Arsenal v Chelsea: a visit from little Stamford Creek

 

• Why the negative tendencies of commentators discussing Arsenal always end badly
• If the nutters are not stopped, Arsenal will lose their chance of trophies

By Bulldog Drummond

Arsenal play Chelsea on Sunday at 1.30pm which at least gives me a chance to get home in the light for a change, and it is interesting to look at the home v away record of the two clubs.

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
2	Arsenal home	13	8	4	1	27	11	16	28
9	Chelsea away	14	6	3	5	26	21	5	21

 

Chelsea are a mid-table away club but with the ability to knock in the goals (one fewer than Arsenal at home although with one more game played), but their away defence isn’t that clever.

Pre-season the BBC’s predictions for Chelsea were totally valid, although in fact were not predictions at all but a rumination about the club’s recent past.  They said it was…

“Impossible to predict what will happen in the next 20 minutes at Chelsea, let alone what might have happened by the time May rolls around.

“Another season and another new manager. This time it is Enzo Maresca, lured from Leicester City to succeed Mauricio Pochettino, who pieced together the small community that made up his Chelsea squad.”  To be fair he has been doing better than the Poch.  Not much better, but a bit.

Looking at their last six games, we can see them winning and losing in equal measure, and going back further to the last ten games, those figures are the same.  Here’s their last six table, as ever from The Fishy.

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	6	4	2	0	13	6	+7	14
2	Crystal Palace	6	4	0	2	11	5	+6	12
3	Brighton & H	6	4	0	2	11	10	+1	12
4	Arsenal	6	3	2	1	9	3	+6	11
5	Everton	6	2	4	0	12	7	+5	10
6	Tottenham Ho	6	3	1	2	10	6	+4	10
7	Brentford	6	3	1	2	8	5	+3	10
8	Chelsea	6	3	0	3	9	9	0	9

 

Despite the ceaseless talking down of Arsenal, they have only been beaten once in the last six and have improved their goal difference by another six goals across those games.   Chelsea, as you can see, have won and lost in equal measure.

What is also interesting is to see the little bursts from Palace (sixth in the overall table), Everton (14th), Totteenham (12th) and Brentford (15th) of late.   Quite a rise of some of the lower-positioned clubs.

In fact if we take cup games into account as well as league games, Chelsea are on a roll with four successive victories, but if we look at those who they have been playing of late, we can see that it doesn’t quite mean what we might assume it means.   

For Chelsea have the pleasure of playing in the Conference League in Europe, where they have recently beaten the mighty Kobenhavn 1-2 away and 1-0 at home.    And we might also note that  Copenhagen have only won three of their last ten matches in all competitions, so maybe we shouldn’t get too excited about single-goal victories in those games.

But actually, Chelsea really have been having an easy run of it in the last four matches, all of which as noted above, they have won.   Because apart from those two single-goal victories in the Conf. Chelsea have also beaten Southampton 4-0 and Leicester 1-0.

So yes they are victories, and you can only beat who you are drawn against, but perhaps we might remind ourselves as where these two English clubs currently reside…

In fact they are 18th and 19th in the last six games table, and 18th and 19th in the overall league table.   And just to prove I am not making this up, here it is…

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
18	Ipswich Town	28	3	8	17	26	58	-32	17
19	Leicester City	28	4	5	19	25	62	-37	17
20	Southampton	28	2	3	23	20	68	-48	9

 

So my point is that when we see Chelsea with four straight wins of late, three of them were by a single goal, two of them were against a Danish club and the other two were against teams heading for relegation from the Premier League.

So to get a slightly broader picture of recent events here are the last five games in England…

Date	Match	Res	Score	Competition
25 Jan 2025	Manchester City v Chelsea	L	3-1	League
03 Feb 2025	Chelsea v West Ham United	W	2-1	League
08 Feb 2025	Brighton and Hove Albion v Chelsea	L	2-1	FA Cup
14 Feb 2025	Brighton and Hove Albion v Chelsea	L	3-0	League
22 Feb 2025	Aston Villa v Chelsea	L	2-1	League

 

Meanwhile if, like me you have an interest in ludicrous details you might wonder why the Chelsea ground is called Stamford Bridge when their ain’t one (bridge that is).

Apparently there used to be a little stream nearby called Stamford Creek and it had two bridges going over it: the Little Chelsea Bridge and the Stanbridge.    I think Little Stamford Creek would be a name that would combine all the aspects of the club past and present.   Especially as Stamford Creek is now a railway line, which sits behind the East Stand.

So Arsenal v Little Stamford Creek it is.  (And it is funny how supporters of other clubs like to call us Woolwich Arsenal sometimes.  I think we ought to retaliate, although, I know, it’s a bit silly.)