Arsenal 4-0 Chelsea
Two of the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’ met at the Citrus Bowl in Florida on Saturday. It’s a long way from their London home but Arsenal and Chelsea came to blows and the Gunners were knockout winners.
Gabriel Jesus opened the scoring with his fourth goal for Arsenal in pre-season, before Martin Odegaard made it 2-0 before the break. Chelsea offered little resistance in the second half and Bukayo Saka made it three from close range before Albert Sambi Lokonga planted home an injury-time header.
It has been a difficult pre-season for Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea, but his opposite number Mikel Arteta could hardly be happier with his side’s preparations. This was the Gunners’ fourth consecutive victory, following wins over Nurnberg, Everton and Orlando City. And there was more good news for Arsenal fans as their latest signing, 25-year-old Oleksandr Zinchenko, played 45 minutes, just two days after signing in at the Emirates.
The former Manchester City man received a standing ovation from the crowd and Arteta said of his £32m capture: “He was desperate to play and I knew that. It was a maximum 45 minutes but you could see straight away he was comfortable.
“He understands everything that I want, he understands the process and I thought he had a really good game.”
The Arsenal boss couldn’t hide his delight after watching his team dismantle their London rivals, pointing to: “The attitude from a club perspective to show here, and all the work we have done and understand how big we are and the amount of support that we get.”
Arsenal were desperately close to a top four finish last year and Arteta’s side look ready to go again. They just have one more pre-season match to come, a clash in London where they face La Liga giants Sevilla.
Tuchel not so happy
While Arteta was beaming his rival in the Chelsea dugout was fuming. The Premier League 2022 betting oddssuggest both Chelsea and Arsenal have a tough task ahead of them to finish fourth in the 2022/23 season. At title odds of 15:00 and 39:00 respectively, they are placed fifth and sixth in the pre-season rankings. But on this evidence the Gunners have a much better chance to challenge than their opponents.
Tuchel was withering in his assessment of his team’s performance: “I think we deserved to lose because we were simply not good enough,” he said. “We were absolutely not competitive. The worrying part is the level of commitment, physically and mentally, was far higher for Arsenal than us.
“We can argue they played their strongest line-up. They’ve strengthened their line-up, played the same structure, and this is the line-up they’ll try to start Premier League games.”
Sure, Mikel Arteta gave us some clues as to the Gunners’ likely line-up when they kick off the new campaign but maybe Tuchel should concentrate on the shortcomings of the players he fielded in Orlando. The loss of Antonio Rudiger has meant that the boss has been on the hunt for defenders and his new defensive signing from Napoli, Kalidou Koulibaly, looked sound enough in the 17 minutes he was on the pitch. But Chelsea’s defence looked leaky as Arsenal scored at will, and Tuchel will try to bring more bodies in and he still has slim hopes of landing Sevilla centre-back Jules Kounde.
Keeper Edouard Mendy had a shocker; his distribution was particularly bad, one clearance landed at the feet of Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka while another sailed out for a throw in. But there were encouraging signs from Raheem Sterling, who was lively on his debut, though striker Timo Werner’s struggles in the Premier League look set to continue on this showing.
Time is running out for Tuchel. The new campaign is just a couple of weeks away. And we’re looking forward to bringing you the Premier League 2022 updatesas they happen in pre-season… and when the hostilities begin.
The Gunners visit South London in the Premier League curtain-raiser where they face their former star Patrick Vieira and his Crystal Palace. Arsenal are favourites at SBOTOP odds of 2.03 to win that game and they will be keen to avoid a repetition of last season’s opener, a surprise loss to newcomers Brentford.
Chelsea too come up against an old face in the opposition dugout when they visit Frank Lampard’s Everton. He kept the Toffees up by the skin of their teeth last season, beating Chelsea late in the campaign. The Blues are at a price of 1.73 to win at Goodison Park and are unlikely to be in the mood to do their ex-player and coach another favour.
Disclaimer: Odds are correct at time of publish.
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