SOCCEREACH CHELSEA player clamped his hand into Avram Grant's as he departed the turf here, a bare-chested Didier Drogba offering his manager a wink as the Israeli savoured this victory.

All around, those who had been barracking him so ferociously from the stands not long before were too lost in delirious celebration to offer their manager an apology. Not that Grant would care. This win has offered a timely vindication of his qualities.

The doubters have been choked, for now. This game had been veering away from Chelsea, their unbeaten league record stretching back a staggering 77 games on the verge of wreckage, when Grant changed his side's system and, in the process, went some way to reinventing his reputation. Everything he touched here in the frantic late exchanges turned to gold.

"When we make a substitution against Newcastle and we win, people say it's a great sub," he offered through a smile. "Sometimes it doesn't work. Today it succeeded, so I'm happy."

He can be ecstatic. Grant had grown visibly weary of suggestions he could not inspire his side against the Premier League's elite, a theory born of defeats to Arsenal and Manchester United earlier in his reign and the ineffective showing by an imbalanced line-up against Tottenham Hotspur in the League Cup final.

There was statistical fact to back up the theory. This was the first win he has inspired against the top seven this term, the FA Cup humiliation at Barnsley deepening the scepticism.

He had argued repeatedly that every match in which Chelsea succumbed mysteriously became "a big game" only in hindsight, though few were buying that as justification. Instead, his every decision last week at White Hart Lane had exploded in his face, cagey substitutions appearing to confuse his players and jettison what should have been a comfortable victory.

For a while here, when Chelsea trailed and the game appeared up, Grant's own standing had plumbed new depths. The chorus of "Jose Mourinho" that erupted after 71 minutes here was deafening. It pursued a similarly vicious rendition of "You don't know what you're doing" after Claude Makelele, waving his arms in baffled fury, and Michael Ballack had trudged from the turf.

The German had merely shaken his head when his number went up. The manager's focus was solely on explaining his changes to sceptical players, the criticism raining down from the stands ignored as he attempted to put his point across to John Terry. "I just concentrate on what I need to do," he said. "I'm confident in that."

This still smacked of a gamble, the withdrawal of the midfield shield in Makelele against an Arsenal side at their most dangerous on the counterattack.

Terry appeared to need some persuasion as to what the switches would involve. Didier Drogba looked just as perplexed at first, the assistant manager Steve Clarke serving up a bullet-pointed summary while Grant shuffled back into the dug-out. The manager needed the strategy to work or his own prospects would have been rendered as grim as his side's title chase. Cue redemption and, ultimately, relief.

There was a switch to 4-4-2, the first time Grant has partnered Drogba and Nicolas Anelka as a traditional front pair, with Joe Cole pinned to the right flank and Salomon Kalou to the left. Desperation ensured the play was more direct but, in the chaos that ensued, Arsenal were duly battered into submission.

"We want to play in two systems," explained the manager. "We changed things around and had two great chances before, maybe more than two chances, so we wanted to put more pressure on the defence."

It was all too much for the visitors. Juliano Belletti and Anelka played a part in Drogba's scrappy winning goal and, by the time Grant introduced Mikel John Obi, this game was edging towards conclusion and the required return to 4-3-3 mattered little.

The final whistle had Grant bellowing in celebration into his coat, his eyes never leaving the turf.

There is a geekiness to Grant even in victory, yet on this occasion he can be forgiven anything.