With our title challenge showing its Achilles heel, today is an excellent chance to make amends for our paper-thin lead at the top of the table by getting a win against Chelsea.
It should be straightforward, shouldn’t it? Chelsea have, by all accounts, had a ridiculously awful season. Their downward trajectory has continued after Jose Mourinho’s slapstick departure, but “heroic” draws against Everton and West Bromwich Albion (West Brom, for crying out loud) are plastering over the cracks. Be it under Mourinho or Guus Hiddink, they’ve looked consistently bad for the entirety of this season.
Sure, you could say Diego Costa and the others are regaining their mojo and looking like their older selves, but they’re still a pretty hapless side. The league table doesn’t lie – all the evidence points to them keeping their noses above a relegation skirmish. The club, its fans (and even some of the players) may be bracing themselves for a loss at the Emirates Stadium.
But after Southampton happened to us (who were in similar straits to Chelsea), it’d be utterly foolish to take our opponents for granted. Let’s not forget that we haven’t beaten them in the league for more than four years after that quite crazy 5-3 at Stamford Bridge. On paper, the odds of us winning this game should be high, but we all know an Arsène Wenger side isn’t the most predictable under the pressure of expectation against a big team.
Our back five should be pretty standard, with Petr Čech, Hector Bellerin, Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal manning the defence. The returns of Francis Coquelin and Tomas Rosicky are far too early for them to start (or be benched) today, so I’d expect Mathieu Flamini and Aaron Ramsey to keep their places.
However, if he’s fit enough to play today, I wonder if Mikel Arteta would be a better alternative to Flamini. It’s not that the Frenchman has been particularly terrible since his enforced stint, but Arteta had a certain knack of bringing the best out of Ramsey.
There’s been a notable dys-functionality in the Flamini-Ramsey (Flamsey?) axis in the middle of the park, and maybe Arteta would add some discipline to that area. And in context of the whole game, having a midfielder to keep play ticking against a Chelsea side presumably happy to give us the lion share of possession isn’t the worst thing. It’s certainly implausible, but just a thought.
The return of Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez has been the highlight of a pretty dry week, but I doubt the latter would get a start today. And he shouldn’t, of course. Like any other player, Sánchez should be eased into the team, particularly because we need to keep him firing for the season’s end segment. Joel Campbell’s form means that we don’t necessarily need him to start today. Having said that, seeing a sprightly over-enthusiastic Chilean on the substitutes bench isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Theo Walcott and Joel Campbell should occupy the wings with Olivier Giroud as the lone center forward. Speaking of which, despite his sensational goalscoring form and the output he’s giving, I wonder if Wenger has tabs on the minutes Giroud has been playing. Özil’s got his rest, but Giroud hasn’t. Perhaps the return of Alexis would mean Theo starts instead of Giroud sometime in the future, if not today.
Today is, make no mistake, a must-win. We haven’t covered ourselves in glory the past couple of league fixtures, which are bound to get more demanding as time passes. Leicester City’s win over Stoke means only a win will keep our noses ahead in the title race. The fact that it’s against Chelsea ups the scales considerably, and what worries me is our reaction to that.
Will we cower and misplace passes and lose our tactical sense, gifting them a “freak” win? Or will we rise up to the occasion, dominating our opponent and getting past them comfortably? Any outcome would be a damning indicator of our psychological mettle, of not title credentials.
Come on Arsenal.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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