On Sky
Arsenal can win the title on Sunday if they avoid defeat against Chelsea. Ok, so they can’t win it for themselves but it sounds good, no?
So United’s 1-0 victory over Man City piles the pressure on Chelsea to get a victory on Sunday. They certainly have the experience and mental strength to do the business at any ground in country. That said, the question on Sunday will be ‘do they have the fitness to compete for 90 minutes after 2 hours of banging long balls to Drogba for 90 minutes in the week?’
Arsene Wenger initiated the mind games this time round after Chelsea crashed out of the Champions League. His comments boil down to ‘Chelsea will be hurting after throwing away a 1-0 lead and we will kick their ass.’
Whatever happens, it’ll be a close game. As usual Arsenal will look for a victory, while Chelsea have no choice but to look for a win.
It’s all set for a great game!
Vital Quotes:
Arsene Wenger spoke of the torrid time his side went through after losing to Chelsea in the Carling Cup final back in February: “It affected us terribly.
“From that game we lost Adebayor [suspended], we lost in the FA Cup and then we played under tremendous pressure in the Champions League. In one week or so later it was over.
“Mentally it was terrible for us. We played our season in this game.”
According to Wenger a victory on Sunday would be a massive statment of intent from his players: “Yes OK we feel we could have won the Carling Cup Final,” said Wenger. “We feel we could have won at Chelsea earlier in the season as well. But we have two targets for this game now.
“One is our desire to beat them. If we played Manchester United then it would be exactly the same to the players.
“The second thing is we want to show we are able to compete next season. At the moment Chelsea are ahead of us along with Manchester United.”
Arsenal Team News:
The usual trio of henry, Van Persie and walcott are all still missing through injury. Freddie Ljungberg has joined them on that list after his injury at Tottenham.
Tomas Rosicky is rated as 50-50. If he passes his fitness test he is likely to start on the bench.
Player to watch: Manu Adebayor
The events of the Carling Cup Final really hurt him. He’ll be out for revenge. He’s also found a bit of form in recent weeks.
CSKA London Team News:
Ricardo Carvalho (knee) and Andriy Shevchenko (groin) could bothe miss out while Ballack is absent with an ankle injury.
You’ll not believe this one ASHLEY COLE has an ankle problem and might not make the game.
Player to watch: Drogba
The towering Ivorian has shown his better side this season, scoring over 30 goals for the blues. He has a good record against Arsenal and he’s sure to want to improve it on Sunday.
Ref Watch:
Alan Wiley will take the reigns on sunday. He is a fairly leanient ref dishing out 3 red and 91 yellow cards in 28 matches, an average of 3.36 cards per game.
Match Prediction:
It’s going to be close. Arsene would love to get one over on Jose. I’m going to be bold and go for a 2-1 Arsenal win. Adebayor and Gilberto for Arsenal, Drogba for Chelsea.