Not counting the Community Shield (I don’t care what you say, you can’t call that a competitive fixture) our record against Chelsea is utterly atrocious.
We’ve been pretty consistent (and don’t we know it) over the last 12 seasons, always finishing around 3rd or 5th in the table. In that time though, Chelsea have enjoyed less stability, finishing between first and tenth.
Despite Chelsea going through some tough periods (last season in particular) we still couldn’t muster a win over them. We lost twice in the Premier League last season against Chelsea, 1-0 at home and then 2-0 away.
Our last 10 results against Chelsea are as follows:
Arsenal 0 – 1 Chelsea
Chelsea 2 – 0 Arsenal
Arsenal 0 – 0 Chelsea
Chelsea 2 – 0 Arsenal
Chelsea 6 – 0 Arsenal
Arsenal 0 – 0 Chelsea
Arsenal 0 – 2 Chelsea
Chelsea 2 – 1 Arsenal
Arsenal 1 – 2 Chelsea
Arsenal 0 – 0 Chelsea
To summarise – that’s 10 games, 0 wins, 3 draws and 7 defeats.
And if you want to put the goals scored and goals against in there as well, Arsenal have scored 2 goals and conceded 17. Giving us a goal difference of -15.
Can you believe that?!
The game previous to that brilliant 10 game run was in October 2011 when Arsenal visited Stamford Bridge. Robin van Persie made John Terry look like a clown and we ended up winning 5-3 which, looking back, is one of my all time favourite games. Partly because I knew for a fact that getting results against Chelsea (in the post-Mourinho era onwards) was near on impossible.
It’s not so much that Chelsea have a hoodoo over us, it’s just that they’re a better team than we are. Even last season when Chelsea were all over the place we still failed to win a single point against them – mentally, we’re scared of Chelsea.
We couldn’t cope with the years of Didier Drogba abusing us and now the bully is in the form of Diego Costa. For some reason, we just can’t handle it against big, strong strikers who have a bit of a mean streak. We’re far too “nice” when it comes to it and would rather cry and complain instead of getting stuck in and fighting in those 90 minutes.
And it doesn’t matter that they might be having a bit of a “wobble” at the moment and seem to concede goals left, right and centre. And that we’re firing on all cylinders and all of our players seem to be hitting top form.
Because just like the sky is blue, water is wet, Yaya Toure’s agent will open his big mouth and Santa will unload his hefty sack all over your living room on Christmas Day, some things are just certain.
And another one of those is Chelsea winning at The Emirates on Saturday.