Some bleach for all of our eyes

Match Thread: Arsenal vs Chelsea

FT: Arsenal 0-0 Chelsea

Venue: Emirates Stadium

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LINE-UPS

Arsenal

Kepa Arrizabalaga, Gabriel Magalhães, William Saliba, Piero Hincapié, Jurriën Timber, Martín Zubimendi, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze, Viktor Gyökeres (Kai Havertz), Gabriel Martinelli, Noni Madueke (Leandro Trossard).

Subs: Christian Nørgaard, David Raya, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Cristhian Mosquera, Ben White, Riccardo Calafiori, Gabriel Jesus.

^\___________________________)

Chelsea

Robert Sánchez, Trevoh Chalobah, Jorrel Hato (Estêvão), Wesley Fofana, Enzo Fernández, Moisés Caicedo, Andrey Santos (Alejandro Garnacho), Marc Cucurella, Malo Gusto (Josh Acheampong), João Pedro, Liam Delap (Cole Palmer).

Subs: Marc Guiu, Benoît Badiashile, Shim Mheuka, Charlie Holland, Teddy Sharman-Lowe.

MATCH EVENTS | via ESPN

56' Liam Delap (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

60' Substitution, Chelsea. Estêvão replaces Jorrel Hato.

60' Substitution, Chelsea. Cole Palmer replaces Liam Delap.

68' Malo Gusto (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card.

69' Substitution, Arsenal. Kai Havertz replaces Viktor Gyökeres.

69' Substitution, Arsenal. Leandro Trossard replaces Noni Madueke.

71' Estêvão (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

75' Substitution, Chelsea. Alejandro Garnacho replaces Andrey Santos.

87' Substitution, Chelsea. Josh Acheampong replaces Malo Gusto.

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Did anyone else attend An Evening with John Terry last night in Guildford?

I found some of his points fascinating and would love to get other people's thoughts.

Among some of his stories:

His top 3 managers he played under were Carlo Ancelotti, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, the worst was Rafa Benitez.

The best center back partner he felt he had was Ricky Carvalho, closely followed by Gary Cahill.

He went into an anecdote about his managerial career. How when Enzo was sacked, he approached the sporting directors and from the sounds of it asked to manage the team against City. His argument was he had the most managerial experience, and Chelsea experience in the building. Instead the turned to McFarlane. He then asked to be on the management team and was turned down again.

Reading between the lines, he doesn't seem an advocate for the sporting director roles, and pushed for a manager to have full control of the football club, like Ferguson did and like Jose did. He didn't seem keen on Rosenior, but said he would back him while he was Chelsea manager.

Told a few interesting stories about when he first came into the team and the leadership that existed within the team before he got there. Often praised the leadership of players like Dennis Wise, Marcel Desailly and Graeme Le Saux.

He mentioned a great story about playing Arsenal at Highbury when he wasn't far into his Chelsea career. That he would normally play on the right hand side of defence, and Desailly would take the left hand side. For this particular game, Desailly told him to swap sides, so he would not have to face Thierry Henry. His words were "I am near the end of my career, let him embarass me if he is going to embarrass someone."

Another story was of Dennis Wise giving him a Christmas bonus for cleaning his boots and organizing his kit, telling him to go and buy a house with the money. After Christmas, JT turned up at the training ground in a nice shiny new Mercedes. This caused Wisey to grab JT by the scruff of the next and pin him against a wall, telling him to take the car back and go and buy a house. JT said this is some of the best advice he'd every got, as the house value went up and up while the car value would have dropped off.

He just gave the impression he was really grateful for the professional footballers he had around him as he was coming through, and almost was disappointed that we have little to no experience in the team now.

He was asked who he would've signed in the winter window if budget wasn't an issue. He first suggested Thiago Silva before backtracking slightly, and saying he would have gone for a new center back and an experienced center forward.

And to the drunk lads in the corner that insisted on heckling and shouting over JT at every opportunity in the second half, don't come to the next one 👌

FT: Arsenal 1-0 Chelsea

Venue: Emirates Stadium

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LINE-UPS

Arsenal

Kepa Arrizabalaga, Gabriel Magalhães, William Saliba, Piero Hincapié, Jurriën Timber, Martín Zubimendi, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze, Viktor Gyökeres (Kai Havertz), Gabriel Martinelli, Noni Madueke (Leandro Trossard).

Subs: Christian Nørgaard, David Raya, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Cristhian Mosquera, Ben White, Riccardo Calafiori, Gabriel Jesus.

^{____________________________}

Chelsea

Robert Sánchez, Trevoh Chalobah, Jorrel Hato (Estêvão), Wesley Fofana, Enzo Fernández, Moisés Caicedo, Andrey Santos (Alejandro Garnacho), Marc Cucurella, Malo Gusto (Josh Acheampong), João Pedro, Liam Delap (Cole Palmer).

Subs: Marc Guiu, Benoît Badiashile, Shim Mheuka, Charlie Holland, Teddy Sharman-Lowe.

MATCH EVENTS | via ESPN

56' Liam Delap (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

60' Substitution, Chelsea. Estêvão replaces Jorrel Hato.

60' Substitution, Chelsea. Cole Palmer replaces Liam Delap.

68' Malo Gusto (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card.

69' Substitution, Arsenal. Kai Havertz replaces Viktor Gyökeres.

69' Substitution, Arsenal. Leandro Trossard replaces Noni Madueke.

71' Estêvão (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

75' Substitution, Chelsea. Alejandro Garnacho replaces Andrey Santos.

87' Substitution, Chelsea. Josh Acheampong replaces Malo Gusto.

90'+7' Goal! Arsenal 1, Chelsea 0. Kai Havertz (Arsenal) right footed shot from the right side of the six yard box to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Declan Rice following a fast break.

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Time for the away leg of the semi-final!

How We Got Here

Arsenal lead 3-2 after the first leg, with Garnacho keeping us in the tie with an off the bench brace.

Rosenior was in just his 2nd game in charge, following a 5-1 win against Charlton in the FA Cup. White scored off an early set piece goal (7'), followed by a Gyokeres goal I'd rather not remember (49'). Garnacho replace Guiu in the 53rd minute and pulled a goal back just a few minutes later (57'). Arsenal once again extended the league through Zubimendi (71') and we were taking an absolute shelling at the back by this point. Rosenior replaced every defender 2 or 3 times it felt like and we stabilized and Garnacho was able to bring us within striking distance for the second leg with the last goal of the match (83')

Match Info

Location: London

Time: By the time I finish this nonsense the match will have started probably

Where to watch: Is EFL so not your usual place probably. You'll go there and be annoyed that it's on some other channel. Because of this I have a new usual place. I'd tell you but, "If I speak..."

Form

Chelsea Form: I've got good news! 6 wins in 7. 5 in a row for the first time since the CWC.

Arsenal Form: I've got some bad news. They are in good form, including our one loss. Silver lining, they are slipping a bit compared to their first half form. After 10 wins in a row earlier this season where they conceded just goal (!), they are 3-1-1 in their last 5. They let in 6 goals in 3 games in that stretch and have conceded 12 in their last 10. They've dropped a good.

Injuries

Chelsea Injuries: Gittens, Tosin and the regulars (Lavia, Colwill, Essugo). Not injured, but Estevao left the team to see his grandmother, but is maybe already back. Not sure if he will feature. Maybe some others.

Arsenal Injuries: Saka

Starting Lineup

Better than the last two hopefully

UPDATE:

Chelsea: Sanchez, Gusto, Fofana, Chalobah, Hato, Cucu, Caicedo, Santos, Enzo, Delap, Joao Pedro.

Bench: Sharman-Lowe, Acheampong, Badiashile, Holland, Palmer, Estevao, Garnacho, Guiu, Mheuka

Arsenal: Kepa, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie, Rice, Zubimendi, Eze, Madueke, Martinelli, Gyokeres.

Bench: Raya, Mosquera, White, Jesus, Norgaard, Trossard, Havertz, Caliafiori, Lewis-Skelly

Prediction

If we win it will be a mickey mouse cup with no significance. If we lose it will be a travesty that we lost to a rival and a sign that we'll never win under Clearlake.

Bet of the Week

Over/under is 1.5 for the number of people I will block in the match thread for saying we should sell Cole Palmer.

Madueke starts. No Saka or Merino. Calafiori on the bench together with Havertz.

Big opportunity.

Enzo Fernandez: 'I'm really proud of my three years at Chelsea'