By Ben Fisher, at Molineux & Jonathan Wilson, at the Emirates Stadium
A few minutes after the final whistle, victory boxed off, most of Chelsea’s players had headed for the tunnel but Cole Palmer was wandering around the halfway line in search of lost property.
Enveloped by his space-grey puffer coat, making a circle with his hands, bemused staff and teammates soon caught his drift: Palmer wanted evidence of his handiwork, a 25-minute first-half hat-trick that put this game beyond Wolves, even if Liam Rosenior’s side eased off in the second.
After retrieving the match ball from a pitchside attendant, Palmer juggled it halfway across the pitch, embarking on a warm-down of keepie-uppies.
It would be easy to paint this as a Palmer masterclass, the England midfielder completing his hat-trick on 38 minutes, but it is fair to say by the time he was substituted on the hour, his work was done.
At that point it was 3-1 to the visitors, Wolves pulling a goal back nine minutes into the second half when Tolu Arokodare spun in the box to convert at a corner.
From there, if not earlier, it was hard not to feel as though Chelsea were going through the motions.
Palmer’s trio of typically ice-cool finishes, two from the penalty spot, established a comfortable cushion, though it was his third, to cap a slick team move that began with his goalkeeper, Robert Sánchez, that was most satisfying for Rosenior.
“It was a very, very pleasing goal and that is the type of football we want to play,” said the Chelsea head coach, whose record now reads seven wins in nine matches and four successive victories in the league.
“Obviously Cole gets three goals, but some of our football was everything I wanted to see. We know what a world-class player he is. He’s played a lot of football over the last year with not much rest, but when he’s at his best he’s unstoppable,” Rosenior added.
Wolves, however, gave Palmer and Chelsea a leg-up on 12 minutes. Rob Edwards’s side were the better team until the experienced Wolves captain, Matt Doherty, conceded a silly penalty.
João Pedro appeared in a harmless spot, moseying away from José Sá’s goal when Doherty was overzealous and bumped the Brazilian in the box, giving the referee, Jarred Gillett, little choice but to point to the penalty spot.
Palmer sent Sá the wrong way and covered his ears with his black gloves as he wheeled away towards the Chelsea supporters strewn across the lower bank of the Steve Bull Stand.
“When you’re at this club with the scrutiny – which I’m starting to learn myself – you have to block out the noise and remember what a good footballer you are,” Rosenior said. “I love working with him.”
Chelsea triumphed from their first meaningful attack and now the confidence was flowing through the visitors.
Enzo Fernández attempted a rabona shot. The galling thing for Edwards was Chelsea’s second goal stemmed from another Wolves gift, Yerson Mosquera’s brainless two-handed shove on João Pedro giving the officials a simple decision. The only thing to check was whether the foul was in the box.
Once decided, Palmer removed his hands from his hips and dispatched the ball into the opposite corner.
Chelsea’s third goal was a crisp move. Pedro Neto, who caused havoc for Hugo Bueno on his return to Molineux, sent the ball across the field to Fernández and the Argentina midfielder spied the run of Marc Cucurella.
When Cucurella cut the ball back for Palmer, a yard or so in front of the penalty spot, Palmer lashed a first-time finish into the roof of the Wolves net.
Wolves have now lost their past four matches to Chelsea by an aggregate scoreline of 15-4 and that is without mentioning their 6-2 defeat at the start of last season.
“It was about trying to win the half, sticking to the things we wanted to do and showing some of this,” Edwards said, tapping his heart. “We did that. It wasn’t a team that went under in the end because if we had it would have been embarrassing.”
Chelsea were drifting by the time Alejandro Garnacho entered in place of Palmer. In fact, Palmer’s third was Chelsea’s last effort on goal.
Wolves summoned some fight. Arokodare reacted after reading the debutant Adam Armstrong’s clever backward header at a corner, the Wolves goal coming moments after Mateus Mané, a bright light in a gloomy season, struck the inside of a post.
“My hands are feeling the effects after thumping a door in a bit of anger,” Edwards said afterwards. “It was a really promising start but then we made a couple of really ludicrous mistakes. We had to stop the bleeding.”
Gyökeres Double Keeps Arsenal On Title Track
There are times when the best thing for a side is an uneventful win. Titles are won less in the big set-piece games than against mid-table teams in the easily forgotten circumstances of a Saturday afternoon.
Arsenal weren’t brilliant against Sunderland, but they were good enough to win comfortably, and that increases their lead at the top of the table to nine points, adding a degree of extra pressure to Manchester City’s visit today to Liverpool.
“They’re really tough opponents, really good at what they do,” said Mikel Arteta. “It’s very difficult to get sequences with threat and momentum, so I’m delighted with the performance.”
In a way this was the platonic ideal of Arteta’s football. Not a huge amount happened but most of what did was in or around the Sunderland box. It was bitty, stop-start, built around set plays and devoid of much in the way of spontaneity and, in the end, they were simply better than opponents who made mistakes in the build-up to all three goals, one for Martín Zubimendi and two for Viktor Gyökeres.
Coaches obsessed by pressing patterns probably loved it, but this game will not live long in the wider collective memory.
For a long time it seemed in danger of being mutually respected into stalemate, both teams watching, probing warily, even if in the end Arsenal’s probing proved far more dangerous.
Things happened without much sense of pattern or flow. There was none of that sense of remorseless squeeze that there had been at Leeds last week, or even at home to Manchester United the week before.
But a goal came before half-time, thanks largely to a rare moment of sloppiness from Omar Alderete. The Paraguay international was caught in possession by Noni Madueke and, as Arsenal worked it to the other side of the pitch, Sunderland struggled to get set, leaving Zubimendi in space as Leandro Trossard rolled the ball into his path. His shot had just enough slice to arc in off the inside of the post.
Arsenal’s second, midway through the second half, came from a not dissimilar source. This time it was Nordi Mukiele squandering possession but again Trossard was key, playing in Kai Havertz, whose square ball was squirted in by the falling substitute Gyökeres.
But that is what Arsenal are good at: they hold opponents at arm’s length, stifle them as an attacking threat, force them into errors and then capitalise.
The third, also scored by Gyökeres, stemmed from a Reinildo misjudgment on halfway that allowed Gabriel Martinelli a run in goal.
“We lost two balls and conceded two goals,” said a characteristically phlegmatic Regis Le Bris. “It doesn’t mean our game wasn’t good. We had opportunities. We didn’t seize those opportunities and if you don’t seize them against an opponent like Arsenal, the game is gone.”
Sunderland have not won away in the Premier League since beating Chelsea in October and while nobody at the Stadium of Light is complaining about a campaign in which they have in effect secured safety with a third of the season still to go, away form is an obvious area in which they could improve.
The problem is a lack of goal threat, their six goals away from home better only than Wolves. They offered little beyond direct balls up to the combative Brian Brobbey, who occasionally looked like he might link up with Habib Diarra breaking from midfield without ever actually doing so.
So Arsenal roll on. None of their challengers could take advantage of their New Year wobble in which they leaked seven points in three games.
Whatever doubts might have begun to crystallise then seem to have dissolved and, while they will have harder games, the nature of their draw at the Stadium of Light meant this was one of their remaining fixtures that appeared as a potential pitfall.
One more challenge ticked off as Arsenal edge closer to the finish line.
“I’m going to have a beautiful dinner,” said Arteta. “Tomorrow I’m going to prepare for Brentford – and for sure I’ll be watching the big game. But we still have to win so many games.”
And if City slip up at Anfield, that line will seem a lot closer come Sunday evening.
Results In Domestic Leagues Across Europe, Saturday, 7 February:
ENGLAND: Premier League
Manchester Utd – Tottenham 2:0
Arsenal – Sunderland 3:0
Bournemouth – Aston Villa 1:1
Burnley – West Ham 0:2
Fulham – Everton 1:2
Wolves – Chelsea 1:3
Newcastle – Brentford 2:3
FRANCE: Ligue 1
Lens – Rennes 3:1
Brest – Lorient 2:0
Nantes – Lyon 0:1
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Freiburg – Werder Bremen 1:0
Heidenheim – Hamburger SV 0:2
Mainz – Augsburg 2:0
St. Pauli – Stuttgart 2:1
Wolfsburg – Dortmund 1:2
B. Monchengladbach – Bayer Leverkusen 1:1
ITALY: Serie A
Genoa – Napoli 2:3
Fiorentina – Torino 2:2
NETHERLANDS: Eredivisie
Nijmegen – Heracles 4:1
Zwolle – FC Volendam 1:2
Twente – Heerenveen 5:0
Sittard – Sparta Rotterdam 2:2
SPAIN: LaLiga
PostponedRayo Vallecano – Oviedo -:-
Barcelona – Mallorca 3:0
Real Sociedad – Elche 3:1
*PHOTO CAPTION: Cole Palmer fires in a penalty… yesterday.
