Match Day Thread Chelsea vs Arsenal - Matchday Thread

Emery came out today and said Cech has been picked based on his form in training and PreSeason. Just like I was saying.

You know Arsenal is a funny Club. A few years ago everyone was moaning about Sczezney making mistakes - and now Arsenal fans just moan because we sold him. Almunia wasnt great but he wasnt as bad as fans made out. Fans complained about Lehmann and Seaman in their later years. Fabianksi was ridiculed at the Club but has turned out to be one of the leagues most solid keepers.

Cech was in the side with the greatest defensive record in EPL history. He has the most clean sheets in EPL history. He's a great keeper - he may be past his best or.. he may have just hit a rough patch of form, either way he's stil decent.

 

Anyways I'm hoping Emery goes with this team....

------------------------Cech--------------------------
Bellerin----Sokratis----Mustafi----Lichsteiner
--------------Torreira------Guendouzi------------
-Mkhitarian----------Ozil------------Aubameyang
----------------------Lacazette----------------------

Generally I prefer Auba up top but Lacazette has looked sharp in PreSeason and against City so he deserves to be in the side.

 

So what if Emery said that? He's hardly going to castigate Cech to the media, is he? Nor would he publicly criticise Leno if he felt Leno wasn't up to scratch yet...

I don't see what point you're trying to make here.

Sorry, but you've re-written history a little bit here.

Almunia was a dreadful goalkeeper. You must have forgotten the sheer quantity of blunders he made. He was most definitely not good enough to be No.1 for a club like ours for as long as he was. He cost us a lot of points.

Szczesny's situation was a difficult one because he was young enough to improve, but at the same time, he was out of form for a while. And after the whole Southampton fiasco, patience was wearing thin. Then we signed Cech alongside Ospina and it became clearer he wasn't going to be an automatic no.1 choice anymore. He went to Roma and he improved a lot - fair play to him. But he was never going to settle for competing with Cech and Ospina.

After his two successful years at Roma, I personally would have preferred to keep him - but I don't think he wanted to stay.

Fabianski blew hot and cold, but again, he did not want to be our back-up goalkeeper. We couldn't guarantee him first-team football, so he went to a midtable team (at the time) and eventually improved, although not straight away.

You need to understand that just because we sold some of these players and they improved after they left, it doesn't mean it was the wrong decision to sell them at that time.

This isn't what I'm arguing.

I did not say Cech was a bad goalkeeper. I am saying if we want to play out from the back, he cannot be in our starting 11 because that doesn't suit his style.

 

Almunia was ****.

Fabianski is a classic keeper who couldn't hack it at a big team and only looks good in rubbish teams where he can make 25 saves a game under less pressure. Bit like Tim Howard. And Szszesny was a toughie. I still don't rate him that highly although neither do I rate Cech highly anymore either. Surely we.could have gambled on someone like Butland over Leno if the rumours are that Leno hasn't impressed in training.

 

Iwobi and Xhaka in starting XI?

 

I don't mind seeing Iwobi in there (interested to see what Emery does with him) but Xhaka really doesnt deserve it.

Wanted to see Torreira start. Shame Lacazette is'nt in ether as well

 

Guendouzi back in the 11.

A big performance from him and he could cement his place in Emery's side for a while.

 

Assuming its a 4-2-3-1 again.

 

I could take a bag of excrement to the best alchemist in the world and he'd tell me it was still just a bag of ****e.

 

Very lightweight looking midfield.

 

We're off. Hope its a good one.

 

And... we're behind.

 

I know change is difficult but we look s--t,we can't even pass to one another.

 

Been a brutal start for sure, but we've had a full preseason to work on basic stuff. Not sure why we look so disjointed at the moment.

 

I dont like Xhaka being our deepest midfielder. He cant defend.

 

We look like headless chickens.

 

Picked up a side low on confidence - having to teach them a new system.. with the hardest start possible really.
Not the easiest job.

 

I understand that but we can't even seem to do the basic's.

 

2-0

Game over already

 

Comedy defending