Arsenal FC aren’t even in the conversation anymore. In a season dominated by the swashbuckling swagger of Liverpool who much like a wild west cowboy walks in and out of bars collecting his bounties, the North London club that once held the honours of the invincibles find themselves 12th in the table on 24 points. They are eight points away from Chelsea and the Champions League spot. They welcome Frank Lampard’s exuberant, unpredictable young side at the Emirates tonight hoping to close the gap and under the tutelage of Arsene Wenger and Pep Guardiola’s protege, Mikel Arteta incrementally restore their lost stature.
We look at a few of the talking points of the match.
The tussle of the greenhorns
“He has worked under one of the greatest, if not the greatest, so I don’t buy the whole ‘Inexperienced One’ tag,” said Chelsea manager Lampard in the pre-match press conference. It was a clever ploy from the former Chelsea legend. While this may be seen as a manager putting respect beside the name of a newcomer, it is also an attempt to try and take the sting away if Chelsea do indeed find themselves on the wrong side of history, being Mikel Arteta’s first-ever scalp as a first-team manager. Lampard has his reasons. This young Chelsea side have been ill-equipped when dealing with high-pressure situations.
Chelsea game will be first high-profile match for Mikel Arteta as Arsenal manager. AP
This derby comes in quick succession after their upset vs Southampton, losing 0-2 at home to goals from Nathan Redmond and Michale Obafemi. Chelsea didn’t carve a single clear chance in the entire game. Captain Ceasar Azpilicueta came out and offered an honest assessment post-match: “It’s true that teams come here with more confidence because they know we haven’t won often at home. Our priority now is to recover the respect at home because it is not normal to lose so many games in your stadium. Why should be the pressure of playing at home should be negative? It should be the other way round.”
Playing their city rivals, close to home, with their travelling crowd turning up in strength for the occasion and because of the proximity of the derby, it can provide the perfect springboard for that turnaround. Arsenal’s home atmosphere too leaves a lot to be desired, and Chelsea could feel at home in the mutual animosity.
In the lead-up to the game, Lampard was asked by reporters to provide an insight into the differences between coach-turned-manager Arteta and himself as managers. Lampard obliged: I remember Arteta as a very intelligent, very technical man. He’s not a fist-pumping type but he is definitely a leader. All qualities that suit him well in management.”
Lampard is one of those fist-pumping kind of managers. His team thrives on high-intensity and quick turnovers in midfield, with the emphasis on getting the ball as high up the pitch as possible as quickly as possible. If the draw vs Bournemouth away is any indication, Arteta prefers a more restrained approach. With Chelsea’s defensive ails and the impetus on a brand of attacking football, it should give the former Arsenal captain ample opportunity to study Chelsea’s openings in-game and funnel their attacks through those channels.
You’ll have to also account for beginner’s luck. Despite the relative newness of the challenge for Arteta, he like Lampard is a former player, and having familiar faces makes the transition easier than it normally is. And if his interviews are anything to go by, he seems well-attuned to the values and the collective direction Arsenal as a whole needs to push towards. A win vs rival Chelsea could accelerate that process manifolds.
Vingança is a dish best served in the cold of the Christmas fixture list
Vingança is the Brazilian word for revenge.
As little back as 2013, Lampard had his arms around team-mate David Luiz as that Chelsea team became part of the club’s history — winning the Europa Cup final vs Benfica. Lampard, the Chelsea manager will now field a side opposite to Arsenal defender and cult favourite, Luiz, knowing full well the Brazilian’s repertoire. That and also his mercilessness when it comes to playing against his former teams. Despite Benfica being the club that made Luiz the man he is, he wasn’t shy of putting a near man of the match display against them that night.
There is a deep-seated resentment between the two. Lampard was the manager who sold the man who was on the cusp of establishing himself as a Chelsea legend to bitter rivals Arsenal in a cut-price deal. Selling a player worth 30 million Euros for less than a quarter of that valuation was like a silent glove across the face.
This was, however, the second time that Chelsea sold the defender, who was deemed as a difficult player to manage in the dressing room and too erratic to be counted upon. Chelsea bought the player back from Paris St. Germain the surprise of many in 2016. In that hiatus, almost as a response to his character assassination attempts in England, a visibly fired-up Luiz knocked the London club out twice in the Champions League in the colours of PSG.
Lampard dodged a question about his former team-mate in the build-up to the match against Arsenal, knowing full-well that the least said about the defender’s controversial second exit from Chelsea the better. The consensus from Chelsea in-the-knows were that Luiz would struggle to play in a high defensive line that Frank was looking to deploy.
Regardless, the Brazilian will be sharpening the invisible knife to put in between his teeth and make the man for whom he was deemed surplus to requirement for, youngster Fikayo Tomori, earn his bread during corners at the Chelsea end.
Ironically, Arteta, in all likeliness will be deploying a high line vs Chelsea — Luiz given the role of the sweeper and Calum Chambers as the stopper, with Bukayo Saka and Maitland-Niles bombing forward either side of them. Lucas Torreira and Matteo Guendozi are expected to play the double pivot that allows Mesut Ozil the liberty to not trackback. All of this hinges on the kind of performance Luiz puts in tonight. A resilient one means he can act as the squash player in the backline who smacks the counters back into the Arsenal midfield. A shaky display means the structural integrity of the Arsenal midfield cog-and-wheel gets compromised.
There is plenty of evidence on the former being situation is more likely than the latter one — and if so, that could spell trouble for a porous Chelsea backline. Luiz after all played with “half a hamstring” (in the words of Frank Lampard) in the 2012 Champions League final vs Bayern. You can’t write off mad hatters like him.
The £72 million substitute
Arsenal's record signing Nicolas Pepe has so far struggled at the club. AP
To say that Nicolas Pepe has been a hit-and-miss would be doing his Arsenal career so far much kindness. Hesitant to track back and follow his runner in the high-stakes situation means he’s not only been a passenger he’s been a 72 million GBP worth of luxury. Like a state-of-the-art bed that comes attached to a side grill where you can toast bacon in the morning — a fire hazard, not worth the convenience. The Ivorian international played only the final 8 minutes of Arteta’s first game vs Bournemouth as a substitute. Naturally, leading into the derby vs Chelsea he had to field questions regarding the tenability of the attacker:
“If he’s ready to learn, and put in the work, I am sure he has the potential to be top,” enthused Arteta. But not without his expectations of the former Ligue 1 man: “He showed in two or three instances of how good he can be. But he has to be consistent, definitely.”
Arteta also explained that Pepe’s transition from the French league hasn’t been the most ideal in the midst of the turmoil at the club. On the pitch, Arteta states, it is everyone’s responsibility to makes sure Pepe fulfils his promise: “We have to have the play with sustained pressure behind him, to tie everything together. We need to arrive in better positions as many times as possible for our attackers to be able to create goal-scoring chances “
But the question is, does Areta trust Pepe’s development in England enough to start him in tonight’s high-profile encounter? The consensus seems to be ‘no,’ with Reiss Nelson the favourite to get the nod ahead of him. Then again, if Pepe provides Arteta with enough reason to get off the bench, then it can only be good days for Arsenal.
Team news:
Predicted Arsenal XI: Bernd Leno, Calum Chambers, David Luiz, Buyako Saka, Maitland-Niles, Lucas Torreira, Matteo Guendouzi, Reiss Nelson, Mesut Ozil, P.E. Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette. (4-2-3-1)
Predicted Chelsea XI: Kepa Arrizibalaga, Cesar Azpilicueta, Marcos Alonso, Fikayo Tomori, Kurt Zouma, Antonio Rudiger, Matteo Kovacic, Ngolo Kante, Willian, Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham. (3-5-2)
from Firstpost Sports Latest News https://ift.tt/2F0nzUb
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