Blue Armour

Then hopefully we should win. And generally speaking UEFAs VAR system tends go be better than the FAs.

Haaland with 14 goals from 8 games. Annoying that we have the world cup bang in the middle to possibly disrupt his streak., but hopefully Haaland can use the break to sharpen his fitness. I don't care for City, and while I would like to see teams figure out ways to stop him, I still like Haaland, and the thought of him gunning for all the records is exciting.

Swear there's always one team every season that sacks their manager right before we face them. It's like the rest of the league has a thing for us.

Right before we play them.

Horrible decision from United to leave Haaland alone to go up against their CBs. They need their midfielders to put in a shift here.

We play them in the league cup in November 😭

Getting nightmares already about playing city. Even 2 Thiago Silvas won't be able to deal with Haaland in the final third. Only hope is to try to contain/disrupt him further up.

Wtf is up with Casemiro. They should have started him and used him to try and disrupt Haalands game in the middle of the park. He's the only good CDM they have.

What a shot from Antony

Yeah, the title is a stretch with City having the quality on display. But would be surprised if Arsenal finish outside top 4.

Haaland is one of those strikers who you can't stop once he's in the final third. He's just too physical to deal with. You can only hope to disrupt his rhythm further up the pitch, near the middle of the park, and even then that's difficult, because City have some excellent runners off the ball. He can easily release pressure by freeing them up and laying off the ball to them. Attempting that will also require some strong CDM play from someone like a Makelele or prime Kante.

I know Mount is going through a rough patch, and I agree he needs to be rotated with someone else, but we should still have more faith in our own players., and that they can improve. He's not even 24 FFS. In the CL final we played, we had both Mount and Foden on the pitch and we know who delivered.

Hope Potter selects the right midfield combo for this game. Must win.

Exactly. We are not even a third of the way through in terms of the season, and we're already building a narrative. Fair enough they have been impressive so far, and seem to have made brilliant moves in the transfer window. But unless they're in a title race by December, I'm not going to think much of it. Ole also finished second and was in a 'title race' the season prior to last, and we know how that went.

To be fair Arteta was allowed the luxury of poor finishes in the league in back to back seasons, including failing to even make the conference league last season. Majority of the Arsenal fans were calling for his head.

Hard to be optimistic these days... But I think this Potter Chelsea is really on an upward trajectory. And no, this isn't me saying this just because we got 3 points. Even when we were failing to make the most of final third chances, we were really easy on the eye. He needs to sort out the central midfield though. Jorginho is looking more slow and ponderous with each game. We're too soft in the middle. And I take back my reactionary comment against Fofana. He really grew into the game after the first Palace goal.

Would start Chalobah over both Fofana and Koulibaly. Not saying much, considering how terrible those two have been.

Fofana masterclass. Both him and Koulibaly looking like duds.

I'm telling you..someone needs to break the hex on strikers at the Bridge. It's a Chelsea thing.

Yes, these are the kind of players we should be signing.

Have a feeling this guy is going to end up with egg on his face. Not the first European manager we've faced to come out with comments like this.

Doesn't suit the narrative of the mainstream UK media.

Agreed. If upper tier sources like Matt Law have to reverse their stance regarding confirmations, you have to wonder why they were misinformed in the first place. Club should be a little more discreet, and not say something is nailed on until it is.

I guess you're both calling out my post. I clearly mentioned that I don't think he's ever going to stop being a good player. I'm only referring to his current unstoppable run where he seems to break every single PL goal scoring record, and the fact that it looks too easy for him at the moment. Nowhere did I say he is invisible or useless. And yes, he is much better than anyone we have. A point so obvious, that it doesn't even need to be made.

Arteta took more than 2 whole seasons to reach the level they are at now. For most of that time, they were playing boring football. Arteta also renewed Aubameyangs contract only to fall out with him and dump him later Real shame that we never gave our manager the same amount of time and chances to rectify things. Hopefully Potter doesn't run into the same problem.