake, but from the seventh minute, when Chelsea scored, there was only going to be one winner and Wenger is in denial if he cannot see that. Arsenal had more of the ball - 58 per cent, actually - but Chelsea had the game, and their manager, Carlo Ancelotti, had the more incisive analysis.

Net gains: Drogba fires home his second goal

Football, he said, is not only about possession, it is about attack, defence, possession when you need it and, most of all, results. QED.

There have been two meetings between Chelsea and Arsenal this season, ending in six points for Chelsea and none for Arsenal.

The aggregate score is 5-0. Wenger can dress it up as he likes, but he is dealing in theory. In every aspect of the match that counts towards the League table - goals scored, goals conceded and points won - Chelsea have been superior this season.

Wenger is reduced to citing peripheral issues. It is like measuring the success of a stable not on races won or placed finishes but on getting the rosette for best turned out in the paddock.

Firing home: Drogba was too hot for Arsenal to handle

Chelsea were superb on Sunday because the forwards had the game won after 22 minutes and the defence kept it under wraps from there.

Drogba was the inspirational match-winner - as he was at the Emirates Stadium - and as anyone who knows him would have expected, John Terry was outstanding in Chelsea's back line.

The home crowd helped. Terry will have opprobrium to contend with at Goodison on Wednesday, but here he was among friends.

He was serenaded with a supportive cry of 'one England captain' - and that is not a song his successor Rio Ferdinand, of Manchester United, will ever get to hear because they do not care about England captains at Old Trafford - encouraged throughout and, at the end, responded by walking to all sides of the ground, before taking his shirt off and handing it to a gathering behind one goal.

Jumping for joy: Didier Drogba celebrates scoring against Arsenal

His banner stood proudly defiant. 'JT: captain, leader, legend'. He may not enjoy such exalted status with his country any more, but at his club he still ticks each box.

He should have departed injured after a second-half collision with his goalkeeper Petr Cech, but soldiered on, as he always does.Ancelotti, ever sensitive to the moods of his key team members, indulged him.

It is telling, though, that Terry was impressive here more due to his personal circumstances than any challenge presented by Arsenal.

When Cesc Fabregas attempted to match him in an aerial tussle, he came off second best, with Terry almost bemused by the assault.

Delight: John Terry couldn't contain his emotions as Chelsea saw off their London rivals

It was like one of the moments when a small, yappy dog goes for a Doberman in the high street. It takes the bigger animal a little while to work out he is under attack.Terry helped up the fallen Fabregas in kindly fashion.

Throughout the trauma of recent weeks, Terry has channelled his abilities into decisive performances for Chelsea, and this was just one more.

He did not score the important goal - as he did at Burnley last week - but he played a crucial part and Arsenal never recovered.To lose Terry at a corner is misfortune. To lose Drogba is carelessness. To lose Terry and Drogba is flaming suicidal. Arsenal took option three.

Full stretch: John Terry attempts to stop Samir Nasri

Much is made of the corporeal difference between these teams but it was the big men who let Arsenal down here. Thomas Vermaelen mislaid Terry, getting trapped behind Abou Diaby when the Chelsea captain made his run, and Alex Song lost Drogba.

Florent Malouda whipped the ball in, Terry won the first header and Drogba converted. There are all sorts of ways of quantifying the decisive factor between the teams, but one is to look at the improvement in a player such as Malouda.

In his first season at Chelsea he was, in the vernacular, a fanny merchant. He had little impact in the big matches and, most weeks, he appeared lightweight and ineffectual.

Battle: Chelsea star Frank Lampard clashes with Alexandre Song and Abou Diaby

This season, he is a different player and yesterday, in comparison to Arsenal's creatives, he was a powerhouse. Now imagine him at Arsenal. Would he still have evolved into that player or would he be like Samir Nasri is now: a fanny merchant, largely anonymous in this game?

Better than Theo Walcott, though. How worried must Fabio Capello be about him?

Arsenal had their best chance after 16 minutes when Fabregas chipped the ball through to Andrey Arshavin, who was eight yards out with only Cech to beat.

The Russian's finish disappointed, though, straight at the goalkeeper who blocked with his feet.

With brutal timing, Drogba showed what Wenger's team was missing with his second goal from the next attack. It was devastating on more than one level, a text book counter attack that saw Frank Lampard break up the field and Gael Clichy, the Arsenal left back, completely lose his position, allowing Drogba to receive a pass and maraud inside from wide.

He passed two players and then unleashed a shot that left goalkeeper Manuel Almunia helpless. Had he got in the way it would have left a hole in his midriff like a cannon-ball in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

A wise man, Almunia steered clear of Drogba's shots after that and did not even move when his 82nd-minute free-kick ricocheted explosively off the crossbar.

Had it gone in, the symmetry of the matches with Chelsea would have been unbearable for Wenger; or as painfully unpalatable as the reality of Arsenal's fading title challenge.