He just can't help it. And neither can I!

In a week when Arsenal have had a fairly routine win - and I'll of course cover that below - my own football week is once again being dominated by the Chelsea soap opera. 

On the one hand, it was highly amusing watching Manchester City take Chelsea to pieces on Sunday - with the added spice of the John Terry substitution. But yet again the ravings of their manager fill the headlines for me. Will nobody act? 

His season so far...

Firstly, it is worth noting that Chelsea did not win a single pre-season game, and have one point from two matches this season. This makes me happy.

Secondly, the Eva Carneiro incident and fallout. If you don't know who she is, she's Chelsea's Club Scapegoat - sorry, Doctor - who a couple of weeks ago felt the unjustifiable wrath of a man who I suspect may slowly be losing his sanity.

Then there was the thrashing at Eastlands, followed by his preposterous pronouncement that the 3-0 defeat was a 'fake' result; utter nonsense and nobody in their right mind could possibly take that seriously. 

And finally, harking back to his recent assertion that opposition clubs are trying to 'buy' their way to the title, there are two quite obvious points to make. 

1. That this is precisely what New Chelsea FC (founded 2003) have been doing for the vast majority of the past dozen years, and 

2. Chelsea are suddenly going out and spending vast sums of money themselves; a reported (and extortionate) £20m+ on Baba Rahman, a similar figure on Pedro, and likely a further £30m+ (overpriced again IMHO) on John Stones in the next couple of weeks.

For most managers, this is enough antics for an entire season. Yet it's only mid-August!

All evidence of his rank hypocrisy and brazen disregard for the facts. Yet where is the backlash from the press/media? Their counterparts in Italy and Spain didn't stand for it, yet it would appear that in England the vast majority of the press/media hordes are rabid sycophants when it comes to my good mate Jose. 

Why, I simply cannot imagine. Because he is always good for a quote or a story? Get over it, guys, and give him what he deserves, which is little or no respect whatsoever. Question him. Let him walk out of press conferences if he wants to. Don't tiptoe around him. He doesn't deserve your respect. He talks utter drivel, yet people hang onto his every word.

Excellent coach and motivator Jose Mourinho may be, but that's all the respect I'll give him. 

Just to cheer us all up, here's an image of him looking relaxed after Sunday's match:

Now onto more important matters - Arsenal getting back on track last Sunday.

Interesting team selection. No surprise to see Bellerin come back in at right back; he's first choice there now, I reckon. I also wasn't surprised to see Giroud start up front in a tricky looking away match. And with Alexis back it was no surprise that The Ox found himself back on the bench, his mistake for the second goal last week still fresh in everyone's minds.

The key move, for me, was the one I discussed last week. Cazorla slotting back where he is now most effective; in central midfield alongside Le Coq. The fallout of that is that Ramsey gets shunted out to the right, which he claims not to like, but provided that Bellerin is providing the width - plus Alexis stretching the play on the other side - Ramsey's natural tendency to drift inside, and work his way into the box, is actually pretty useful - especially with Ozil's magic feet pulling the strings. All in all, this formation worked well enough last year, and there was no reason to change it. So I for one am glad that the manager went back to it. The question now is could there be matches where he plays Ramsey alongside Cazorla in central midfield, and opts for more pace on the right. Against weaker sides and at home, quite possibly.

Other talking points are the whole Coquelin red card tightrope thing, Kos turning his back on a shot for a second week, and Giroud's early contender for Goal of the Season.

On the first, I would suggest that none of those fouls - apart from the one straight after his booking when he threw an opponent to the floor - were worthy of a card. But it was right to take him off because one more foul would have been enough on whatever totting up process the referee was using.

On the second: Koscielny had a good, solid game. Excellent positioning, good pace, solid marking and tackling. But he HAS to put his body on the line - dare I say it, like John Terry does - and already this year he has turned his back on a shot twice and it has resulted in two goals. Deal with it, Stevie Bould.

Finally, lovely finish from Giroud. That sort of thing is precisely why Wenger may not go and buy someone for £30m+. It's borderline. Look, we'd all like to see fresh blood, but find someone better than Giroud who his club are willing to sell. I defy you to do so.

On to Liverpool at home on Monday night. A proper test, one would think. Except that I really wasn't impressed by their struggles to overcome plucky Bournemouth last Monday. I reckon we'll have too much for them, provided we can shrug off our recent inability to score at home. Just show the team a video of last season's 4-1 thrashing in the same fixture, Arsene. That should inspire them.

COYG!

Expectations, eh...

For football fans, it's all about Expectations. And it's the Hope that kills you.

Are (or were) the expectations of Arsenal fans realistic before the first ball had been kicked; that finally a proper title tilt is/was in sight? I would have thought so, to be frank. But there's a Quantum Leap to be made somewhere between Hope and Expectation, and the pre-season indicated that we could reasonably make that Quantum Leap. But Sunday took the wind very firmly out of our sails - let's hope that it was a blip.

I've given myself a few days to collect my thoughts on what happened on Sunday, and what sort of response one might expect to see from the team. Let's firstly have a look at what went wrong, and try to analyse why:

1. Over-confidence? Arrogance? An expectation that all they needed to do was turn up? Look, the pre-season had gone swimmingly, and home to West Ham didn't look on paper to be the most testing of starts, but one could feel a sort of overwhelming cockiness in the crowd - easily transferred to the players - of 'We've beaten Chelsea. We've signed Petr Cech. Chelsea even obligingly dropped points yesterday. And it's only West Ham.' 

To me, this was a major contributory factor to the performance, and it ought to serve as a lesson. Thank goodness it came on Day One! But notwithstanding that it could easily have been 3 or 4-nil before they took the lead, it was distinctly unsatisfactory.

And unlike two years ago, when they lost to Villa on the first day of the season, this was supposed to be a settled, growing side ready to push for the title. On that showing, they can forget it I'm afraid. But it's early days, and for that we should be extremely thankful.

2. The shape of the team was different to last season, even if the personnel really weren't. No Alexis (short of fitness), and that was fair enough. Giroud instead of Walcott? - no problem. Debuchy for Bellerin? - no big deal except for a consequent lack of pace. 

But here's the big thing; Ramsey had been making noises about wanting to play in central midfield, and whether it was as a result of that or otherwise, Wenger switched him with Cazorla and sent the Spaniard out on the left of the front three. Which against this opposition did not work; the performance was disjointed; Cazorla was peripheral, and Ramsey lacked discipline. If you add in that Ozil barely fired at all... well, there's the problem in my opinion.

3. The defensive shambles: For the moment, I am going to blame some of the issues on unfamiliarity between the keeper and the back four, but they are going to need to be infinitely more disciplined as the season wears on than they were on Sunday. 

Both goals were as a result of a catalogue of errors - for the first Cech set them up too far from his goal, and then came for a ball he had no right to come for. That, combined with a fine delivery and poor positioning by at least one defender, led to the simplest of goals. For the second... well, where do you start? The Ox lost the ball (not for the first time in his career, deep in his own half and leading to a goal), and this was compounded as two defenders didn't move to close Zarate down. But the shot wasn't powerful, yet Cech was going the wrong way, slipped, and it was all very embarrassing. Goodness me, imagine if that had been Szczesny!!!...

4. Inability to move up a gear, or do anything too different. Well, that's nothing new, I'm afraid. Sending Alexis on was a desperate and probably foolhardy move, yet not even he could make much of a difference. They held us off easily.

Wenger claimed later that the team were 'nervous'. To me, that's nonsense. Psychological issues there surely were, but it's difficult to accept that nerves were the issue here.

So now it's a 37-game season. But I don't see that Palace away is necessarily a good start to it. They're a decent side, have bought well in the summer, and Selhurst Park is a tricky place to go. We're going to have to see a vast change in attitude from last week to this in order to achieve the desired result. But Arsenal are a fine side, capable of beating anybody on their day, so it's in their hands.

The issue for us fans, of course, is expectation. We've believed - and indeed contributed to - the hype surrounding the prospects for this season. Perhaps it's no bad thing that this happened so early, and hopefully we can look back on it as an early watershed. Here's hoping.

The only remaining question is on signings. The Benzema thing isn't going away, but I simply can't take it seriously I'm afraid.

I reckon that we do need an alternative up front, but alternatives of sufficient class look to be almost out of stock. Having watched him on Monday, I wouldn't say no to Berahino, to be honest.

But more important is central midfield; I sincerely hope that we're not going to regret not going for Schneiderlin, because for all the impact he has made since January Coquelin is almost certainly not the answer; not on a consistent basis at the level we're striving for. That Polish chap who plays for Seville looked pretty decent when I watched him on Wednesday - and what an incredible game of football that was, by the way! Kongdogbia and Schneiderlin have gone, but he looks a fine alternative. Over to our esteemed leader, then...

On to Sunday, then. Come on Arsenal; let's hit the ground running and forget about last week. Believe.

A most unfriendly Friendly

How lovely to finally break the 'Mourinho hoodoo', even if in an ultimately meaningless game. No points awarded; well, maybe some Brownie Points -  and of course a nice trophy (the third of the pre-season). Job done.

Here are a few talking points from the match and its aftermath:

There is no love whatsoever lost between Messrs Wenger and Mourinho, and having had the opportunity to listen to some of the stuff that the shell-suited Chelsea manager has said to the media over the years about his classy counterpart in the natty suit and tie, I can understand why. Whilst I can understand Wenger's brilliant snubbing of Mourinho on Sunday, part of me asks why he had to stoop to his level and thereby fall victim to possible criticism.

For those who haven't seen it, this is the incident:

http://sport.bt.com/beautiful-game/mourinho-gives-away-medal-after-wenger-blanks-him-91363995901953 

and this explains why they're not on each others' Christmas card lists:

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/9504671/

We all know precisely why Mourinho stood at the bottom of the steps afterwards. Because if he makes it all about him, it distracts the media from looking at his players' performances; some of which were rather disappointing. And then of course there was his criticism of Arsenal in his post-match interviews; claiming that 'they left their philosophy in the dressing room'. Frankly, I think that Arsenal can take that as some sort of compliment - they 'out-Chelsead' Chelsea. And, frankly, why not?

So what of the match itself? There is little doubt that Arsenal are a little further down the preparation line than Chelsea, and that certainly showed early on. As the match wore on, it became clear that there is currently little between the sides; but there is still a month to go until the Transfer Window closes, and it's a long season. Some may accuse me of bias (heaven forbid!), but I believe that Arsenal looked a match for Chelsea, and pretty devastating on the break. Plenty of improvement to come from both sides, I would say. Costa and Alexis to return, for starters.

For Chelsea, the left-back looks a relatively weak link, Ramires remains a thoroughly unpleasant character, and Fabregas and Hazard were both disappointing. Up front, they looked pretty toothless in the absence of Costa; Remy clearly doesn't understand the offside rule and Falcao (as I mentioned in my last post) appears a shadow of his former self - although to give him credit he was making some good runs in the second half). For me, their stand-out player on Sunday was Willian.

As for Arsenal, it was interesting to note the shape and make-up of the side, and I think that it's likely that with so much attacking talent at his disposal Wenger may finally start to pick his teams with the opposition in mind. On Sunday, for example, he asked Ramsey to start in central midfield instead of Cazorla, as it gave a better match-up with Matic and Ramires. He selected Bellerin over Debuchy; perhaps for his pace up against Hazard. He chose Walcott over Giroud in order to exploit a perceived lack of pace in the heart of Chelsea's defence (although ultimately Giroud's hold-up and link-up play will generally prove more beneficial). And he put The Ox in the side; something we may see a lot more of this season. I've got high hopes for The Ox.

Defensively, things looked pretty solid; continuing on from the second half of last season. The shield from Le Coq was pretty solid, all 4 defenders had solid games, and the goalkeeper made one tremendous save from an Oscar free kick at a crucial time. I think that what he does do is give the players in front of him - and us supporters - real confidence. And as a reward for that performance, I am delighted to paste this lovely photo of him :-)

On the whole, it didn't feel too much like a Friendly, and that is as it should be between the two sides that I expect to be battling it out for the title this season. That's hardly an original thought, I grant you. The bookies slashed half a point off of Arsenal's price - 4/1 from 9/2 - and that's probably a reasonable thing to do. Although I reckon 6/1 would be a fairer price; Chelsea have 'been there and done that', after all.

So on we go to the big kick-off next weekend. Arsenal can ill-afford to start slowly, as they did last season. I'm looking forward to a titanic battle for the Premier League; hopefully with the man in the suit coming out smiling in May.

Until next week...