Morning folks. It’s another match day and after the last few that we’ve had, the old fears and nervous butterflies have crept their way back in to my stomach. About a month ago those things were more excitement than fears, because we were on a great run of form, playing good football, looking every bit the value for being top of the league. But a run of four games without a win has dented that excitement and in Chelsea tonight we face a team that could very well add to our woes, such is the talent they have.

They may Have been an utter train wreck this season, they may be on a wretched run of form and they may be a side struggling for goals, but it is still Chelsea and I am convinced they will come with their best game this evening. After all, Southampton are a joke and found it difficult to score goals all season, until they rocked up at the Emirates and bagged two a couple of weeks back. So I’m not expecting a Chelsea team with nothing to play for and effectively being on the beach, to just lie down and have us tickle their bellies.

In fact, it is precisely for these reasons above that I am concerned, because they go in to this game with nothing to lose, just like when we played Newcastle away last season, who had nothing to play for, yet promptly turned us over. So this feels like a lot more of a dangerous game to us than it does to them. The pressure is on us to deliver three points and after the inevitability of City winning against Fulham on Sunday, anything other than an Arsenal win tonight will mean that the title really is going City’s way. Most of us know that City will probably win five out of their last six and then most likely lift the league title, but we have to make sure we do our bit to push them all the way. That means winning all of our home games, getting three points away at Forest, then somehow going to Newcastle and winning. If we do that then we’ve done all we could do and we’ve given it our best shot at pushing them.

But the challenge we have is that we don’t look like we can keep the ball out of our own net. I’m less concerned about the other end, but whilst Chelsea are finding it difficult to score, they come up against an opponent in which they know exactly how to play against us if we play the same way we’ve played in recent weeks. Liverpool went long with the diagonals. West Ham put the physical presence of Antonio up against Holding. Southampton were just gifted goals but City just hit Haaland early and Holding was found extremely wanting. If we play the same way tonight – which is my very real worry – then I fear that Chelsea will look to do the same and just hit a target man to run the channels up against Holding.

So what does Arteta do? For me I don’t think he’ll pull out Holding, so what I would do if I was in his position would be to switch to Partey and Xhaka as the double pivot, then have Odegaard in front of them, with Martinelli and Saka out wide and maybe even Trossard up top. We like to create a ‘box’ in our high press, with Xhaka, Odegaard, Partey and Zinchenko often forming that four higher up the pitch. It gives more options for those midfield players and means that we are able to control possession further up the pitch. By playing with a double pivot then it feels like that box is just a little bit deeper. It may not allow us to win the ball further up the pitch, but it will allow us to hopefully have less distances from Holding and therefore give him more cover. Gabriel too, who hasn’t been amazing of late, so from my perspective it does feel as though we should be looking to change something in our defensive third.

It also means that we’re able to show some tactical flexibility in our game plan. I think one of the challenges we’ve faced of late is that many clubs have realised we have a certain way of playing and that way is very efficient. But when one or two of the key component parts of the system are removed – Partey, Saliba, Zinchenko, etc – then we suffer and teams have worked out how to make that happen. So by giving us a different approach we could find ourselves with teams second guessing playing against us a little more. That is why I am hoping for us to change it around a little tonight too.

Chelsea are missing Mount, James, Koulibaly and Broja from their squad, but Havertz returns tonight. They’ll have Kante, Silva Fofana, Fernandez, Felix and Sterling available and any of those players has the potential to step up and play well. I haven’t even mentioned Aubameyang and given we are a club who ALWAYS seems to get sucker-punched by returning former players, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him start tonight. Or at least get some minutes. So it is incumbent on our lads to start this game fast, applying the pressure but not leaving ourselves too open at the back. We have to get at them and hopefully if we can get the first goal their heads might drop.

This will be tight tonight. I’ll be there, roaring on the lads, but I just hope that we don’t gift Chelsea goals like we have done in recent weeks with other opponents.

Fingers crossed we can get all three points. Back tomorrow with the Same Old Arsenal podcast to review the game tomorrow night.