Match Preview: Chelsea v Arsenal; Another Chance to Kickstart the Season
If you thought week one of the Premier League season was frustrating, its likely not going to get better for you this week as Arsenal head across town to visit Stamford Bridge and take on local rival Chelsea. For a team still trying to find its identity under new coach, Unai Emery, starting home and away to Man City and Chelsea was as nightmare a scenario as you can expect.
Still, maybe we’re looking at this weekend’s fixture all wrong. Maurizio Sarri is in a similar predicament to his Arsenal counterpart in that he is trying to overhaul a team’s playing approach. And against Huddersfield Town, even though they were walk-away winners, its wasn’t as easy or as clean as you’d expect.
Arsenal have a chance against Chelsea. They are no longer the bogey team they’ve been for us. Since 2015, we’ve gone 5W 3L 3D in all competitions. Given the poor previous run, it’s a marked improvement. So, we can dispense with that nonsense early on.
A lot of it is going to depend on Emery’s approach. Unlike Arsene Wenger who we knew how he wanted to play, Emery likes to set his team up for his opponent. Against, Man City, Emery set his team up to deny the midfield with a passive press and mid-block. The problem for Emery was, that would’ve been good last year.
We know the basics. We know we’ll look to play out of the back. We know that there will be a press. How they are established is what we don’t know.
Playing out of the back isn’t just something to do for Emery, he uses it to pull the opposition in deep and open up the lines to the midfield and forwards. Problem was that we were our own worst enemy as some of our transition play was haphazard looking as if we were almost too nervous with the ball.
Chelsea will also look to press. They won’t be as structured or confident as City were. In fact, a few weeks ago in Dublin we saw it, albeit with different personnel than we’ll see tomorrow. It wasn’t as aggressive as a Klopp or Pochettino press nor was it as passive as a Pep or Emery press. It was just there.
In that game we handled that alright, but it will remain to be seen whether the change in personnel alters Sarri’s approach.
To handle our press, we should expect Chelsea to look for the long ball over the top with the striker looking to flick the ball on to runners in behind. Last week, Morata did this with limited success, which is why I suspect our old flame, GQ Giroud could be in for a start against his old club. His play up top trying to break a press could be instrumental for the home side.
The trouble for us could come if Emery looks to establish a passive press and mid-block again. Against City we effectively took away the midfield as the illustration below shows. Against other teams this could be effective, however, against City, they adjusted and with players out wide who are good with the ball at their feet, we got victimized especially Ainsley Maitland-Niles prior to being taken off with an injury.
Like City, Chelsea have some players on the wings that could do damage against Arsenal in a similar fashion to last week. Hazard would be the big concern here.
Overall, the hope is we also see some improvement in our attacking play. Against City, we had opportunities but failed to capitalize due to uncharacteristically poor final balls in and around the 18. If Arsenal can clean that up as well as quickening the transition play, we should fare better than last week.
Because it’s Chelsea I think the tendency is to think negative, but it bares mentioning they aren’t in too dissimilar a boat to us as well. It will really depend on which team gets their shit together first.
The Head Coach’s Take (courtesy Arsenal.com)
The first game gives us more information about things to improve and also things to continue doing. It’s clear that the result was the first [objective] we wanted. But it was Manchester City’s day. We need to continue with our work to make the differences in the next match and in the future. For me, what was most important was the players know the positive things we did in this game and also the things we need to improve on and work more for.
First, we want to build a competitive team. We are going to play away but we need to keep our personality, keep our mentality, because I think on Sunday against Manchester City, the team kept their ideas, kept their spirit in the game for the full 90 minutes, even when we were losing, and didn’t let [their heads] go down. That was a good thing, [despite] us losing 2-0. I want us to continue with this work and to be completive for 90 minutes, but with a better performance than on Sunday, both individually and collectively. We want a good preparation before and a good response on the pitch to that preparation.
We played two or three weeks ago against Chelsea, but with different players on the pitch, to Saturday – Hazard, Kante, Giroud, Kovacic. The personality we want to play with will be the same in this match. It will be different because both teams could have different players on the pitch, but it’s a good reference match to work with ahead of this Saturday against Chelsea.
Players To Watch
Arsenal: Alexandre Lacazette. His introduction had an instant impact when he came on. Can he and Aubameyang get Arsenal going if they are paired together from the start?
Chelsea. Olivier Giroud. At some point the former Arsenal man will come on. Will have the impact of a late second sub or work to be the outlet to disrupt Arsenal’s press?
Probable Lineups
Probable Lineups for Chelsea v ArsenalInjuries and Suspensions
Arsenal: Koalsinac (knee) Koscielny (knee) Maitland-Niles (tibula)
Chelsea: Fabregas (knee), Cahill (fitness) Van Ginkel (knee)
Match Officials
Referee: Martin Atkinson
Assistants: Lee Betts, Stephen Child
Fourth official: Jonathan Moss
Broadcast Information
UK: BT Sport 17.30 GMT
US: NBC 12.30 PM EST
Match Facts (courtesy BBC.co.uk)
- Chelsea have won five of their last six home league games against Arsenal, with the exception last season’s goalless draw.
- Arsenal have failed to score in four of their last five Premier League visits to Stamford Bridge.
- The Gunners have kept clean sheets in their last two league and cup games at Stamford Bridge. They have not recorded three successive shut-outs there since 1924.
- The Gunners could fail to score in their opening two Premier League fixtures for the first time since 2012, when they began with goalless draws against Sunderland and Stoke.
- The last Arsenal boss to lose his first two matches in charge was Steve Burtenshaw, who suffered defeat in his first three games as a caretaker in March and April 1986.
- The Gunners have lost seven of their last eight away league games, with their only win coming at Huddersfield on the final day of last season.
- They lost 11 top-flight away matches last season, equalling their highest tally in the Premier League (set in 1994-95, in a 42-game campaign).
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s next league goal will be his 150th in the top five European leagues.
YAMA Predicts:
Chelsea 2 – 2 Arsenal
