01/12/2025 – Chelsea 1-1 Arsenal “Scrappy, Stunted but Still Standing. Arsenal held by Chelsea”

A draw at Stamford Bridge to round out a tough week. I’ve woken up to a lot of talk this morning on how psychologically that draw can impact Arsenal’s view of the week they’ve had. I feel extremely satisfied with the week as a whole. Although we dropped two points yesterday, I believe that in any season a draw at Stamford Bridge is a decent result. That is not to say that I don’t think we should’ve or could’ve won the game but thinking circumstantially; we had one day less rest than Chelsea, we have come off the back of two cracking, hard-earned results, and we had no Saliba nor Gabriel for the first time in over three years! I do think we should’ve done more in the game to win it, especially against the ten men but in all fairness, Chelsea made it very difficult for us. I’ll get onto Anthony Taylor in a minute, but the game was scrappy and there were little opportunities for either team to gain momentum due to the stop-start way the game was played. In the first half it seemed as if every Chelsea player had a sugar rush, they threw themselves about and flew in every challenge. I think they caught Arsenal a little cold, but Caicedo’s red card slowed them up massively.

The cards then. No matter what anyone says in today’s game that is the definition of a red card, he’s out of control and endangered his opponent. Even Maresca said he agreed with the decision but just hoped for more consistency in the decisions. Anthony Taylor. I have heard a few different takes on his performance yesterday, but the fact is he completely killed the game. Three yellow in the first fifteen minutes in a rival match is absurd. Zubimendi got the second quickest Arsenal card ever, just five minutes in. All this meant was he had set his precedent and had to keep it that way throughout the game. Taylor’s approach to yellow cards yesterday incentivised the players to behave like children, attempting to get the opposition booked, hence the stoppages in play. Both sides embarked on Olympic level gymnastic routines in the hope of another yellow being brandished. Chelsea were on the wrong end of the red card but there could’ve been two or three based on how he refereed the game. Lewis-Skelly I thought was extremely lucky not to see a second yellow card, he made at least two professional fouls after being carded nine minutes into his appearance off the bench. The game was a terrible watch from start to finish and although some of that is down to Arsenal’s lack of opportunities, I think the refereeing is where the bulk of the blame lies. On that note it’s come out today that Enzo Fernandez was in an offside position for the Chelsea goal and that VAR had missed it completely, just to pile on to the refereeing mess ups yesterday. 

Merino came up with a very important goal not too long after Chelsea took the lead. This was vital as it was before they managed to completely shut up shop in their own box. It was a brilliant header for his tenth goal for club and country this year, a midfielder by the way. He also finished the game playing as a defensive midfielder, he has to be up there will one of the most adaptable players we have. Saka delivered a cracking ball in for his first assist of the season, and it seems to me like he’s really starting to gather some momentum. Both Hincapie and Mosquera did well especially when both were booked with considerable time left in the match. I thought after my high praise of him last time out Rice had less impact yesterday, but he was still good. Martinelli got the start ahead of Madueke which I didn’t expect and to be honest I thought he was pretty bang average. A takeaway though from yesterday is that our bench looked ridiculously strong with Gabi Jesus, Odegaard and Gyokores all back on the bench hopefully ready for some minutes against Brentford on Wednesday.

Although we are through potentially our toughest week of the season the games don’t stop there. We have Brentford next then a trip to Villa Park on Saturday. Two tough sides and we need to get back to winning ways. The gap at the top is five points but City have a favourable run heading into the new year with Fulham midweek and then Sunderland. We certainly cannot let a draw yesterday stunt our progress. There hasn’t been much information about Saliba’s injury but we can hope it’s minor as Brentford have one of the most in-form strikers in the league at the moment in Thiago so they will be no pushover. They score a lot of goals (only four less than us) but they ship them in too, with a goal difference of just +1. Whereas Villa are a bit of a bogey team for us in recent meetings so heading into the weekend with a win against Brentford is pivotal.

COYG!

The Northbank Blogger.

Player Ratings:

Raya 7.5/10

Timber 7.5/10

Mosquera 7/10

Hincapie 7.5/10

Califiori 7/10

Zubimendi 6.5/10

Rice 7/10

Eze 6.5/10

Saka 8/10

Merino 8/10

Martinelli 6.5/10

Subs:

Lewis-Skelly 5.5/10       Odegaard 6.5/10

Madueke 6/10               Gyokores 6/10

Potential Lineup:

Raya

Timber

Mosquera

Hincapie

Califiori

Zubimendi

Rice

Merino

Saka

Gyokores

Martinelli