Arsenal Vs Chelsea

Arsenal Vs Chelsea
Sunday 26th April: 16:00 BST
Emirates Stadium


An interesting Clash

Arsenal host Chelsea in a match which is interesting in many ways. Chelsea are soon to be the champions while Arsenal are probably the best team in the league on current form and style. There isn't much on stake in this match as some would have wanted. There was a very little glimpse for the gunners when the gap towards the top was shortening, however that's not the case anymore and the match isn't going to change anything regardless of the outcome. But Arsenal Vs Chelsea is rarely just an ordinary match. With Mourinho back, and with return of the snake fabregas, things will be interesting on Sunday. Ozil has done more than Fabregas ever could in 7 seasons of fraudery. But without a doubt Cesc will score and celebrate Adebayor style while french kissing the chelsea badge. Just hoping he gets bood out of the emirates.

But yea back to the point, I think this is our best chance of winning against Mourinho. We are on a great run and I don't see why we can't beat them. It will all come down to mentality in the end. Chelsea will obviously come to park the bus and hit on the counter. It's our job to make sure we are not naive and fall in that trap. We need to play appropriately and make our dominance count.

I hope this is the match where we really step forward and send out a message for everyone about next season.

Team News

For Arsenal, Everyone is fit apart from Mertesacker, Arteta and Oxlade. Could see Gabriel start. Wilshere Bench probably.


Probable Arsenal Team

----------------------------------------Ospina-----------------------------------
Bellerin-------------------Gabriel---------------------Koscielny----------Monreal
-----------------------Coquelin-----------Cazorla-------------------------------
Ramsey-------------------------Ozil---------------------------------Sanchez
-------------------------------Giroud-------------------------------------------

Probable Chelsea Team

---------------------------------Cortouis-----------------------------------------
Ivanovic---------------Terry---------------Cahill--------------------Azpilicueta
--------------------------Matic-----------Fabregas-------------------------------
Willian-----------------------------Oscar------------------------------Hazard
---------------------------------Costa--------------------------------------------

Match Facts - FourFourTwo

• Olivier Giroud has scored 10 goals in his last 12 matches in all competitions.
  
• Arsene Wenger has lost just five competitive home games by a 3+ goal margin during his tenure as Arsenal manager; three of which have come against Chelsea.
  
• Didier Drogba has scored eight times in 11 Premier League appearances against Arsenal in his career. Against no team has he scored more in the division (also scored eight vs WBA).
  
• Jose Mourinho has never lost as an opposition coach against Arsene Wenger in any competition (W7 D5 L0).
  
• Arsenal have won just two of their last 12 league clashes with Chelsea (D2 L8).
  
• Chelsea have kept four clean sheets in their last six clashes with Arsenal, conceding just two goals in total.
  
• In the reverse fixture against the Blues back in October, Arsenal failed to have a shot on target for the first time in a Premier League match since September 2003 (Manchester United away).
  
• Cesc Fabregas has a league-high 16 Premier League assists this season. Only Thierry Henry (20 in 2002-03), Frank Lampard (18 in 2004-05) and Fabregas himself (17 in 2007-08) have ever registered more in a single Premier League campaign.
  
• Arsenal have won more points in 2015 than any other Premier League side (33).
  
• Chelsea have scored first in all 20 of their games in all competitions in 2015.
  

Final Say

Flamini at 92nd min to welcome the rat back at the Emirates imo

They are going to be extremely defensive. We need to take risks and mix up our attack. None of this tippy-tappy around the box trying to thread the perfect ball through 10 blue shirts. Don't be afraid to shoot from distance, drive a low hard crosses into the box and hope someone can get on the end of it.

The difference with facing a Mourinho team is that it will be tailored to your specific weaknesses. So whilst contingency plans will need to be made for the likes of Hazard and Fabregas, Wenger is going to have to consider his own team’s foibles. For instance, the Gunners looked susceptible to the counter attack against Reading, Burnley and Liverpool. Reading and Burnley did not have the attacking quality to take advantage.

One can also quite imagine that Eden Hazard would have made a lot more of a particularly threatening Liverpool breakaway than Lazar Markovic managed a few weeks ago. The Gunners have also indulged a peculiar habit of beginning second halves very slowly indeed. Against West Ham, Newcastle, Liverpool, Burnley and Reading, Arsenal allowed their opponents to start the second half on the front foot. Chelsea do not have to win, so I expect them to be very conservative, but don’t be surprised to see them try to up the momentum at the beginning of the second period.

In the past, Chelsea have been quite happy to squeeze Arsenal and force them to congest all of their play into central areas. If Arsenal are to persist with Aaron Ramsey on the right hand side, Wenger is going to have to consider this from an attacking perspective. At the same time, Hazard starts nominally from the left for Chelsea so defensive caution will be required on the right too, so there may be a temptation to play Danny Welbeck there, or else to move Alexis to the right and Ozil to the left, with Ramsey playing in the centre.

Ozil and Alexis are Arsenal’s best players, so Mourinho will certainly make some kind of plan for them. Moving their positions may add an element of surprise, but could equally risk the recent chemistry the two have been creating. There are a plethora of questions to consider, but to some degree, Wenger is probably going to venture outside his comfort zone to slay his greatest foe. He is going to have to turn the microscope inwards to the weaknesses of his own team, whilst taking care not to over-think them.

http://arseblog.com/2015/04/can-wenger-blitz-mourinhos-abyss/

RealGunner wrote:Ozil has done more than Fabregas ever could in 7 seasons of fraudery.

Even you stuttered for a moment when you wrote this.

Anyway, I can't see us winning this one.

Might be tempting fate here, but decided to go hiking on Sunday.

AFC (v #CFC) Ospina, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Cazorla, Ramsey, Ozil, Alexis, Giroud

Bench: Szczesny, Debuchy, Gibbs, Wilshere, Walcott, Flamini, Welbeck

Chesea: Courtois, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta, Matic, Fabregas, Ramires, Oscar, Willian, Hazard

Guys, help me out here. If Chelsea wins today and wins the next game with Arsenal losing or drawing their next game, Chelsea wins the league?

Yea. Chelsea needs to win twice and they will be the champions. Our results don't really matter.

So assuming they win today and again next week, they'll win it with 4 rounds of games left to be played. That's gotta be some kind of a record. And considering Mourinho's obsession with records, he'll do everything he can to make it happen.

On the other hand if Arsenal wins today...

Think teams have won it with more games in hand in the past. Remember United winning the title by like 17 points recently. But not sure.

Even if we win today, we will have to require chelsea losing at least 3 more matches lol.

Title is done. Just hope we get the 2nd.

Deserved to win that. Should have finished one of the chances.

Ah well

Time to finish the season strongly.

Those occasions our full backs got behind to play it across/cut back(Bellerin 1st half/Nacho late on) was best way to hurt them...didnt happen moving on

Spoiler:

Frustrating game, as always against Chelsea. They obviously set-up not wanting to lose the game, and at times we were trying to maneuver the ball through 11 players in one penalty area. I thought we sometimes took a bit too long to move the ball at times, which didn't help. Neither did some of our decision making and final passes.

The first half was good from us, on the whole. We had a good platform for the second half, but a lot of the intensity we had in the first half went out of our game, Chelsea started keeping the ball for longer periods and took a lot of pace out of the game. When we had another good spell of pressure we couldn't find the right final ball again.

It's not a bad result for us, really. I'm annoyed that we still can't beat Mourinho's Chelsea but a point puts us level on points with City with a game in hand, and we at least managed to delay their inevitable title win.

Too bad we didn't knick it with one of those late chances. Finishing was off today for everyone. Overall it was a good, if not great, performance against a team that is hard to beat, and winning the league for a reason. Bellerin coped with Hazard well. Also Coquelin's pass to Giroud in the box around, I think minute 59 (maybe?) was one of the little surprise details.

Silver lining:

The disappointment of putting up a fight against Chelsea (or comparable club) and feeling a little bitter that we didn't take our chances quite well enough

>>>>>>

The disappointment of losing badly and knowing we were played off the pitch, with a bench that isn't deep enough, by a far superior and far better-organized team.

Oh - and imagine telling a Gooner in 2012 that we'd be playing Chelsea, with fit Wilshere, Walcott, Gibbs, and Szczesny on the bench, with Ramsey starting, with Kos-Mert as our defensive partnership (and one most of us are fairly happy with), and Cesc on the pitch ... but in blue.

Wonder what's Arsene planning in terms of starting 11 for the next few games

As Chum said, we have a fit Wilshere, Walcott, Debuchy, even Diaby somewhere.

Will we change our team at all in the upcoming matches? I don't see how benching Cazorla for Wilshere is a bad move. Or Walcott for Cazorla/Ramsey.

Since no one mentioned it yet.

Ozil

He had a great game though despite that fluff.

Just too bunched. 3 players all standing within 5m2 of each other. Need to spread out and provide width. Our best chances came from low cross/pull backs into the box from our fullbacks.