Chelsea v Arsenal

Barclays Premier League CHELSEA v ARSENAL

Venue: Stamford Bridge
Date: Saturday, 29 October
Kick-off: 1245 BST              





TEAM NEWS

Chelsea will be without Didier Drogba, who is suspended following his dismissal against QPR.
Fernando Torres could return to the starting XI after completing a three-game domestic ban, while Ramires is fit after a knee injury.
Arsenal's Thomas Vermaelen could make his first Premier League appearance since August.
Fellow defender Carl Jenkinson faces a fitness test but Kieran Gibbs is still unavailable.


MATCH REVIEW

For Chelsea this game comes a month later than they may have liked.
The Arsenal side they will face at Stamford Bridge is much improved from the ragged, confidence-shorn outfit that had plunged the Gunners into crisis by mid-September.
Beaten by Liverpool, humiliated by Manchester United, and then outmanoeuvred by Blackburn, Arsene Wenger's team found themselves charting unfamiliar territory in the bottom half of the Premier League.
But since that defeat at Ewood Park they have made steady progress towards respectability. Robin van Persie's goals - six in his last four league games - have been no small part of that improvement.
However, they are on a poor run away from home and, as restorative as victories against Bolton, Sunderland and Stoke have been, beating Chelsea on their own patch is a completely different prospect.
Andre Villas Boas's side have gone about their business quietly but effectively so far this season. Defeat against QPR was an unexpected setback, but even with nine men they could still have salvaged a point.
Chelsea still start as favourites but they will have to curb the indiscipline that saw them pick up two red cards and another seven bookings at Loftus Road.

MATCH FACTS

Head-to-head

• Arsenal's 3-1 win the last time the two sides met, at the Emirates in December 2010, was their first in six games against Chelsea.
• Chelsea have lost just three of their last 19 games in all competitions against the Gunners.
• Arsenal have lost their last two Premier League visits to Stamford Bridge - both by a 2-0 scoreline.

Chelsea

• Chelsea have gone eight Premier League games without a clean sheet for the first time since September 2003, when the run was nine.
• They are unbeaten in their last 10 Premier League home London derby matches, winning each of the last nine. Their last loss was a 2-1 defeat to Arsenal in November 2008.
• Andre Villas Boas's side have won all four Premier League home matches this season.
• Since making his debut in February, David Luiz has conceded more penalties (3) than any other Premier League player.
• Chelsea's next goal will be their 6,000th in league football.
• Ashley Cole, who has played every minute of Chelsea's Premier League games this season, is set to make his 450th club career start.

Arsenal

• Arsenal are on a run of eight away league games without a win - their longest in the Premier League.
• Robin Van Persie has 25 goals in 26 Premier League games in 2011 - more prolific than any other player.
• If Arsenal lose it will equal their worst run of away defeats (4) in the Premier League.
• The Gunners' win against Stoke was the first time they have collected back-to-back victories in the Premier League since February.
• This will be Wenger's 30th Premier League match against Chelsea, having won 13 and lost seven of the previous 29.
• The Gunners have conceded more goals from free-kicks (5) than any other Premier League side this season.

Premier League managers deny racism problems

Two top Premier League managers have denied racism is a problem in English football following two alleged incidents this month.
In the wake of accusations made against Liverpool's Luis Suarez and Chelsea and England captain John Terry, both Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish and Arsenal's Arsene Wenger on Friday said racism was not widespread.
Dalglish told reporters: "I don't think it is prevalent in the game here and it certainly isn't at this football club."
Wenger said: "I do not think that, in sport, racism is basically a problem because you are rewarded on merit. However, in society I still think there is some job to do and we are not at the end of it.
"But in sport, overall, I don't think it is a problem."
Dalglish added that he hoped the case against Uruguayan striker Suarez, following allegations that he racially abused Manchester United's French defender Patrice Evra, will be concluded swiftly.
He said: "For me, I don't see racism as far as this football club is concerned, apparent in any way, shape or form. We have got a case going on ourselves which seems to be dragging its feet.
"We would rather have it done and dusted, out in the open, and whoever is the guilty party, whether it's the person who said it or the accuser, get their due punishment.
"We look forward to the case coming to a conclusion."
Chelsea host Arsenal Saturday with Terry likely to return after missing their midweek League Cup win at Everton.
Terry, with full support from his club, has denied racially abusing Anton Ferdinand during Chelsea's defeat at Queens Park Rangers last Sunday. Suarez has similarly denied Evra's accusations.
Anton Ferdinand is the brother of Terry's predecessor as England captain Rio Ferdinand.
The Football Association are investigating both alleged incidents.

Arsène Wenger's enforced deadline dealings could prove a good thing

The arrival of Mikel Arteta and Yossi Benayoun show a move away from the quiet cultivation of youth

The moment when Arsène Wenger pinched his nose, rolled up his trouser legs and jumped into the swamp of transfer deadline day was a late compromise with reality. Suspended, for a day or two, was the Arsenal manager's disdain for the crowded market place, with its desperate remedies and snap decisions.

In 24 hours on Wednesday English football witnessed a form of humbling for the most idealistic of coaches. It was not that Arsenal's transfer targets were picked out randomly in some painful sleepless night. More, it was the haste in Wenger's willingness to grab at reinforcements which spoke of a conversion, either temporary or permanent, from the Kew Gardens principle of quiet cultivation.

For years Arsenal's greatest leader had disavowed "financial doping" and sugar daddy lunges at the world's most famous players. To buy a ready-made star had come to seem vulgar. All laid out at the university of London Colney were the means to shape globally scouted youngsters with rich, natural talent in Wenger's own image. Then came a run of two wins in 14 Premier League games, an 8-2 massacre at Manchester United and a jump into the sweaty dramas of Wednesday night.

When it was over Arsenal had borrowed Yossi Benayoun from Chelsea, coaxed Mikel Arteta away from Everton and confirmed the signings of Park Chu-young (striker) from Monaco, André Santos (attacking left-back) from Fenerbahce and Per Mertesacker (centre-back) from Werder Bremen. This phalanx joined a group of players bought much earlier and in more orderly fashion: principally, Gervinho, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Carl Jenkinson, the teenage full-back who made eight appearances for Charlton Athletic and four for Eastbourne Borough before being asked to stop the left-sided raids of Liverpool and Manchester United.

Park is a 26-year-old South Korean who scored 25 times in 91 appearances at Monaco. He takes the No9 shirt. Benayoun, who played only eight times last season, was a makeweight in Chelsea's rejected offer of £40m to Spurs for Luka Modric. Arteta struck the most romantic chord of the night, telling Everton shortly before 9pm that he was ready to take a pay cut in order to leave Goodison Park and play in the Champions League.

A different complexion is placed on Arsenal's frantic efforts by a report by Bild in Germany claiming that Wenger filed a £35m bid for Borussia Dortmund's Mario Götze, who would have been a straight replacement for Cesc Fábregas, himself one half of a double saga Wenger now describes as "draining". With the Götze offer turned down, Arsenal have effectively replaced Fábregas and Samir Nasri with Arteta and Benayoun: not like for like, on the quality scale, but with a dramatic shift in emphasis towards experience, age and toughness.

The most juicy question now is whether Wenger has turned his face away from slowly maturing youth or has merely sent out for help to allow them even more time to deliver. The artistic project was to build a continuum of homemade dazzlers who would conquer the sport with sweeping one-touch football. This was Wenger's riposte to Manchester United's imperial power and the wealth of Roman Abramovich (Chelsea) and Sheikh Mansour (Manchester City).

Wenger was sending an idea into battle against a vast army of limitless cash. Neutrals applauded his audacity and retain their admiration even as Arsenal have to loan one of Abramovich's cast-offs. Worse still, Chelsea's big summer signing, Juan Mata, is on a long list of targets Arsenal coveted but failed to acquire as a consequence of financial squeamishness or moving too slowly.

Most Arsenal fans are glad to see extremism on the retreat. "Too kind" is how Nasri described Wenger's attitude to underachieving youngsters. The allegation of softness at the heart of this Arsenal side flies in from all angles: supporters, the media and former players, who are under-represented in the current Arsenal coaching set-up.

The call by Lee Dixon, Alan Smith and others to promote Steve Bould from youth coach to first-team defence strategist runs into the problem of Wenger's pride, his reluctance to concede defeat. Martin Keown is among those who say Arsenal have "too many technical players" at the back and too few who simply want to defend. The pursuit of Bolton Wanderers' Gary Cahill was half‑hearted and late.

Arsenal's followers see Patrick Vieira influencing impressionable players at Manchester City and wonder why he is not dispensing that wisdom at the Emirates. There is a sense all around the club that Arsenal have travelled too far from their original hard, stubborn, cussed selves. Other Premier League managers express relief at no longer having to send their strikers in against Tony Adams, Sol Campbell, Bould, Keown or authentic guard-dog midfielders such as Vieira or Gilberto Silva.

The beautiful football excuse Keown accused some of these players of hiding behind has fallen away, too, because Arsenal no longer entertain to compensate for their deficiencies. Nor are they adept at keeping 11 players on the pitch. Many seasons ago, after a ruinous run of dismissals, Wenger called his squad together after Oleg Luzhny had been sent off and told them it had to stop. Three red cards in successive league games this term point to a loss of personal responsibility and discipline.

But immense strengths are concealed by all this unhappiness. A clear-out has removed Emmanuel Eboué, Armand Traoré, Denílson, Carlos Vela and Nicklas Bendtner, who has moved to Sunderland to tell the people of Wearside he is a genius. Many will feel Wenger took the right step with his trolley dash. It was just that the trauma of the 8-2 defeat in Manchester forced him to shop more manically than he would have liked.

A core of names now offers hope of recovery. Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Emmanuel Frimpong (if he learns self‑control), Arteta, Thomas Vermaelen, Gervinho and Robin van Persie are talents to build a new side around while Mertesacker brings knowledge to the back line and Park will aim to be an upgrade on Marouane Chamakh.

Wenger may have had to hold his nose on Wednesday but the air is freshening.