It’s the Derby day and it couldn’t have been anymore important than this. We are sitting on 6th position, tied up on points with Chelsea and whoever wins today at Stamford Bridge goes to third position behind Liverpool and City, with only 2 points difference to the latter. Liverpool are on a brilliant run but they will have their bad moments at some point, all we can do is play our best, accumulate as much points as possible and hope for the best.
Right, so what has happened which is favoring us? Man City lost to Brighton even after scoring first – that’s 3 very important points lost for them. Forest, which sits above us just lost to Newcastle. Aston Villa lost. And not that it’s important to talk about other small clubs but Tottenham just lost at home to Ipswich Town. All we have to do is win and we are back in the mix.
Line up is out. Odegaard is back and we have our strongest playing XI on the pitch against Chelsea. Timber and White on either side with Gabriel and Saliba in the center, a midfield of Partey, Rice and Odegaard with Martinelli, Havertz and Saka up top. That’s our best line up, may be Calafiori in place of White but there isn’t much drop in quality.
We will have to see whether Odegaard picks up his form after being side-lined with injury for couple of months now. We need him at his best though.
The only thing that’s wrong about today is Michael Oliver. After gifting City 9 extra minutes and a win against 10-men Arsenal, he has been rewarded to referee a London Derby which features Arsenal. Stay prepared to see some silly decisions.
Chelsea have improved massively under Maresca. Mikel, after our Champions League loss, said in the press conference that we can go and win at Stamford Bridge if we play the way we played against Inter Milan. I think it’s foolish to commit such statement against a rival for a Derby and when you are a visiting side. It just puts some un-needed pressure on the players, managers and everyone around the club. UNLESS you walk the talk.
Most importantly, we need to fix our basics and get back to the attacking football. That 10-men game against City has dented our confidence and we need to get out of it. We have failed to score against Inter, against Bournemouth and Newcastle and that’s not a good thing. Frankly, I love Marti but he should force his way to the middle and start contributing in terms of goals and assists. It’s not like he hasn’t got chances.
Right, a short one today. Game’s in 15 odd minutes and hopefully we paint the bridge red today. See you during the game.
Cheers
…Spurs…😁
Great scene-setter Ambarish. We have a pretty strong team out today. I think we’ll have enough. I reckon Havertz will be looking to play a central role.
KP
Spurs always give us reasons to laugh, even in worst of our days haha
Mikel got best of his players on the pitch, there should not be a reason to play bland football and not win.
Tony—as for Kudus, I have mixed feelings…he likely has what it takes to sit behind Saka, but I wouldn’t want to overpay for him simply to assume that role and I very much doubt he would want to move here for those purposes…sometimes I think players like himself and Paqueta look especially good when they’re playing on a side that otherwise plays some rather dire football
Enzo has gone with his more defensive lineup, which favours us a bit…let’s hope that we come out on the front foot
two things:
(1) MA saying such nonsense speaks to his delusional nature…he seems to forget that we didn’t score a fucking goal against Inter, so how would that particular performance help us today
(2) Ambarish—please try to refrain from starting an article with making note of who’s officiating, we hear enough about that kind of shite from our little manager and his minions
TRVL
I have liked what I’ve seen of Kudus but Sullivan wants 90m, and I’d rate him at half that with his current trajectory.
If he wants us let his tell Sullivan and put in a transfer request and not the shit dog and pony show the Rice transfer was.
I’d prefer Isak though.
If Pedro continues and improves on his current form he’s a good fit for us as a better Havertz but Tony Bloom is not an Arteta fan I believe.
considering their lineup, we can likely stay compact so long as when we’re forced into stretching our lines we don’t open up too much space in the middle of the pitch for Palmer
So where’s the booking there?
Tony—like yourself, I’m a big proponent of having Isak up top, as we need someone who can bring some serious directness to our attack…with his height and pace he’s the perfect fit for our current setup, so long as MA’s willing to provide him with the necessary service…as for Bloom, there’s little doubting his disdain for MA, which makes some sense as I would imagine that Tony sees him as an arrogant little prick with Daddy’s credit card
We got lucky there
I didn’t like Raya’s positioning for that Neto cross.
Sanchez is an above average shotstopper, but he’s a bag of toys with the ball at his feet…we should be trying to take full advantage of that situation
he’s offside
It looked offside – I’m more worried about a few of the challenges on Saka.
Right decision. Havertz was clearly offside even looking at distances from the D -lines
all he needed to do was have a look, after all not a single fucking Chelsea player looked to cover him…we have to take advantage of those Xhaka-like situations
Lucky for Chelsea though – their defending / setup was awful.
Marc—I hoping that this match is just physical enough that none of our key players actually play for their respective international sides
TRVL
We need them to pull a Fergie / Giggs and suddenly all be terribly injured for 10 days.
at least we’re looking to make some more direct passes on occasion
We look out of idea’s already. Full starting line up and it’s just cat and mouse.
what a weird period, it’s like both sides ran out of ideas
Tony—halfway around the world yet we’re still on the same page
Chess match TRVL who blinks first
maybe Rice has forgot how to play defence considering all his time further up the pitch
Rice needs to concentrate on his job and stop whining and moaning about something that happened 5 minutes ago.
We need our midfielders to on occasions run with the ball – we hardly ever seem to look to run with the ball from deep creating some space.
Frenetic first half by both teams so looks like I’ll have to stay up for this one.
On the first half basis it could go either way in the 2nd.
Ref is fishy. That was a legitimate push by Odegaard.
Their manager is a shade above El B. They could improve if Gusto is substituted because then Palmer might be utilised more.
Hoopah
The Chelsea manager is a different colour let alone shade above Arteta – he’s been in the job a couple of months and inherited a team that was a complete shambles.
finally some good numbers in the box, too bad White was a little late to get on the end of Mart’s cross
fortunate again…don’t know why we never have our defenders go hunting on occasion
Havertz is leaking again
what a moron
Some of our players really are thick as shit.
Who would anyone say we have on the bench who could change the game?
Ethan can pick a goal but I see no one except Jesus and Trossard who are hit and miss this season.
match is getting chippy…that could help us, as no team flops like ours nowadays
Rice’s dead ball skills have regressed