Arsenal faces Chelsea Saturday morning at Stamford Bridge in a pivotal, powerhouse London derby match. A win for Chelsea keeps the Blues in a title conversation increasingly being dictated by the city of Manchester.
But this game would be an infinitely more valuable success for a struggling Arsenal side that currently sits a full six points out of a Champions League place. For the Gunners, this looks like a must-win.
Arsenal lost their last derby match 2-1 at White Hart Lane to Tottenham and remains punchless away from home in the Premier League, going eight long games without a win on the road, the longest barren streak in club history.
Arsenal are clearly not the team they were even a year ago, the squad is just now coming to grips with the loss of influential midfielders Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri. The mounting injuries and real questions over the club’s medical staff have only added to the gloom, and manager Arsene Wenger has been forced to admit that the mood in his locker room has been both divided and grim.
The fans haven’t let the team forget about this, either. Thursday in London, principal owner Stan Kroenke and Wenger got to feel both barrels from Arsenal’s shareholders at a rowdy general meeting that made it clear their faithful are disenchanted. The general mood there is best described as "pained"; pained that a club owned by billionaires seems unwilling to cough up cash to compete in what is now a big-bucks-boys' league.
Yet there are also signs of a revival after a grim start. Arsenal have won seven of their last eight matches across all play, including a solid 3-1 win last weekend over Stoke and a last-minute snatch and grab in France over Olympique Marseille in the Champions League. Arsenal is are getting invaluable central defender Thomas Vermaelen back from a long-term ankle injury and while they still look thin and easily rattled, they also have demonstrated some flashes of a character thought lost in the chaotic last nine months.
In the Carling Cup midweek it was Andrei Arshavin who lifted the team on his shoulders with two pieces of brilliance; on the weekend it was Robin van Persie, who has now found the net six times in four league games. And in France, it was Aaron Ramsey who erased a turgid team performance against their abject host with a moment of brilliance to steal a win.
Thomas Vermaelen has been passed fit to play at the heart of the Gunners defence. (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
At a glance, Chelsea’s recent form echoes that of Arsenal. They too lost their last hometown derby match, a rough and costly 1-0 loss to Queens Park Rangers wherein two men were sent off and the Blues were subsequently charged by the FA for failing to control their players. But since Chelsea lost to Manchester United 3-1 in mid-September, they have been fairly solid, winning six of eight games and getting a draw with Valencia in the Champions League.
It’s not heady stuff for a once-fearsome Chelsea side that is in transition under new manager Andre-Villas Boas. Instead it’s a quiet accretion of points and wins that might be off the radar but surely isn’t that far from the Manchester giants’ thoughts.
The very fact that Villas-Boas has managed to resurrect the career of Fernando Torres should be enough to earn him his paycheque this season. Once looking like the greatest bust since Sam Bowie, Torres appears finally back to his harassing and menacing self. He will be in the spotlight as he returns from suspension just in time to replace Didier Drogba, who was one of the men sent off against QPR.
Andre Villas-Boas’ side has managed to keep in touch with the Manchester giants at the top of the table. (Tom Hevezi/AP Photo)
While the bulk of the team is looking a bit long in the tooth, there’s no questioning what Villas-Boas has done with new boys Juan Mata and Daniel Sturridge. The pair look to be among the most talented at their positions in the entire league, with Mata in particular an early candidate for player of the year votes. With the revival of Frank Lampard, the continuing production of Drogba, and the maturity of Ramires, Chelsea look both gritty and complete.
Where the team still falls apart is in discipline, as everyone saw last Sunday. David Luiz stands out as a brilliant yet frustratingly reckless player who continues to make elementary mistakes; the rest of the team shows a disquieting habit for getting easily overwrought and aggrieved in tough situations. And has there been a week yet where John Terry hasn’t in the headlines for some foolishness? This time around it’s a race-row over accusations he abused QPR’s Anton Ferdinand that has the London police involved – accusations Terry denies.
Chelsea also got pinned back this week with the news that no, they could not buy back the land their stadium sits upon. A number of years ago Chelsea had sold what is called the “freehold” to their supporters’ trust to make sure they would not become homeless in what was a cash-poor era for the club. But now, in these wealthy salad days, Chelsea wants to expand and to do that, they have to own the land on which Stamford Bridge sits. The supporters, feeling left out, said no dice.
It was a rare setback for a wealthy club that has often gotten its way. In response, chairman Bruce Buck called for the fans to come together and, in his words, “beat the crap out of Arsenal.”
They just might.
