Premier League Full Time Report: Chelsea vs. Arsenal – Part 1
Chelsea were playing host to Arsenal at Stamford Bridge - a match that has historically gone down to be one of the most competitive and thrilling competitions in the English Premier League.
The one player who stood out in all the games between the two teams was Chelsea's hit man, Didier Drogba. Going into tonight’s game, the Ivorian forward had scored twelve goals in twelve matches against the Gunners and was surely going to be the man to watch
in the game tonight.
Chelsea had some more good news heading into the game as Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas was amongst the long list of casualties at the club. The other players on the list included Theo Walcott, Robin Van Persie, Nicklas Bendtner, Aaron Ramsey and Manuel Almunia.
Out of all the players, the one player who was not going to be missed was Almunia. The keeper had cost Arsenal numerous points last season and he had two disastrous moments last week which saw Arsenal loose out to West Brom. Luckasz Fabianksi was brought in
to replace the injured Spaniard and after his brilliant display in the midweek Champions League fixture. As a result, he was sure not to disappoint.
Arsenal had some good news prior to the match as Frank Lampard was still declared unfit to participate in any match and was sidelined for another couple of weeks.
The match kicked off at what could be said at a hundred miles an hour. In the very first minute, Arsenal could have taken the lead. Arsenal's side back Bacary Sagna, whipped in a brilliant cross from the right side of the pitch onto the onrushing Marouane
Chamakh, but the strikers diving header was deflected wide by Alex.
The resulting corner could have also resulted in a goal for Arsenal, as Samir Nasri curled in a delightful ball which was flicked on by Sebastian Squillaci onto the head of Laurent Koscielny, but the centre back managed to turn his back to the ball at the
last moment and his header went just narrowly over the post. The defender should have done much better as such chances seldom present themselves in a game of such a high level.
From then on, it was a lot of back and forth movement between the two sides and the next opportunity fell to the feet of Andrei Arshavin, the Russian Assassin amongst the Arsenal ranks. The forward got the ball into his feet near the outside of the area,
to the left and took a step or two before unleashing a brilliant striker, that had Petr Cech stretched to his maximum to keep the ball from going into the back of the net.
(Continued in part 2)
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