Chelsea vs Arsenal (inc lots of goals hopefully)

KdjaCL

Been looking forward to this all day, hopefully a good game.

Bit of luck Arsenal score early and we see if Chelsea can play when they cant resort to bring a bus and parking 7 players in front of goal.


kdjac

Pepe LeFrits

Sky seem to think Pires is going to play in attack with Henry, which seems bizarre to me. He's never played terribly well in the centre and never in attack with Henry. I think Pires out left and Hleb behind Henry (closer to his Stuttgart position) is more likely.

No Reyes on the bench for Arsenal, and no Carvalho on the bench for Chelsea. Odd.

Take it

1-0 lampard 33/1

€3 bet on that

jank

I think Reyes is still suspended.
Hope Cesc plays after all he is in my Fantasy Football team

Its going to be a close game but there will be chances by both sides. However takes them will be the winners, but im predicting a draw 0-0.

Its early in the season so both sides will play it cool.

jubbly

what time is kick off ? im going for a Ch€$ki win

Chong

0-0 Draw is what I want.

mr_angry

Hleb probably playing just off Henry, Pires wide on the left I would imagine.

First goal wins this one.

Brock

freddie just cleared off line, looking like a fast paced game, come on a 0-0 draw

MrJoeSoap

Chelski looking good.

Lemlin

How come Drogba didn't start?

Chong

This is so boring

Pepe LeFrits

Hoping for a 0-0 draw too now 'cos I can't see how Arsenal are going to score. Once Ljungberg went off injured Arsenal have been completely blunt in attack, and there's no width on the bench.

Chong

I dont know VP has alot of talent and can always pull one outta bag.

Jivin Turkey

kaids wrote:

Sky seem to think Pires is going to play in attack with Henry, which seems bizarre to me. He's never played terribly well in the centre and never in attack with Henry.

I agree, Ive seen him play there a couple of times for Arsenal and he has always been ineffectual at best.

I think the Ljungberg injury could be a blessing in disguise for Arsenal, I really rate RVP, and it will mean Pires will operate in a position he has more influence in.

Its a pretty boring game, Im going to throw a cat amongst the pidgeons and say Arsenal to win it 1-0. Hleb to score after good work from RVP.

mr_angry

My ESPN feed keeps breaking up. I'd say I've seen about 30 seconds of this match.

Brock

mine was bad but has got alot better since the half hour mark,try use the chinese espn better quality but ya gotta but up with the commentary

MrJoeSoap

Drogba is on at half-time.

edit: Gudjohnsen as a creative midfielder just isn't working. Time for Sweep or Essien.

Brock

70 million worth of subs for chelsea now as essien adn wright phillips come on and drogba is terrible even the fans are telling him.Bet he scores now that i said it

MrJoeSoap

Brock wrote:

Bet he scores now that i said it

Typical Drogba.

Offside, shins it... Quality player.

Chong

Come on chelsea. Nice goal from drogs.

mr_angry

Bollocks. Horrible goal.

Chong

Horrible, it was great control.

Brock

yeah its that kind of natural ability that makes him worth the money :rolleyes:

fade2black

He heard andy gray say great control and that made his mind up for him :rolleyes:

SteM

Soccernet's game cast says....

73 mins - Drogba should be embarrassed to claim that goal; the ball bouced off his shin without him knowing anything about it, and before he knew it the ball was dribbling past Lehman and crossing the goal-line.

jesus_thats_gre

WDK wrote:

Come on chelsea. Nice goal from drogs.

Some timing that..

MrJoeSoap

Drogba will claim all the goals he can. Its not as if he's a prolific goal-scorer at this level.

Chong

Cole should have been defo sent off no matter what time it is.

Lemlin

I think he could do well this season. In two games, he's now setup one goal and scored another. At the end of the season, if he gets twenty tap ins, no-one will remember, the scoring chart will still say 20.

He does a lot of donkey work for Chelski too. One of their main tactics is to just lob the ball up to him and he'll nod it down. Similar to the way Bolton use Kevin Davies. That's how they got the goal last week against Wigan.

Chong

What can I say its going to Be Chelsea and Manu this year with manu off course coming out on top.

MrJoeSoap

Another clean sheet for Terry and Gallas. Ricardo who?

Not a great win or performance, but Chelsea won't care.

Pepe LeFrits

Fup sake, Chelsea got lucky again. Oh well, only 3 points lost at the end of the day, plenty of time to catch it up.

quarryman

WDK wrote:

Horrible, it was great control.

ha! total fluke. drogba's a stocking.

The Muppet

Such control from Drogba, How much was he again? Not a great game with neither team deserving the 3 points. I wonder was Gudjohnsen Crespo and Robben in particular happy at being subbed.

Necronomicon

Well the difference wasn't the 70 million pounds worth of talent that Chelsea brought on, it was a little bit of luck in the end. Horrible goal to seperate a match, but they all count. Still, Drogba should have put his chance away at the end when Senderos (I think) made the mistake and Lehmann came out.
Arsenal could have done with a Drogba at the end. As they said in commentary, into stoppage time and Arsenal were still trying to pass the ball into the net.

Brock

aww well a pretty borin game,as i predicted that flop scored and chelsea robbed 3 points again a scoreless draw would have been a fair result,both teams were fairly unconvincin so its good news for man u fans .Roll on november 6th i say

robbie1876

Bullshyt goal, was offside and flukely finished. Still though, I have to say that the thing that seperated the two teams were Chelsea's defense, who always held deep, never giving Arsenal a chance to counter.

Hleb is looking pretty damn sharp, hopefully he'll keep it up.

jank

Typical, Typical, Typical. A Typical chelsea goal taken by their most typical player, Drogba of all people. His name sounds like some evil wizard out of lord of the rings. Bah. Better stop there before I get myself banned.

The goal was marginly offside and the free leading up to was harsh IMO.

I didnt see all the game (only 2nd half) due to work commitments so 2 quick points.

1) Arsenal need a plan B. Ok its early in the season but against the best of defenses they need to try something different. Unfortunately the beast is gone off to Real. Hleb looks a really good buy and seems to link up well with Cesc.

2) Chelsea. You call that a champions performance, Interestingly they looked better when they got the lead so they parked 10 men behind the ball and hoved the ball up to....HIM! Why buy players left right and centre of the calibre of wright-philips and duff when all they really need is a few othre Huth lookalikes!

Im sure Aresenal will bounce back strongly

Farls

Thats two bad performances on the trot for chelsea but two wins all the same, if their winning playing bad......

Essien looks very good also.

Arsenal looked a spent force, Vieira was missed in that game.

I was hoping for a draw...anything to take points of chelsea!

Farlz

jubbly

Drogba is a donkey, every goal he scores is ugly. how much did they pay for that fella anyway ? i laughed when i saw it, something you would see in pub football after about 10 pints

BaZmO*

jank wrote:

1) Arsenal need a Plan B. Ok its early in the season but against the best of defenses they need to try something different. Unfortunately the beast is gone off to Real. Hleb looks a really good buy and seems to link up well with Cesc.

That's one of Arsenal's biggest problems, always has been. They try to over play the ball too much. As was said already, in injury time they where trying to pass the ball around too much.

Senderos must have nightmares of Drogba.

Cole should've definitely been giving the red card.

On the plus side for Arsenal, Hleb looked promising.

B.

PiE

Lemlin wrote:

He does a lot of donkey work for Chelski too.

If it looks like a donkey and plays like a donkey... chances are it's a donkey.

Again Chelsea do themselves no favours in the likeability stakes, but I'm sure they don't care.

evad_lhorg

drogba is pants tbh. he missed a sitter at the end when senderos headed the ball to him. speaking of which , senderos is crap too! arsenal wont even be in the top 3 this season looking at their team .tottenham will be up there.

Necronomicon

Farls wrote:

Essien looks very good also.

I think 'very good' is a strong term after seeing him in his debut. I mean, obviously he's a good player, but he only had half an hour or so. Plus, such was the tempo of the game, he wasn't being his usual box-to-box self. He seemed to fit right into the set up, but it's hard to judge him on his debut.

Headshot

mg drogba goal, what a fluke,i wouldnt be suprize if he's imbarresed by the goal he scored
ment to control it but shined it into the goals :rolleyes:

and sanderous what a waste

how can any one say 'Essien looked very good' he only had 25 mins and touched the ball 4-5 times

i loved if he turned into another drogba ie waste of money and over rated in france

one thing im happy with is, chelsea arent as big as Arsenal and Man utd clubs wise they cant get any world class striker and they pay too much for players ie SWP etc
Man city saw chelsea coming any way :rolleyes:

growler

so damn happy to finally have beaten Arse at the Bridge, been waiting for that for a long time.

Ok, twas a bit of a jammy goal, but Drogba had 3 good opportunities, chelsea had another 2 good chances from 1st half corners, Arsenal had very few chances, Va Va Voom was almost entirely absent from the game.


Thought that Graham Poll was his usual crap self today too, did his level best to make the game as slow as possible and to be utterly inconsistent, can't understand how Cole was left on the pitch , although maybe the chants of Chelsea Reject got to him. Arsenal are such a cynical bunch when things are not going their way, fouling at every opportunity. Even Lehman seemed to have been gotten to by the Chelsea fans behind him in the second half, making as if to go for someone in the crowd.

Although Wright Phillipps looked good, I think he's too slight, it seems very easy to shoulder him off the ball, he'll need to spend a lot of time in the gym to get the upper body strength that could make him a real threat. Del Horno looks like an excellent acquisition.

Pepe LeFrits

lol, calling another team cynical when you've got Claude Makelele!

Agreed on Poll though - Cole should have been sent off, mind you Drogba was offside for the goal, Makelele brought down Cole in the box and Cech handled outside the area (push my arse). The guy is a $hite ref.

mada999

I hate watching chelsea and arsenal...same ****e different game!

Arse are not going to be a threat this season to chelsea..... come on the pool !!

ntlbell

This game was an absoloute cracker!!

for about 75 seconds, the first two attacks i thought we were in for a great open game, but like all the big games this was a huge let down, both teams were far too cagey.

it's a terrible shame tho, and as a united fan it felt wrong screaming at arsenal to get the ball forward to try get a last minute goal but over the last 12 months i've screamed for nearly everyone to try and beat chelsea.

i'd be more worried for arsenal fans tho beaten twice by a very average chelsea performance, are arsenal finished ?

Gileadi

{(-_-)}HeadShoT** wrote:

one thing im happy with is, chelsea arent as big as Arsenal and Man utd clubs wise they cant get any world class striker

you mean like arsenal were able to woo baptista to england to stop him joining real

ohh wait he joined real anyway :rolleyes:


man united probably have the most pulling power from any of the english clubs but clumping arsenal in there is bang out of order

smuckers

2 wins out of 2, and very comfortable too, Lamps got MOTM but IMO I would have given it to Del Horno, much better from Duffer this week also.