Why Arsenal under Arsene Wenger cannot make the title-leap Chelsea have made under Antonio Conte

Tuesday's defeat to Watford shows again why Arsenal will not win a title under Arsene Wenger, as Chelsea briskly make the step up to the top

Arsene Wenger fails to deliver the same application on his squad that Antonio Conte manages at Chelsea (Getty)

While Chelsea were grinding their way towards the title, taking a point from one of the hardest away trips in the country, Arsenal were doing the exact opposite. Lobbed the ultimate softball fixture, Watford at home, they declined to show up and lost 2-1. No wonder Chelsea are nine points clear at the top of the table.

This was an evening that showed up the glaring difference between the two teams. Certainly not in ability, where the two teams are fairly well matched, with two world class attacking players each.

The difference between Chelsea and Arsenal is fundamentally a difference of application. That is what Arsene Wenger raged about afterwards, about how his players have to learn to “switch it on at 100 per cent every time”, having been so “mentally unready” for Watford’s challenge at home.

Chelsea have shown this year that their mental application is immaculate. That is how they went on a 14-game winning streak and shook off their 2-0 defeat at White Hart Lane, as well as the Diego Costa distraction, to keep winning and heading for the title. They have not allowed them to lose focus in their pursuit of their goals, something that could not be said of Arsenal.

It seems so strange now to look back four months to the last time these two teams met at the Emirates Stadium. Chelsea looked disaffected, disjointed and old, going down to a 3-0 defeat in which they barely threatened. Everything that has happened since would have been unbelievable back then.

Antonio Conte, looking back last week, said that after that bad defeat at the Emirates “something changed in our minds”. He said that Chelsea improved their “performances, identity and confidence”. “It is not easy to have those two defeats against Liverpool and Arsenal,” he said, “and then find the strength to get to the top of the table with 13 wins in a row.”

It has been one of the great feats of modern management to see Conte transform a team from also-rans to inevitable champions. But like any good piece of work, it raises the question of why no-one else can do the same. If Conte, in a matter of months, can help Chelsea to “change something in their minds”, to have them leap from tenth to first, then why are Wenger’s Arsenal stuck in the same mental zone they have been for years?

Because as much as Wenger hails the spirit, belief and character of his Arsenal squad, it is application and intensity, or the lack of them, that is holding them back. Five years ago, certainly, this Arsenal team was less good than the title-winning sides of Manchester City in 2012 and Manchester United in 2011 and 2013. But no-one could say that now in the era of Mesut Özil and Alexis Sanchez, with experience well-balanced with youth across the rest of the team. Certainly no-one could say it of last season, when the title was won by Leicester City. All of Wenger's arguments about financial doping stopping Arsenal from winning the title were undermined.


 Conte has masterminded a rapid turnaround at Chelsea 
 (Getty)

Arsenal are still waiting to make that mental leap, the one that Chelsea made last autumn after being so badly beaten at the Emirates. It is the leap a new manager helps his team to make. It is the leap that Chelsea also made in 2014, when Jose Mourinho returned to Stamford Bridge. Or in 2009 when Carlo Ancelotti was appointed. Or even back in 2004 when Mourinho arrived for the first time. Chelsea are about to win their fifth Premier League title since Arsenal last won it. It is hard to see, under the current management, how Arsenal can ever make that leap again.