Premier League preview: Arsenal v Chelsea

Thomas Vermaelen and Fernando Torres

Arsène Wenger will look out across the Emirates Stadium pitch to the 11 Chelsea players on Saturday afternoon and be thankful that one man isn’t there.

He’ll see John Terry – with the defender’s four-game ban for the Anton Ferdinand incident not due to start just yet – but it’ll be the absence of Didier Drogba that Wenger will be celebrating, as the Gunners take on a Blues side now without the man who tormented Arsenal over his eight-year Chelsea career, scoring 13 goals as the West Londoners won 10 of the 14 matches against Wenger’s side in which he featured.

Now in a time zone seven hours ahead, Drogba will be settling down on his Saturday evening in Shanghai to watch this meeting between London’s top two on a crisp early afternoon in the capital. There is a lot at stake already.

Two of the four remaining unbeaten records are on the line at the Emirates Stadium, where Chelsea could use the weekend’s early kick-off to create a four-point gap to second place Manchester United ahead of their game at home to Tottenham in the evening.

The strength of the squad at Roberto di Matteo’s disposal was underlined when the Italian made numerous changes to his side and still watched them beat Wolves 6-0 in the Capital One Cup in midweek, when the likes of Ryan Bertrand, Oriol Romeu and Victor Moses pressed their claims for more regular inclusions by finding the back of the net.

Gary Cahill, Juan Mata and Fernando Torres were on target as well, and all will be expecting to feature here as the Blues face up to their most difficult challenge of the Premier League season so far.

Cahill, you’d expect, will now be relied upon more and more in the wake of the Terry ban, and his happy knack of finding the net could just come in useful against an Arsenal defence who have conceded goals in their last four games in all competitions after opening their season with three Premier League clean sheets.

The solid Thomas Vermaelen is likely to make a return to that defence here though after missing the impressive 1-1 draw at Manchester City last weekend, where likely centre back partner Laurent Koscielny fired the Gunners’ late equaliser to earn a welcome point.

They too enjoyed a heavy midweek Capital One victory as Coventry City were swept aside 6-1 at the Emirates, where the French forward Olivier Giroud experienced the high of scoring his first Gunners goal before enduring the low of later missing a penalty.

Theo Walcott scored twice too, and with the England man still locked in contract – or as he insists, positional – discussions with the club, Wenger might just be tempted to unleash him here and let him show his manager that he is worth his faith.

The 23-year-old scored as the Gunners beat Chelsea 5-3 at Stamford Bridge in one of last season’s more memorable games, but the return in North London proved to be a damp squib as it ended goalless.

Santi Cazorla and Eden Hazard have been added to their respective teams since then, and although both will be looking to gain the upper hand here, it could just be that the aid of home advantage helps out the gifted Spaniard.

He, Lukas Podolski and a somewhat reborn Gervinho will be looking to cause the Terry and Chelsea even more problems, and without Drogba up at the other end they’ll be problems which could lead to a home victory.

Wenger could be smiling at the start and end of proceedings.

Prediction: Arsenal 1 Chelsea 0

Mark Jones – follow me on twitter

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