By Tony Attwood
I can’t remember how long ago it was I started writing weekend match previews, but however long it was I don’t think I have ever seen newspaper pre-match coverage as vitriolic and anti-Arsenal as we have had in the build up to tomorrow’s game. (4.30pm at Arsenal Stadium in case you missed the details previously).
It is a game of some importance for this early in the season, as the table shows, although of course as every season shows us, what the table looks like after two matches doesn’t necessarily tell us much about how it will look at the end. But still victories at the start are encouraging.
As for Chelsea the fact is that they have scored seven and let in five, and they are playing Arsenal who have scored four and let in none. So it would seem something is going to give. The notion of Arsenal suddenly letting in three or four seems unlikely while the notion of Chelsea suddenly being able to shut up shop seems also, well, unlikely. Arsenal will of course concede some goals at some stage but if we remember last season, the difference between the two clubs was fairly large.
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
38
|
26
|
7
|
5
|
71
|
27
|
44
|
85
|
|
|
38
|
14
|
10
|
14
|
58
|
52
|
6
|
52
|
There once again we see some decent levels of scoring by Chelsea (not as good as Arsenal but ok) but with that being equaled by a defense with a habit of letting it all slip.
But perhaps we might look at the list of Chelsea managers since 22 December 2019 – the day that Mikel Arteta joined Arsenal- and we have 11 of the managerial fellows sitting in the seat at Chelsea. Out of these Xabi Alonso can claim a 100% win record that is with two league games and a league cup match (Chelsea having to start the league cup early since they didn’t do very well in the league last season).
And if you really want to do some digging to find a Chelsea win you would then have to return to 2021-22 season, when Arsenal had Rob Holding and Pablo Marí playing as the two central defenders. Chesea did indeed win that game.
So yes, Chelsea will be encouraged and might well give us a good game, but I am really not too sure about their ability to cause Arsenal that much trouble, despite having played three and won three.
I suppose one of the major influences for me, in thinking ahead to this game, is that the constant changing of managers never seems to work anywhere. Tottenham are of course great exponents of this approach and we can see what has happened to them.
Anyway, having written that previous paragraph, I have been looking to find details of the most managers any club has had in the Premier League era, simply because it is a Saturday and Arsenal aren’t playing til tomorrow. And what I found was that Southampton hold the all-time record for total permanent managers in the competition. Tottenham are second with 21 managers in that time (although one source quotes 22, but I don’t think that is an important enough statistic to spend time seeing who is right) and Chelsea are just behind them with 19 managers.
After that comes West Ham, Newcastle and Everton. And what links these clubs together is that by and large they haven’t won the Premier League very often – if at all.
Now I didn’t know (but I guessed) which club would be at the bottom of the list, and I was right – it is of course Arsenal with five managers. Of the other clubs still in the league, we then have ManU with seven and Liverpool with nine.
So as a generality we can say that changing managers doesn’t work as a way of taking a club up the league – hence my constant support for each new Tottenham manager.
But anyway, Chelsea have a new manager, and have made a good start to the season, and obviously there is nothing thee to be taken for granted.
Yetthere is one other factor – they do seem to have picked up on the goal scoring side of things this preseason and in the opening games. They beat Brighton 4-3 in their match last weekend and managed a couple past Luton in the League Cup at home.
Prior to that it was a 2-3 away victory at Fulham in the League and they rounded off their run of pre-season warm up games with a 3-1 win over Real Sociedad. All of which seems to look like a fairly decent run of goal scoring, although I just wonder what it leaves the defence looking like.
Mind you at the start of the friendly season Chelsea were beaten at home by Tottenham Hots 1-2.
Tony maybe we should study up on journalese so, the basics :-
A 0-0 draw is a dull, boring, lacklustre, turgid, travesty of a match and as far as Arsenal are concerned , it spells imminent disaster because now we’re a team in terminal decline. However for the opposition it was a gritty display that bodes well for the future and if either one of their 2 shots had been on target it would have been a different story .
A 1-0 win is also a dull, turgid, boring, lacklustre game and Arsenal’s blushes we’re spared by their fortuitous shot shot on goal completely fooling the goalkeeper by the 17 deflections and a brain freeze moment by defensive stalwart as the ball squirmed into the net otherwise the plucky efforts of Boggs deserved that motm award far more than Saka’s dribble beating 8 men and finally ending in a crunching tackle that the Arsenal player should have been sent off for for exagerrating the severity of the challenge by calmly picking up his severed limb and asking that the ref not red card Kray ” cos he’s not that kind of player.” while the home crowd chanted ” same ol’ Arsenal always bleeding”.
pt2 follows soon…
2-0 is a routine win . and at least 3 Arsenal players should’ve been sent off for disrespecting opposition fans by running up to the Gunners faithfull and looking happy which is tantamount to inciting violence and at least 2 opposition fans were quite upset and tearfull had to be counselled the FA will be launching a full enquiry and sanctions could include points being deducted, and/or a
£20 million fine.