Steely Arsenal! Arsene Wenger hails his team’s ‘steel and style’

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger hailed his side's "style and steel" to overcome a recent hoodoo against Chelsea and come away with a 3-0 win at the Emirates.

First-half strikes from Alexis Sanchez, Theo Walcott and Mesut Ozil were enough to earn Arsenal their first Premier League victory against Chelsea since October 2011.

The Frenchman, who celebrates his 20th anniversary as Arsenal manager next week, was delighted with the performance to secure the win that moves them up to third in the table.

He told BT Sport: “I am very happy because we needed to change the recent history, I thought we did it with style and steel and that’s what we wanted. I think we were committed with discipline.

“We lost (Francis) Coquelin — and Granit Xhaka came on and straight away he was at the level of the game and that makes a big difference.

“We want to play with technical qualities and pace and I hope that this kind of performance convinces the players that we are on the right way but we still have room for improvement.”

Speaking about the central defence partnership Shkodran Mustafi and Laurent Koscielny, Wenger said: "I think they had an outstanding performance, both of them are committed and intelligent, technically sound so overall I am pleased."

Wenger's delight was in sharp contrast to the furrowed brow of Chelsea boss Antonio Conte, who oversaw his heaviest league defeat for six years since he was manager of Italian side Siena.

“I think that we didn’t have the right attitude from the first minute,” he said. “After today we are thinking we must work a lot because we are a great team only on paper.”

He refused to single out an out-of-form Gary Cahill, whose dawdling led to Sanchez stealing the ball off him and opening the scoring.

“I don’t want to talk about the mistake. It is not right for the player. We win and lose as a team,” said Conte.