Arsenal FC entertain Chelsea FC in a fixture that could decide how early the visitors are crowned champions of Premier League. Though the Blues currently enjoy a ten-point cushion, Paul Merson believes that Jose Mourinho will likely be on the back-foot in the London derby.
Jose Mourinho, despite making Chelsea play expansive football early on in this campaign, has now got back to his basics as the Stamford Bridge side are seen playing defensive football more often than not. Speaking to Sky Sports, the former Arsenal striker stated that the Portuguese manager would make life difficult for the Gunners when his side visit Emirates Stadium this weekend.
a Tactically, Mourinho can go somewhere and make it very difficult and Arsenal have that tendency to shoot themselves in the foot if it is tight and Chelsea are defending well. Last week, Chelsea had thirty per cent of the play at home but Manchester United never looked like scoring. a
He feels that the Chelsea manager will be tickled pink even with a stalemate hinting that he may well wait to clinch his first Premier League title in eight years. The Sky Sports pundit also warned his former side not to get frustrated with the type of football their city rivals have espoused.
a If Arsenal do not manage to scrape through the Chelsea defense in this game, they will get frustrated and they will let in Chelsea, but I think Mourinho will go there, make sure they dona t lose, and that will be it.a
Arsenal could cut down the difference by seven points in the event of Arsene Wenger registering his first victory over his arch nemesis at Chelsea and the Englishman denied to rule out the possibility of the Gunners piping their city rivals for the Premier League title as he stated that football is a funny game.
a If Arsenal did win, the difference between them would be seven points. Footballa s a funny game: Chelsea go to Leicester on Wednesday night and whoa s to say Leicester don’t win that by a fluke goal, Arsenal win their game in hand, and ita s four points.a
Despite failing to score more than one goal in ten of their last sixteen games, Chelsea have managed to emerge victors on nine occasions and that speaks volumes about their playing style and approach of the game. Paul Merson sarcastically praised that the Chelsea manager is tactically cute and added that Chelsea could not lose out on the title from this position.
a Ia d be shocked if Chelsea didna t win the title from here with the manager theya ve got. Tactically, hea s too cute. The last two games theya ve won 1-0 and probably havena t had five shots, but they won both games a anybody else wouldna t have won those games and thata s where the points mount up.a
Having lost Diego Costa, Loic Remy and Didier Drogba to fatigue and injuries and having employed Kurt Zouma in the midfield in the soulless victory over Manchester United, one can even imagine John Terry spearheading the line-up at Emirates Stadium. At the end of the day, Jose Mourinho only wants three points a clean or dirty.