Five minutes had gone when Jose Mourinho went 1-0 up at Stamford Bridge yesterday.
The ball went out of play near the dugouts for an Arsenal throw-in and a ballboy gathered it as Kieran Gibbs and Mesut Ozil converged on him.
Mourinho leapt up on the sideline, motioning to the lad to throw the ball to him instead.
As the Arsenal players gestured to be given the ball, the ballboy looped it over their heads into Mourinho’s arms.
Mourinho pointed to the spot where he thought the Arsenal throw-in should be taken and handed the ball over.
As Arsene Wenger fumed a few yards away, Mourinho beamed at the ballboy and gave him the thumbs up.
Wenger never really got back into the contest after that. In fact, he fell further behind.
No one gets under the Arsenal manager’s skin quite like the Chelsea boss. Not even Alan Pardew. And yesterday Wenger let it show.
However fleetingly, Wenger actually morphed into Mourinho for a few angst-ridden seconds after a terrible tackle by Gary Cahill on Alexis Sanchez.
Wenger advanced on the eye-gouger and serial agent provocateur and gave him a shove as Mourinho stood astonished in his technical area.
Wenger packed years of frustration, anger, dislike and powerlessness into that push. He may even wish he had put a bit more into it.
There is no one in this world he would like to beat more than Mourinho but he simply can’t do it.
He has had a dozen attempts now during their time together in English football and his score is still zero.
Many empathise with Wenger. Many would love him to put Mourinho in his place. Just once.
But it just isn’t happening and yesterday Wenger achieved what many of us thought was impossible and made Mourinho look like the wronged party.
That must have been even more galling for the Frenchman because it allowed Mourinho to play the magnanimous victor.
It is not often Mourinho is able to tread the moral high ground in clashes between these two men.
See the best pictures from Chelsea's 2-0 victory over Arsenal:
“I do many wrong things in football,” the Portuguese said after his side’s 2-0 victory, “but not today.”
Wenger smiled broadly when it was put to him afterwards in a room full of journalists that he had been out of line.
“I trust you guys will teach me all the moral lessons for the next three weeks,” Wenger said with heavy sarcasm.
The root of Wenger’s frustration was that Chelsea, once more, appear a team out of Arsenal’s reach.
The Gunners may be improving in quality and spirit but they still looked inferior to Chelsea in every department. They fought and scrapped as if their lives depended on it yet they were not quite good enough.
Danny Welbeck shone against Galatasaray. He found it a lot harder against Cahill and John Terry.
Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny are an excellent defensive partnership but for Chelsea’s second, clinching goal, they were undone by a magnificent ball from Cesc Fabregas and a superb finish by Diego Costa.
At the final whistle, there was no handshake between the two men, no reconciliation.
There will be no rapprochement between the best enemies in the Premier League. No softening. It has gone too far for that.