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How Arsenal's unlikely trio repelled Chelsea's daunting double act

The tall, lean figure had been written off. Yesterday’s man; too old. Time to move on. And yet here he was winning the FA Cup with an extraordinary performance of intelligence, desire, organisation and resilience that once again showed why sport is such a remarkable thing, how its power can be so redemptive and also so gloriously unpredictable.

Not just, then, for Arsène Wenger but for Per Mertesacker, the big German to whom Wenger had to turn amid a defensive crisis, starting his first match since April 30, 2016, against Norwich City. That was 392 days before this final.

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Who would have predicted that an Arsenal defence of Mertesacker, the 21-year-old Rob Holding who 13 months ago was at Pride Park when Bolton Wanderers were relegated from the Championship, and Nacho Monreal, a left-back who is expected to return to Spain this summer, would have coped against the champions with their formidable forward line of Diego Costa, Pedro and Eden Hazard?

Hazard had such an anonymous game that it must have been alarming for Chelsea and their frustrated manager Antonio Conte, although the Italian has to take his share of the blame for a team who seemed infused with complacency.

FA Cup final 2017: Player ratings
FA Cup final 2017: Player ratings

Mertesacker had played 37 minutes of football this season, against Everton last weekend, before dominating this final, and later spoke of how “everyone had written me off”. He could have been echoing Wenger.

“Our team had three centre-backs out and he [Wenger] didn’t go small, he went with the big fella and I wanted to give something back to this club and this team,” Mertesacker added.

From where Arsenal were to here – winning nine out of 10 games with a new tactical system of 3-4-2-1 and beating Manchester City and Chelsea in this Cup run – is truly remarkable, although that gloss will dim when the reality of Thursday nights and the Europa League kick in next season.

It was the performance Wenger will have dreamt of, the football he craves to deliver. For all their defensive brilliance this was no backs-against-the-wall display. Arsenal went toe-to-toe with Chelsea, dominated and outplayed them. If there is one question that needs to be answered above all others when the manager speaks to the board tomorrow it is simply this: why can’t the team play like this every week? Or even just slightly more often?

FA Cup Final 2017: Arsenal vs Chelsea, in pictures - all the action from Wembley Stadium
FA Cup Final 2017: Arsenal vs Chelsea, in pictures - all the action from Wembley Stadium

It was an excellent final, a game that had everything – fine football and fine goals delivered with dramatic timing, refereeing controversy, a sending-off. They even both wore their traditional home colours.

And that was before the various sub-plots were assessed – from Wenger’s contract to the futures of Alexis Sánchez and Mesut Özil, from Petr Cech being left out to Conte attempting to win the League and Cup double in his first season in English football. And perhaps most surprising, N’Golo Kanté proving he is human after all as he frequently gave the ball away and was at fault for Aaron Ramsey’s winning header.

Maybe it was a game too far for Chelsea, although that argument is less convincing when you consider that they wrapped up the league early enough and had time to prepare. Instead they just looked under-cooked. Or maybe – damningly – they had believed, like many of us, that this final had to be a foregone conclusion, such was their apparent supremacy. The way they sat off Arsenal in the opening minutes as Wenger’s side constructed a passing move that went on and on, was a sign of what was to happen.

Nacho Monreal - Credit: GETTY IMAGES
Nacho Monreal chases down Eden HazardCredit: GETTY IMAGES

In saying that, the opening goal should not have stood – but not because of the debate over whether or not Ramsey was offside before Sánchez collected the ball as he ran through to poke it past Thibaut Courtois.

Referee Anthony Taylor went over to his assistant Gary Beswick, who had flagged, but it was only to consult on the offside. The referee should have picked up on Sánchez’s obvious handball in the build-up – the player had both arms in the air as he charged down a clearance.

The goal, though, stood, and Chelsea were rocked. They were indebted to captain Gary Cahill for two goal-line interventions and Arsenal’s failure to score a second goal despite their dominance. So uneasy were Chelsea that there was even the sight of César Azpilicueta and David Luiz – who have both been outstanding this season – arguing as the impressive Danny Welbeck almost broke through.

Chelsea were stung, surely, by Conte’s sharp tongue at half-time, and were better after the break, but Mertesacker and Holding continued to frustrate Costa. When Özil, of all people, slid in to tackle Hazard it seemed like Arsenal would not be denied.

That sense grew when Victor Moses was sent off for a second yellow card, correctly issued when he dived, looking for a penalty as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, the makeshift left wing-back, was close to him.

But that was not the end of the drama. Costa chested down a chip from substitute Willian to fire goalwards with David Ospina, playing ahead of Cech, making a hash of it. Would that be the story?

As that was being digested, and in the grand tradition of Cup finals, Arsenal quickly scored again for a winning goal that was another personal triumph for Wenger, who had just brought on Olivier Giroud.

The striker’s first touch was to set up Ramsey, whom Kanté did not track, and the midfielder headed in his second decisive goal in an FA Cup final, having broken Hull City hearts in 2014. Wenger would have gone then if Arsenal had not won that final. Instead, he is celebrating a third FA Cup triumph in four years and a record seventh overall.

“It was a proud moment. But I went into the game saying… everyone has written me off already.”

Those words belonged to Mertesacker. But they could just as easily have applied  to Wenger. Both men stood tall.