Arsenal just as ‘shaky’ as Mourinho’s Chelsea when someone their own size picks on them | OneFootball

“They play a style of football you don’t see a lot any more,” Jose Mourinho said of Bolton with precisely zero hint of irony.

His Chelsea side had just drawn 2-2 against Bolton – the first of only two times in that entirely absurd season the Blues conceded twice in a Premier League game.

The other was against Arsenal and the might and majesty of Thierry Henry. But against Sam Allardyce’s collection of bruising yet brilliant technical giants, it was a towering centre-half who caused them the future champions to, as the Bolton manager put it, “feel a little shaky”.

Radhi Jaidi had a hand in Kevin Davies’ goal to halve the deficit at Stamford Bridge, before capping an excellent defensive display with a fine volley from a Davies flick-on in the closing stages.

More than two decades later and with Arsenal hoping to breathe that same rarefied rearguard air as the meanest defence in Premier League history, their cruise control to the title saw the wheels wobble somewhat with an unexpected crash into a hulking Ballard.

The Arsenal academy graduate is eternally grateful for their role in his development but Dan Ballard has found a home at Sunderland. And it is mightily loud.

There are similarities between the side Regis Le Bris has carefully constructed and the Allardycian Bolton vintage: the marriage between physicality and footballing intelligence; the blend of known names and hidden gems with equal measures of point to prove; the horrible throwback experience it must be to face them in opposition.

Those are not insults; far from it. They are badges of honour to wear for a side following footsteps which are proven to challenge and unsettle the elite. Sunderland are in the Champions League places entirely on merit.

And through that prism it is easy to define this as a perfectly cromulent Arsenal draw. The only points they have dropped in the Premier League this season have been to the teams currently in 2nd, 3rd and 6th. Beat the rest and that should be enough.

But Sunderland are, of course, supposed to be part of that rest. They are a team Arsenal are expected to beat, no matter their stunning home record, impressive manager, wonderful squad and inspirational support.

It can only really be points dropped, especially having trailed and then led, even with the absences in their squad. Yet on a weekend when Manchester City host Liverpool there are worse times to falter.

Mikel Arteta will be content to escape with something. He might even spin the loss of the clean sheet record as a positive, a reminder to his players that the standards are exacting and any slip can be terminal. It had threatened to become an all-consuming distraction from their very real and tangible objectives this season. When they recovered from Ballard’s glorious opener to lead through Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard it felt like the most important game of their campaign.

Two open-play goals in a comeback win against a ludicrously difficult home team? Arsenal supporters have taken a justifiable and perverse pleasure in 1-0-from-a-set-piecing their way to glory but that would have been a tough one for the critics to spin and manipulate.

The Saka strike was stunning, Declan Rice swarming the dallying Enzo Le Fee before feeding Mikel Merino to play in the captain to score.

Then Trossard produced a moment of grandeur, opening the angle and space to fire past Robin Roefs from outside the area.

Individual genius had aligned with the incision of an exceptional team move to turn the game on its head.

Yet it was Ballard who had both the final say and the epilogue, Jaidi-ing his way into the area in stoppage time to flick a Trai Hume cross up for Brian Brobbey to finish ahead of Gabriel Magalhaes, before conjuring a wonderful block on a goal-bound Mikel Merino effort minutes later.

Sunderland’s style is far from rare, especially in this slightly more rudimentary Premier League season. But it is undeniably effective and enduring, and an approach even the best team in the league struggled to contain.