Chelsea Vs Arsenal (PL)

Guess we have to wait for Emery’s press conference. It looks he didn’t train today.

I’m not confident regardless but if Torriera doesn’t start then we might as well not even turn up to Stamford Bridge.

I was probably going to end up missing this game but my mate is a chelsea fan and had a spare ticket so now I’m going with him and his slightly racist uncle.

Watching us lose in the home end of Stamford bridge is going to be unbearable but I can’t turn down watching the Arsenal live

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Oh god no! Are you really going to the game? Game over :mustafi:

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Last time I went to a game we beat Stoke 3-0 but Arnautovic ended Debuchys career

Hope that Kantè doesn’t end Auba’s career :bellerin:

I will be on the piss for about 10 hours by the time this game kicks off, so doubt I will take much of it in which is probably a good thing after watching us sober on Sunday night.

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Torreira will be motm, Auba and Laca to strike… 2-1 Arsenal?

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I sat with the home fans for a Chelsea Arsenal match once.

We lost 6-0.

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So did you cheer every time they scored or was it just mild applause?

If I’m with the opposition supporters I find it more difficult to pretend I’m excited when the opposition score than keep quiet when we score.

I didn’t really react. I stood up but didn’t really do anything else. If anyone noticed my lack of emotion, they didn’t say anything. Maybe they just thought I didn’t really care and had been dragged along by my boyfriend or something. Not sure how I would have reacted had Arsenal scored – I never got the chance to find out :laughing:

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I can see a 1-1. Both sides are still rebuilding so can’t expect a dominant display from anyone.

https://news.paddypower.com/football/2018/08/16/ten-years-time-arsenal-chelsea/

Interesting opinion this. Thoughts?

That’s an interesting article but the writer is assuming that the only other London club to rival Chelsea is us.
We are historical the biggest club in London, in terms of support and success, but Chelsea, despite their recent success, aren’t any bigger than spurs, or even West Ham when it comes to support.

There is one reason that they became successful and that is because of Abramovich, and there is one thing holding us back from success, and that’s Kroenke.

If we’d have had an owner like Abramovich giving Wenger the sort of money that Mourinho had, we would have been possibly the biggest club in Europe.
Instead, we got an owner who couldn’t care less about success, only profit.

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Good read and I agree with many of the points brought up, but whether or not this comes into fruition will certainly be dependent on our next few years. We absolutely have to get back into the CL some way or another this season and we need to subsequently announce our arrival back in the competition with a serious summer overhaul.

Spurs have been fortuitous that with some signings and players coming through but as the article said once Harry Kane goes they are really going to struggle to compete. This is going to be a turbulent season for them but I think they’re equipped as best they could hope for with a sterling starting 11 that probably is as good as it gets for them.

While I’m certain we should usurp Spurs again in the next season or two Chelsea are a different animal altogether. If we want to take the crown from them as the most competitive club in London then it’s really up to us. We can’t tread water anymore with sub-par signings that lead to R16 exits and deadwood perpetually floating at our shore. No matter how bleak things look for Chelsea I feel if we fail to be proactive they will always do that little bit extra in the transfer market to stay ahead, even without unlimited funds coming from their owner.

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Yeah I am probably in the significant minority, but I really don’t want an owner like Abramovich… in a way I am sad that fans will not have a stake in the organization any more - feels like the passing of an era…

WRT ownership that operates the club at a loss - I get the appeal, but I honestly don’t have an issue with us fighting the good fight the way we are as long as owners are keeping the money associated with club operations IN the club FOR the club.

We can’t compete on level terms with City or Chelsea IF they decide to spend (it does appear that Chelsea are opting to dial in back) and United have vastly more powerful commercial revenues than us - they are one of the big 3 brands in world football (as Mou slowly degrades it).

We have advantages over Pool and Spurs financially - we absolutely should be able to compete for top honors if we are smart - what I would like to see IN particular (and Auba is an example of this) is tactical financial aggression that perhaps gives us very short-term losses but is smart investment for football and financial matters.

Despite our crying poverty during Wenger era in the last 5-10 years, we have been a bit penny-wise and pound foolish at times, made bad choices about recruitment, etc… even SwissRamble opined on the fact that we were risking FINANCIAL degradation and poor results b/c we were being too conservative relative to our footballing ambitions. This is basically bad business. What we have seen in the last couple of years is at least a ramping up of spending NET compared to previous years and everyone tends to inflate competitors’ spending b/c they don’t accurately account for wages and NET transfer spend.

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Let’s get our youth farm going.

It’s a practice that would have never been allowed under Wenger but we can’t allow the club to be shackled to his flawed ideals on football

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We can keep riding the high horse, but what’s the point? Direct involvement of owners via either injecting money or otherwise (Wolverhampton) and their influence on Premier League and Championship level has become almost normal to I point that I wonder if the horse we riding isn’t dead and we’re not kidding ourselves. You could also see it as a move to maximise the potential of the club.

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I used to think the same but since it has become apparent that Kroenke has no interest in the club apart from making a profit then I couldn’t care less who owns us.

It would be great if we had an owner that was also a supporter, or at least cared about success over profit, but that seems unlikely.

As much as I criticise Chelsea for having a Russian crook as an owner, I envy the success they have had and their unbelievable transfer windows.

The difference between us, and clubs like Chelsea, Man City, and the new big spenders like Wolves and Fulham, is that we are one of the best supported clubs in Europe, making massive profits, while they only where they are because they have been bought by a rich owner, but our league position and spending on players doesn’t reflect the size of our support and our vast profits.

So if we got an owner that was ambitious and that wanted to see us perform to our full potential, which clearly we’re no where near doing, then I wouldn’t mind seeing a rich owner taking over.

As long as Kroenke is here, expect more of the same.
He might not be a Russian crook, but I’m sure he is as dodgy and greedy as any other billionaire businessman, and while he is the owner there will be no PL title, no CL, title and no ambition.

So it’s a choice between having the moral high ground, where we will continue to scrimp and save on cheaper players, see our best players leave because of our lack of ambition and get the occasional domestic trophy, or have a rich owner willing to spend big on world class players and us challenging for the PL and CL…
I know what I’d prefer, and to be honest I’m fed up with the myth of us having the moral high ground.

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