Jase

The dates for the tie has been confirmed: Feb 23 - Atletico (a) Mar 17 - Atletico (h) When seen with our league schedule, it looks like this... Feb 20 - Southampton (a) Feb 23 - Atletico (a) Feb 28 - Man United (h) Mar 6 - Everton (h) Mar 13 - Leeds (a) Mar 17 - Atletico (h) Mar 20 - Liverpool (a)

No guarantee we would have gotten Dortmund anyway because say Sevilla had finished 1st and they were drawn in our place, they couldn't have gotten Atletico due to the draw rules and subsequent draws would have turned out differently. And besides, Dortmund are also tough opponents in their way - e.g. way more firepower than Atletico - and god knows how will they fare under their interim manager. Could be even better than they were under Favre.

London has officially been put into Tier 3. So, no fans against West Ham etc...

So wingers or no wingers, looks like more 4-3-3 (and more square pegs in round hole) again tomorrow...

In other news, it seems like London will be put into Tier 3, which means no fans for our upcoming home games...

Pulisic is fit for tomorrow but not yet decided whether he will start or will be on the bench, according to Lampard.

Look at this way, if we get KOed in the Round of 16, we can focus on the title race.

You're making it sound like they are very prolific. Only 4 Atletico players have scored at least 3 goals this season - the rest are either on 1 or haven't scored - and their top scorer has 8 goals, which IIRC is the same as ours. As @The Skipper mentioned above, our players could become more prolific by February. Who knows? Heck, maybe someone will be super clinical on the night for us like Giroud was at Sevilla recently.

I think you're talking about the 2019/20 Chelsea and not the 2020/21 Chelsea...

Looking from a pessimistic POV, it'd be less of an embarrassment if we lose to Atletico than say Porto, Gladbach or Atalanta. But either way, the tie will be good learning curve for this team and their development. If we can get past Atletico, it'd give the players confidence for the quarter finals etc.

Atletico are a bit of a peculiar bunch. We know they can be good but they also can be underwhelming. They failed to beat to Lokomotiv Moscow over the 2 games and somehow couldn't beat a Bayern B side in the group stage. And then there was the Champions League last season, where they were so flat against Leipzig.

Maybe things will change in February but I'd fancy our chances against Atletico, especially with the first leg being in Madrid.

Of fucking course we got the toughest draw from the unseeded teams. But it's doable, especially when Atletico hardly convinced in their group.

CHAMPION LEAGUE DRAW TIME!!!

Pretty sure I didn't, not over name calling clubs. Can't be bothered to waste my time over that. What's the point of having a stop gap if he's also injury prone? If we are to get another winger in, it should be someone who at least has a clean injury record, or close to a clean one.

And yet you want Hazard back? You must have confused me with someone else because I am pretty sure this is the first time I responded to you about this name calling thing. I could care less about how people call the other clubs. I just find it odd that people name call players silly names, especially over something that they have absolutely no control over with.

https://theathletic.com/2257563/2020/12/14/bayern-upamecano-man-utd-arsenal/?source=emp_shared_article Bayern favorites to sign Upamecano, according to David Ornstein.

It'll be Arteta's 1 year anniversary in the Arsenal job on the day we play on Boxing Day...

This is where we are at now, huh, calling Pulisic names just because of his injuries? Said it before, people keep on talking about it like Pulisic wants to get injured on purpose. I mean sure, we are all frustrated as fans to see someone keeps on getting injured but you can bet that no one is more frustrated about it than the player himself. I don't think Lampard and the club have given up on him yet. And swap Pulisic for Hazard? Hazard also has been having his own injury problems at Real Madrid and given his age, I'd not take him back at all. Plus, his time at the club here is done, over. People need to move on from this idea of having Hazard back.

https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/premier-league-suspensions-how-do-bookings-red-card-bans-work-in-/1e6awd5os0a031pri0kcq3eu0c Unless it got changed for 2020/21, suspension from straight red card applies to all domestic competitions. And Jorginho's suspension - caused by accumulation of 10 bookings - applied only in the league, which forced him to sit out of the games against Everton and Villa. https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1372099/Granit-Xhaka-red-card-Arsenal-news-Mikel-Arteta-Burnley https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal-granit-xhaka-red-card-793641 Above two articles also mentioned Xhaka will miss Arsenal's next 3 domestic games, including the Man City game in the League Cup. So, he will be back for our game...

Nope. Arsenal have Southampton, Everton and Man City (League Cup) before facing us.