A big win for Chelsea against Barcelona in midweek has put the Blues on a whole new level as a team.
Since a wobble back in the Autumn, Enzo Maresca has this team playing really well, and they come into the game against Arsenal feeling confident and ready to compete with the very best.
Arsenal favourites – but Chelsea looking strong
The kind of very strong tips for today games you might look for online will all be pointing to an Arsenal win given their form – but it’s still a very different picture to what we would have seen even a few weeks ago.
A run of one win in 5 games back in September saw stumbles both in the Premier League and Champions League, and there was pressure on Maresca after that.
It’s taken a while for performances to pick up, but the team were able to keep picking up points since that dodgy run, and are now looking much better. They’re now not just picking up points, they’re playing well and beating strong teams.
Of course Arsenal will be a whole new test – they’re the best team in Europe right now, and proved it by blowing away Bayern in midweek.
They’ve won 6 of their last 7 games in the Premier League and 12 of their last 13 in all competitions.
Meanwhile we haven’t beaten them at Stamford Bridge for 7 years, a crazy reversal of fortune given the nightmares we used to give them every time before that. That seven years saw some pretty mediocre Gunners teams come to our stadium and get a result – and this team is far better than any of them.
Set pieces could be key for both teams in competitive, physical game
A key factor will be set pieces. Arsenal led the revolution in that department in the league over the last couple of years, and while we’re not doing badly ourselves, they are the benchmark.
But despite all that, with confidence this high anything is possible. Injured players are back, with even Cole Palmer potentially ready to make an appearance this weekend.
Robert Sanchez is having his best run of form as a Chelsea player, the defence looks solid and settled, Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez are both having outstanding seasons in the middle of the park, and Maresca has found a balance in attack that he clearly likes.
None of that means we will be able to break our nasty record against the Gunners, but we should at least be able to play them far closer than we have in recent years.
Looking forward to a packed December
Once we’ve got past Arsenal, the fixtures are a lot softer – but also come in ridiculous quantities. We’ve got 8 games in December, and while the teams we play aren’t flying high like Mikel Arteta’s outfit, the games are all worth the same number of points.
It would be very frustrating to pull off a big result against the Gunners and then slip up against Leeds or Bournemouth. With important players now returning to fitness and this team looking as confident as in form as they have for years, this is the best chance we’ve had for years to turn this into a positive winter period. A good run of wins in these 8 games will set us up really nicely for the start of 2026.
Pick up maximum points (or close to it) and there will no longer be any pretending we’re not right in this title race as we head into the New Year. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – let’s go game by game and point by point through this busy period.
