{"id":8547,"date":"2023-10-20T19:05:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T18:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8547"},"modified":"2023-10-22T17:02:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-22T16:02:16","slug":"taint-just-the-taint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8547","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Tain\u2019t Just the Taint"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Seeing as this first game after the international break could set a trend for the matches that follow, Arsenal\u2019s visit to Stamford Bridge in Saturday\u2019s late game is an excellent time for the Gunners to keep the bit between their teeth, and turn things up a notch or two.  The game offers them the prize of resuming the momentum they built up prior to the two week interruption in successive clean sheet league wins against Brentford, Bournemouth and Manchester City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal have many scores to settle against this opponent, as no one will have forgotten.  Going back as far as December 2020, the Gunners have won five of the last six Premier League derbies between the clubs, but before that date had managed only six wins and ten draws from the 32 league matches between the clubs after Roman Abramovich, the club\u2019s Russian oligarch owner, first hired Jose Mourinho as manager.  Arsenal finished higher than Chelsea in the league table only three times in the 18 seasons since the Invincible Gunners won the league in 2004, one year after Abramovich infused his money into the previously underachieving West London club. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May 2022, after Abramovich was disqualified as club director for his ties to the regime that shocked the world by invading Ukraine, Chelsea was sold to Todd Boehly\u2019s consortium backed by Clearlake Capital.  It remains to be seen whether Chelsea\u2019s new money is as tainted as that of Abramovich, but there seems to be no less of it.  In the 2022 summer window Chelsea spent more than any club in Premier League history, dishing out over \u00a3250 million on players like Sterling, Cucurella, and Aubameyang.  Early last season Boehly sacked coach Thomas Tuchel who objected to certain of those transfers, and Boehly appointed Graham Potter in his place.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By spending over \u00a3300 million in January, including \u00a3107 million for British record signing Enzo Fernandez and another \u00a389 million for Mikhailo Mudryk, who was heavily rumored to be Arsenal-bound at the time, Chelsea established a new level of transfer madness.  Potter, who was unable to sort this plethora of riches in the requisite jiffy, was sacked with Chelsea 11th in the table, and replaced by interim manager Frank Lampard as the club limped to a record-low 38 goals scored and their first bottom half finish since 1996.  Ex-Sp*rs and PSG manager Mauricio Pochettino was then hired in the summer to see what he could do amidst all that chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remarkably for a club that spent such sums on transfers in the last two years, after six games Chelsea were 15th in the table with only five points.  But based on three good results prior to the break, things could be on the upswing at Stamford Bridge.  Chelsea defeated Fulham away as Mudryk scored his first goal for the club; the next week Chelsea won at Burnley at a canter; and those two league wins followed a home League Cup victory over Brighton.  Chelsea’s current state of development is difficult to assess, but with so many talented players, Pochettino should be capable of getting results if given sufficient autonomy.  Eight games into the season it still seems that their many new players, and the team as a whole, are something of an unknown quantity.  The Blues now sit 11th in the table, level on points with West London neighbors Fulham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal XI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ex-Blues Jorginho and Havertz, the latter a Chelsea player this very calendar year, will hope for a chance to impress in their old haunts.  The Gunners play Champions League football in midweek when they travel to face Sevilla, so Mikel Arteta may have more substitution issues to consider than his counterpart in this match, as Chelsea will have a whole week to recover before they host Brentford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Saliba hurt his toe near the end of our victory over Man City and was ruled out of the internationals.  Arsenal\u2019s other main injury worry is Bukayo Saka, who missed the City game due to the hamstring injury he picked up at Lens, but I am pencilling both players into the team and leaving it to Arteta to name replacements if those two are unavailable.  Unfortunately, I see that Leandro Trossard has also been carrying a knock so Emile Smith Rowe and Reiss Nelson will need to be ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing as Trev was correct to point out in his Man City match report that we have an awful lot of Gabi\u2019s from Brazil, let\u2019s see if you can spot all of them in my predicted starting XI:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White  Saliba  G.  Zinchenko<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard  Havertz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka  G. Jes\u00fas  G. Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Oleksandr has not changed his name to Gabriel, he\u2019s nominally just lining up next to Big Gabi on the left side of our defensive line.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018holic pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Short and sweet, I\u2019ll predict two snorts and a clean sheet: \u00d8degaard and Gabriel Jes\u00fas to score in a 2-0 to the good guys.  Chelsea may be improving, and have only let in four goals in eight league games, but Arsenal should have enough to hold them off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank Dennis that interminable interlull has at last ended, and the boys in red and white, or, on this occasion, fluorescent yellow with black wavy lines and black (!), will be on the loose again.  Wherever you are watching the game, \u2018holics, make it a good one. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeing as this first game after the international break could set a trend for the matches that follow, Arsenal\u2019s visit to Stamford Bridge in Saturday\u2019s late game is an excellent time for the Gunners to keep the bit between their teeth, and turn things up a notch or two.  The game offers them the prize […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8547"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8547"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8566,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8547\/revisions\/8566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}