Chelsea Preview

By: Martin | May 9th, 2009

Chelsea

Current Position: 3rd, 22-8-5 (74 points, +38 goal differential)

Away Form: 12-2-3

Recent Form: WWDWW

Last Meeting: Arsenal 1-Chelsea 2 (4/18/09) (neutral site)

Well, the Chelsea rematch is tomorrow. It’s kind of a “rubber match” of sorts with our London rivals–we beat them 2-1 at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season, and they beat us 2-1 at Wembley last month. “Best 2 out of 3,” I suppose.

Regardless, this game feels strangely anticlimactic to me. Neither team can win the league at this point, and both teams will be extremely demoralized by what happened this week–Chelsea because they played good enough to win but didn’t, us because we didn’t play anywhere near good enough to win.

What about 3rd place, you ask? As I’ve said before here, there’s a big difference between finishing 3rd and 4th this year because of the change in the Champions League qualifying rules. But frankly, I just don’t think we can catch Chelsea. We’re 6 points down, and they’ve got a big lead in goal differential. So, practically, we’ve got to make up 7 points on them in 3 games. Even if you assume we beat them tomorrow, we’ve got to make up 4 points in the remaining 2 games against United and Stoke. Chelsea, on the other hand, has Blackburn at home and Sunderland away. If they win either of those games, they lock up 3rd. I’d love to be optimistic about it, but I just don’t see it happening.

So I think both teams will be kind of emotionally exhausted and burned out from everything that happened mid-week. There’s nothing really to play for other than pride. But pride is important–to put it simply, it’s always a big game when Arsenal plays Chelsea, even if nothing is tangibly on the line. I won’t get too negative, but if you read this regularly, you know I don’t like Chelsea. I think they’re my least favorite team in the Premiership. I don’t like the “outspend everyone” team-building strategy, I don’t like their style of play, which is effective but unappealing, and I don’t like the way they carry themselves, with the diving and constant harassment and bullying of the officials. So even if it won’t win us any trophies or ultimately improve our league position, I don’t like them and I want to beat them. I hope our players feel the same way.

We’re playing at home, which is an advantage for us, although Chelsea have actually been much better away than they have at home this year. I’m really interested to see how the teams respond. How do we respond to being soundly beaten and embarrassed at home by one of your biggest rivals? How do they respond to being in control of a match for 180+ minutes, only to see it suddenly evaporate at the last second? Both are devastating, in different ways, and it will be interesting to see mentally how the squads come out. Wenger said “it’s down to the team that deals best with disappointment.” I think that’s right.

Bad news for us is that Arshavin may be out with the flu (presumably of the human, not swine, variety)–hopefully if he can’t play he’ll climb into his tiny bed and take a thimbleful of medicine and be ready to come out and give United some problems next week. Probable lineup:

Almunia

Sagna-Toure-Djourou-Gibbs

Walcott-Fabregas-Song-Nasri

Adebayor-van Persie

Here’s hoping we can come back with a stong performance. It’s always nice to beat Chelsea and we could do with a win over a quality side to boost our confidence after the terrible performance on Tuesday. Gibbs, in particular, could use a good performance to wash the bad taste out of his dreadful mistake on Tuesday out of his mouth. If nothing else, the game’s an excuse to drink on Sunday morning.

Come on Arsenal.