That may sound a bit flippant, considering that Arsenal’s record against Chelsea in the League has been abysmal with just one win in our last 11 matches, but as the ex-Blue Petr Cech says, we need to remember our much better recent record in other games. “We have to draw a line under what happened and move forward,” he told Sky Sports.
“We played Chelsea in the Community Shield and in the FA Cup final last season, so we know we can beat them.
“They know they lost two games against us that they were not happy to lose, so this is something we have to use to our advantage.”
The only problem is that none of those games were at Stamford Bridge, where we have lost our last 5 games, conceding 15 goals and only getting 2 in reply. Surely that is a big worry? Arsene Wenger thinks we should just forget we are playing at the Bridge and just focus on our own game, as I said in the headline. “[That is] basically because in recent years Chelsea had a great team always and it was always difficult to win there.” Wenger said.
“But our record against Chelsea recently has been good. We won here [at Emirates Stadium] last year, we won the FA Cup Final and on penalties in the Community Shield, so let’s just continue to focus on the quality of our game and not too much where we play.”
Le Prof reiterated that when he was asked if Chelsea had the advantage after having an easy game on Tuesday, and he replied. “Chelsea looked comfortable after 20 minutes, but that doesn’t bother me,”
“I think we need to focus on our performance and play our game. I believe in three days we can recover. Overall, that should not be a problem.”
One other worrying statistic is that this is Arsenal’s third away game this season, and we have lost the other two. But Cech is thinking that we have improved a good bit since those setbacks. “The games we played at Stoke and Liverpool didn’t go the way we wanted,” Cech stated. “The performance at Stoke was much better than the result, because we had enough chances and opportunities, but we couldn’t find the final pass or finish moves off.
“It was not the result we wanted or expected, and probably deserved.
“Liverpool was a big slap in the face, it wasn’t acceptable for a club the size of Arsenal and the team that we are.
“We had to really make sure we put things right against Bournemouth and the reaction from everyone was brilliant.
“The determination and intensity was there against Bournemouth, the way we played was more like it.
“Chelsea have the same objective as us, they want to challenge for the title so it’s a big game this weekend.
“If we want to be close to the top of the table after two defeats then we have to win the big games and this is the first opportunity for us to do so.”
So we have a lot of recent history and form to overcome, but Wenger and Cech are right, we have beaten them and so should not be scared of facing them any more. If we can overcome that mental block and play to our very best, there is no reason we can’t shock them again, is there?
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