How Arsenal's unlikely trio repelled Chelsea's daunting double act.

The tall, lean figure had been written off. Yesterday’s man; too old. Time to move on. And yet here he was winning the FA Cup with an extraordinary performance of intelligence, desire, organisation and resilience that once again showed why sport is such a remarkable thing, how its power can be so redemptive and also so gloriously unpredictable.

Not just, then, for Arsène Wenger but for Per Mertesacker, the big German to whom Wenger had to turn amid a defensive crisis, starting his first match since April 30, 2016, against Norwich City. That was 392 days before this final.



By Jason Burt.
Full story at Yahoo News.