Jose Mourinho may be the greatest manager since the gods first breathed life into mud, but he is completely wrong about one thing: Arsene Wenger is not a "specialist in failure." Because the Frenchman absolutely succeeded in winning Sunday's hotly contested Sideline Shovefest.
Of course, Wenger did fail at the little things -- from winning the game to even seeing his team score at the Bridge -- but he'll always have that beauty of a shove in his imaginary trophy case.
You'd think that by now, Wenger would know better than to fall for the Special One's calculated mind games. But the Arsenal boss keeps taking the bait as if he's a gullible guppy, instead of the wise 64-year-old shark who has had to endure the Portuguese's trumped-up taunts for the past decade. Of course, the fact that Arsenal has not beaten Chelsea over the past 12 matches might have something to do with his increasing tetchiness.
You might even say that by giving Mourinho a "little shove" (the Frenchman's words, delivered with a smile) in the chest, Wenger was just doing what every other manager in the world has wanted to do for the past decade, only with a lot more gusto.
Let's not forget that in 2011 Mourinho deliberately poked the late Tito Vilanova in the eye during a touchline brawl between Barcelona and Real Madrid. Three years later, he not only still walks the streets a free man but continues to give his opponents metaphorical eye-gougings. Last week, he got under the skin of Manuel Pellegrini (or as Mourinho referred to him, "Pellegrino") to the point that the normally urbane and classy Manchester City manager refused to shake his hand after their fractious 1-1 draw.
The contrast between Mourinho and Wenger before the start of Sunday's game couldn't have been starker, with the former looking more sartorially frayed but much less taut and anxious than the latter. And it hardly helped the Frenchman's mood that the kickoff was delayed 20 minutes because Arsenal fans had allegedly lit flares outside Stamford Bridge in a bizarre "homage" to the Galatasaray supporters who had done the same stupid thing inside the Emirates during their midweek Champions League match.
"And all this time, I thought Arsenal were known for their flair, not flares," quipped Stephanie Norris, one of about 200 smug Chelsea supporters who packed New York's Football Factory to watch the match and kept up a steady drumbeat of chants and songs, even though they still haven't learned how to pronounce their manager's name. For the record, it's Joe-zay, not Ho-say.
But even taking into account that Mourinho tends to bring out the worst in everyone except his players, there's still no excuse for Wenger losing his carefully cultivated sangfroid after Gary Cahill made a nasty 21st-minute studs-up challenge on Arsenal's Alexis Sanchez.
In his wild-eyed charge toward the fourth official to agitate for the Chelsea defender's dismissal, he trespassed in the Chelsea technical area, where Mourinho made it clear he wasn't welcome by gesturing for him to retreat to whence he came. That's when Wenger went all super-villain and pushed him in the chest as soccer fans around the world hoped it was only a prelude to a vigorous bout of MMA.
It would nice to think that Wenger's histrionics were by design, a not-so-subtle means of demonstrating that Arsenal are no longer the crash-test dummies whom Mourinho's men can muscle and kick into submission.
Indeed, the Gunners matched the Blues meaty tackle for meaty tackle, ice-pick elbow for ice-pick elbow, with both teams lucky that ref Martin Atkinson was taking the same let-the-boys-play approach that worked so well for referee Carlos Velasco Carballo in Brazil's slug-fest with Columbia in the 2014 World Cup.
But maybe there was something else at play here. Maybe this was just the latest example of Wenger's increasing desperation to find a way to rouse his team on the big occasions.
Sunday's 2-0 defeat to Chelsea makes it 17 losses in their past 21 away matches against the other top-five sides over the past five seasons. Who can even remember the last heavyweight match Arsenal won in the league? Even the dramatic Fourth-Place Trophy deciders against Everton the past couple of years were either a draw at home or a loss at Goodison. And let's not forget that Andre Villas-Boas' famous "Arsenal are in a downward spiral" comment that propelled the Gunners on a 16-game unbeaten run was uttered after they lost to Spurs.
But Arsenal's big-game implosions under Wenger are certainly nothing new. You can trace them all the way back to the 2006 Champions League final against Barcelona when the Gunners were undone by Jens Lehmann's rash challenge on Samuel Eto'o outside his penalty area in the 18th minute that resulted in a red card for the keeper and Arsenal reduced to 10 men for the rest of the match.
The self-sabotaging errors that led to Chelsea's two goals on Sunday were not as Lehmann-esque but they were major mistakes nonetheless and showed a distinct lack of learning and composure. Not for the first time, Arsenal gave the ball away cheaply in midfield and Eden Hazard, quickly emerging as the most technically gifted player in the Prem, set off on a run of such scorching pace and trickery that he left both Santi Cazorla and Calum Chambers for dead before Laurent Koscielny clumsily brought him down in the box. The Belgian then cool-as-you-like slotted home the penalty kick to make it 1-0 after 27 minutes.
Arsenal responded by briefly making some slick incisions into Chelsea's final third but once there, they had no cutting edge. In fact, other than the one Arsene planted firmly on Jose's sternum, it took the Gunners until the 90th minute to muster a single shot on target.
Danny Welbeck, the hat trick hero of last week's Galatasaray rout, was invisible for most of the game, as Chelsea's stout rear guard denied him the time and space to maneuver. His only significant contribution came in the dying minutes when he launched himself into an over-the-ball, two-footed tackle on Cesc Fabregas that could have easily been a red card.
The former Arsenal talisman was always going to be the center of attention in his first game against his old team and it was depressing to hear him booed by a few chuckleheads in the away section at Stamford Bridge. I mean, how can you jeer a guy who threw a pizza at Sir Alex at Old Trafford?
After a quiet start, Fabregas gradually imposed himself on the game, commanding Chelsea's midfield and showing why Wenger will rue the day he decided not to try to bring him back to the Emirates because he felt there was no room for him in his constellation of ball artists. On the other hand, had Fabregas returned to Arsenal, he'd probably have suffered a season-ending injury by now, which seems to be the inevitable fate of the team's best midfielders over the past five or six seasons.
Instead, he tormented the Gunners with his vision and creativity. Those, of course, were supposed to be two of the qualities that Fabregas' ostensible counterpart, Arsenal's record signing Mesut Ozil, would bring to their attack. But once again, the German appeared listless and frustrated, at one point shaking his head at no one in particular when Fabregas took the ball off his foot in midfield. But that was nothing compared to the defense-cleaving 50-yard pass the Spaniard played over the top of the flat-footed Arsenal defense to Diego Costa in the 78th minute.
The way the ball arrowed directly onto the striker's chest as he powered past the hapless Koscielny, it was as if Fabregas and Costa had been playing together for the past four years instead of just two months. With Wojciech Szczesny hurtling out of his goal to cut down the angle, Costa calmly lobbed the Arsenal keeper for his ninth goal in eight games. It was Fabregas' seventh assist so far this season, more than anyone in Europe's top five leagues and more than the entire Arsenal squad combined.
Arsenal have now been outscored 10-0 in the past four meetings with Chelsea, but that's not to say the Gunners haven't made progress. Only 198 days ago, Arsenal had been down 3-0 after 17 minutes and on Sunday they were deadlocked 0-0 at that same point. In the end, they only surrendered two goals, an improvement of four over last season's 6-0 mauling, and they didn't even have anyone sent off.
Unfortunately, it still isn't good enough. Chelsea are still top of the league, the Gunners are mired in seventh place a full nine points back, and I'm afraid there are still big games to come.
But for now Arsenal can take solace in one thing: Arsene Wenger no longer has to work on his jab.