Blue Armour

We have one of the toughest, if not the toughest, run-ins to the end of the season with tough fixtures back to back. I would also add the United fixture to that list. The bottle job already happened in December and Jan, when we could have been out of sight in the top 4 race.

I don't deny James can be useful. Just not in midfield. At least, he wasn't convincing against Arsenal. Hopefully Lavia returning will allow James to back to RB. And with Jackson returning after the break, the team can go back to playing how it used to last year.

Looks ordinary in midfield. Nullifying any of his offensive qualities playing there. And his positioning is not great either. If we can't count on James to play in RB/RCB/RWB, might as well not play him at all.

Anyway. His donkey can't help win a trophy at Arsenal. He has to cope in some way, I guess.

Those comments make it look like he wanted to undo whatever progress Pochettino made with the team towards the end of the season

Awful first half. Positive is that Arsenal only scored 1 despite all that

Just Arteta dark arts.

Not that Chelsea were doing much when given time.

Well. At least the possession stats have gone up in the past few minutes. But the movement off the ball is so terrible. Nothing much even with all that possession.

At least Cucurella still showing his good form.

Will be hilarious if Maresca and the Clearlake apologists start going on like 'oooh., Arsenal are where we want to be. Look how Arteta was given time to build". After yet another hiding from this team.

FfS, is this Marescaball without Palmer?

Hilarious to see Sanchez getting defended. Probably just the best of a very bad bunch.

Masterclass passing by Sanchez again.

IMO, Palmer plays his best when Jackson is on the pitch.

Would have kept Palmer on to give him more chances to score from the counter, instead of keeping Nkunku, who has been nearly anonymous this game. George not a bad option to bring on though.

Nice.

Hindsight, Nkuku looking like a poor acquisition, even disregarding the injuries. Not a real striker. Not a real winger. He was okay in the group stages of the conference league though.

Tuchel watching from the stands. Maybe he can give Palmer some pep talk when he joins up with the England squad.

Palmer likely needs Jackson to return to bring out the best in him again.

Both the team and manager are inexperienced. It honestly felt better under the assumption when Maresca said that top 4 priority wasn't a priority this season. It made more sense. Now apparently top 4 was the objective from upper management. And they decided that the current squad and manager was enough.

Yeah, Palmer seems to be on a downer in terms of mentality atm. Hopefully the strong squad he is surrounded with and a motivational manager can get him out of this slump soon.

That Away kit looks fab. 3rd kit too. Home kit reminds me of the 2011-2012 kit.

Regardless of the opinion on Felix, the lack of options up front especially given the unavailability of Mudryk exposes us badly. If either one of Sancho or Neto gets injured, team will be in dire straits. Felix was let go without getting a replacement.

The club allowed it because of 🤑 Any reason to cut costs, this new ownership will do it., no matter the consequence Sorry to say this, but Maresca was the one who enabled this by allowing Felix to leave. The same would have happened with Nkunku too.