Tonight both Arsenal and Chelsea are preparing to continue their good pre-season form when they meet at 8pm in Dublin. Unai Emery has been teaching his new charges the way to play his pressing tactical game, while Maurizio Sarri has been pushing a very attacking style, as David Luiz described Sarri’s style when asked yesterday. ‘I love this philosophy, to play high with a lot of possession of the ball and in a technical way. So he is trying to help us every single day to learn his philosophy to help Chelsea.”
Arsenal have managed a 1-1 draw with Atletico Madrid, despite losing on penalties, and battered PSG 5-1 and will have a lot more first team-players available for tonight’s game than our rivals. But Chelsea’s makeshift side has also performed well, starting with a 1-0 victory against Perth Glory in Australia before beating AC Milan on penalties after a 1-1 draw in Nice.
Eden Hazard, N’Golo Kante, Olivier Giroud, Gary Cahill, Michy Batshuayi, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Thibaut Courtois are all unavailable for Chelsea due to their World Cup exploits. Despite these stars not being available we can expect to see Cesc Fabregas, Pedro, Alvaro Morata, new-signing Jorginho, Victor Moses, Alonso and Azpilicueta on the pitch at some point along with a host of youngsters, while I am sure that Emery will start with most of his top players that have looked so sharp in pre-season, especially Aubameyang and Lacazette up front.
Here is my predicted line-up to start the game…
Leno,
Kolasinac, Sokratis, Chambers, Bellerin,
Guendouzi, Ramsey, Ozil, Mkhitaryan,
Lacazette, Aubameyang
But whatever teams come out at the start, we can expect an exhibition of attacking football from both sides. Obviously Arsenal will be featuring some of our impressive youngsters as well as the game goes on, but I think we will have by far the most senior players on the pitch and should be able to get another confidence building win. Emery will want to get Sarri worried about Arsenal’s visit to Stamford Bridge in three weeks time.
I’m predicting a 3-1 win for the Gunners and I want us to go into the City match on the opening day with an unbeaten record under Emery…..
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