Chelsea -v- Arsenal Match Thread SS1 Sunday 4PM

Frisbee

Wellity wellity wellity.... Where to start?

The Goals

First goal I've absolutely no idea what happened.

Terry manages to lose Verm far far too easily, simply by running the other side of a player which means he gets essentially a free header, luckily it's going wide but Song starts ball watching as soon as Terry touches it, either assuming it's going in or going wide, he leaves Drogba and just stands, Drogba on the other hand does what all god forwards do, he gambles, and the ball falls nicely to him to slot home. Now I've seen people bashing Clichy for not being on the far post but as Pepe said earlier, that was not Clichy's job yesterday, he was stationed in front of the front post, as can be seen from nearly every other corner they had yesterday. That goal was the fault of Vermaelen and Song, not Clichy.

Second goal is just a calamity of errors. Song lays the ball off to Arshavin and breaks forward looking for the return ball. Song has been great this year but his decision making needs to get better. To be a top DM he needed to realise here that Diaby was ahead of him and Fabregas level with him, we can't afford to commit him forward in a situation like this, he needs to anchor. Arsh gets the ball and almost goes between three players, ball gets nicked away from him, Fab misses the tackle and all of a sudden Chelsea are on the counter where they are hugely dangerous.
Verm and Clichy were very unlucky at the start here, Clichy had gone on the overlap and was busting a gut to get back and Verm dropped into LB to cover Drogba. You cans see Vermaelen give Clichy the shout to
go cover Drogba and he starts to go to the centre, however just as they are switching over the ball is slipped to an unmarked Drogba (imo here Vermaelen should have stated on Drogba and Clichy covered back, Clichy was still too far away when the decision to swap over was made).
When Drogba gets the ball Clichy certainly doesn't cover himself in glory, he dives in on Drogba at full pace and Drogba cuts inside him far too easily. In this situation Gael just show him to the byline, why are you letting him go inside??.
Drogba gets a lot of power in the finish but you'd have to question Almunia a little bit, the ball goes just by him and the look on his face suggests he's terrified of the ball.

The Tactics

Chelsea got their tactics spot on, just like they did last time we played them. They defended deep inviting us onto them and caught us on the break. They were happy enough to let us have the ball for long long periods of time as they knew nothing would come of it. They defended inside the 18 yard box the whole way up the pitch, knowing that they could show us the flanks and allow us to cross the ball all day and they would never even be remotely worried.

Arsenal were outdone today. I was amazed by the decision to play Walcott. It just wasn't the kind of game that suits him. He's better in games where the other team will come and attack you (CL for example), as shown by his hat-trick against Croatia, he's a counter-attacking player. When a team are happy to sit back he's out of his depth. He is not a tricky winger, nor a great passer, all he really has is raw pace, and when he can't get in behind teams he disappears from the game, having said that though he did quite well defensively helping Sagna out.
The game was crying out for Bendtner at HT, there was no-one up top holding up the ball and we were crossing to a Russian midget being marked by John Terry. If we're going to spend the day pinging balls into the box surely Bendtner has to come on, the fact that it took Arsene so long to bring him on is baffling, I thought we had our best period after he came on.

Overall we had loads of possession without ever looking threatening and were easily nullified while proving hilariously fragile at the back. So basically, we reverted to type.

Dave!

Yeah I was thinking for the whole first half that there's just no point in Arsenal whipping in high crosses at all, even from corners... They just didn't have the height, Chelsea were winning them all.

Johner

Frisbee wrote: »

Wellity wellity wellity.... Where to start?

The Goals

First goal I've absolutely no idea what happened.

Terry manages to lose Verm far far too easily, simply by running the other side of a player which means he gets essentially a free header, luckily it's going wide but Song starts ball watching as soon as Terry touches it, either assuming it's going in or going wide, he leaves Drogba and just stands, Drogba on the other hand does what all god forwards do, he gambles, and the ball falls nicely to him to slot home. Now I've seen people bashing Clichy for not being on the far post but as Pepe said earlier, that was not Clichy's job yesterday, he was stationed in front of the front post, as can be seen from nearly every other corner they had yesterday. That goal was the fault of Vermaelen and Song, not Clichy.

Second goal is just a calamity of errors. Song lays the ball off to Arshavin and breaks forward looking for the return ball. Song has been great this year but his decision making needs to get better. To be a top DM he needed to realise here that Diaby was ahead of him and Fabregas level with him, we can't afford to commit him forward in a situation like this, he needs to anchor. Arsh gets the ball and almost goes between three players, ball gets nicked away from him, Fab misses the tackle and all of a sudden Chelsea are on the counter where they are hugely dangerous.
Verm and Clichy were very unlucky at the start here, Clichy had gone on the overlap and was busting a gut to get back and Verm dropped into LB to cover Drogba. You cans see Vermaelen give Clichy the shout to
go cover Drogba and he starts to go to the centre, however just as they are switching over the ball is slipped to an unmarked Drogba (imo here Vermaelen should have stated on Drogba and Clichy covered back, Clichy was still too far away when the decision to swap over was made).
When Drogba gets the ball Clichy certainly doesn't cover himself in glory, he dives in on Drogba at full pace and Drogba cuts inside him far too easily. In this situation Gael just show him to the byline, why are you letting him go inside??.
Drogba gets a lot of power in the finish but you'd have to question Almunia a little bit, the ball goes just by him and the look on his face suggests he's terrified of the ball.

The Tactics

Chelsea got their tactics spot on, just like they did last time we played them. They defended deep inviting us onto them and caught us on the break. They were happy enough to let us have the ball for long long periods of time as they knew nothing would come of it. They defended inside the 18 yard box the whole way up the pitch, knowing that they could show us the flanks and allow us to cross the ball all day and they would never even be remotely worried.

Arsenal were outdone today. I was amazed by the decision to play Walcott. It just wasn't the kind of game that suits him. He's better in games where the other team will come and attack you (CL for example), as shown by his hat-trick against Croatia, he's a counter-attacking player. When a team are happy to sit back he's out of his depth. He is not a tricky winger, nor a great passer, all he really has is raw pace, and when he can't get in behind teams he disappears from the game, having said that though he did quite well defensively helping Sagna out.
The game was crying out for Bendtner at HT, there was no-one up top holding up the ball and we were crossing to a Russian midget being marked by John Terry. If we're going to spend the day pinging balls into the box surely Bendtner has to come on, the fact that it took Arsene so long to bring him on is baffling, I thought we had our best period after he came on.

Overall we had loads of possession without ever looking threatening and were easily nullified while proving hilariously fragile at the back. So basically, we reverted to type.

Absolutely spot on there! Agree with everything.

I think Walcott is lacking confidence. Not once did he try and beat Cole for pace always looked to pass.

L'prof

Johner wrote: »

Absolutely spot on there! Agree with everything.

I think Walcott is lacking confidence. Not once did he try and beat Cole for pace always looked to pass.

To be honest, there just wasn't any space to exploit!

Spiritoftheseventies

Arsenal really struggling at the back at the moment. Game set up for us on Wednesday but would just be like Arsenal to get a result on the back of two defeats.

L'prof

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

Arsenal really struggling at the back at the moment. Game set up for us on Wednesday but would just be like Arsenal to get a result on the back of two defeats.

I don't think Liverpool have quite as much to offer on the counter as United and Chelsea though, especially with Torres missing.