Straight back into today with a 12.45 kick off at Stamford Bridge. It’s not exactly ideal after a European away trip, but Arsene Wenger is not prepared to use travel as an excuse:
Chelsea play as well and it is part of our job. I don’t think it will be a massive problem for us, but we will see. I think we have gone down the way where we have to accept that television decides when you are going to play. We have to accept that.
As the saying goes, ‘When you take the coin you must accept that the coin-throwers do sayeth whenst the matches must be playest’. I just made that saying up, but it’s true. Clubs have no grounds to complain about fixture times when they so freely rake in the cash that they then save up into a giant pile before diving into it like Scrooge McDuck. And when I say clubs, I mean Arsenal, of course.
The team today will be the same one that beat Stoke last weekend. Hector Bellerin and Aaron Ramsey will come in on the right hand side; Monreal and Coquelin at left-back and midfield ahead of Gibbs and Arteta; with Theo Walcott up front in place of Olivier Giroud who is probably still feeling a bit sad. The manager said he hasn’t yet decided who will start, but I’d be amazed if it wasn’t Walcott.
In goal Petr Cech will come in for David Ospina to play his first game at Stamford Bridge as part of the opposition. It’s not something the manager thinks will cause him any real problems and there’s no special info he can impart other than his vast experience:
I just want him to focus on this game and not be influenced by that. You can’t go there and wonder if you’re standing in the right goal or not. He is so experienced that I don’t need to talk to him about that. Our individual performances will be more important than what he knows. There is no massive secret in that.
We know Chelsea have been having their problems domestically so far this season. They’ve been unexpected but obviously amusing for pretty much everyone. They’ve looked dysfunctional, defensively suspect and they haven’t really clicked at all from an attacking point of view.
However, I’d be suspicious that this is a game they feel can kick-start their season. A win over Arsenal would certainly do plenty for confidence and belief, and we should remember that despite their recent issues we’re facing the current champions at a ground we’ve lost at 5 times from the last 6 games there. That bonkers 5-3 came under the watch of Andre Villas-Boas, a man so incompetent he went on to become manager of Sp*rs, so I think things will be a lot different today.
From Arsene Wenger’s point of view, there must be a temptation to have a go and really try and turn the screw, but with so much pace in our team through Alexis, Walcott, Bellerin and Ozil (far quicker than people think), it makes more sense to be cautious, stay solid and try and take our chances on the break when they come.
And for me it’s taking the chances that will be key. We’re not going to get as many opportunities as we did last week against Stoke, so it comes down to being more efficient with what we do create. If we hack wide in front of open goal or spoon one over when it’s easier to score, that will probably come back to bite us on the arse. That’s relevant to all of our forward players by the way, not just the one picked as striker.
We go into this game having kept three clean sheets in our last three Premier League games. The midweek buffoonery from a defensive point of view involved players who won’t be playing today, so hopefully the return of our best back four and goalkeeper will enable us to add to that record today. Similarly, I think Chelsea will have focused on that side of their own game, they’re not used to being so porous at the back, and knowing how much Mourinho hates conceding goals (to be fair, Mourinho seems to pretty much hate everything but this is close to the top of his list for sure), I think they’ll be set-up to make an improvement in that regard.
Whether that brings about a staid 0-0 remains to be seen. Given their situation and how many points they’ve dropped already this season, there’s probably more onus on Chelsea to have a go. A draw wouldn’t be a bad result for us at all, but they really need to make up some of the ground on Man City if they want to retain their title this season. Perhaps they might get a bit more adventurous late on, but we’ll see.
I suspect for both sides this is a game where not losing is the first priority. For them it would be another huge blow as their dreadful start to the season continues; for us yet one more game at their place where we fell short – coupled with the knowledge we’ve given them the shot in the arm they needed.
It’s hard to call this one, and while I’d obviously love us to go there and take all three points, if we came away with one I’d be happy enough I think.
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As always we’ll have full live blog coverage of the game for you. Drop back here before kick-off to find a post with all the details and how to join the live blog comment crew, or you can bookmark the default live blog page and updates will begin automatically.
If you haven’t yet had a chance to listen to this week’s Arsecast you can do that here or via the player below, that’ll help pass some of the time until kick off.
We’ll have all the reports, goals, reaction, stats and more on Arseblog News after the game too, so until then, fingers crossed. Come on you reds.
