By DAN KARELL
The match we’ve been waiting for all weekend has finally arrived.
There’s more than just local pride on the line when Arsenal and Chelsea meet up in what should be a great London derby on Monday at the Emirates Stadium (3pm, NBC Sports Network/NBC Sports Live Extra).
For Arsenal, a win will lift them back to the top of the English Premier League and show their supporters that they have what it takes to beat the top teams. For Chelsea, three points could see them going level at the top of the league with Liverpool while Arsenal could drop to fourth place.
Jose Mourinho hasn’t lost to Arsene Wenger in nine previous matches (five wins, four draws) and Arsenal already lost at home to Chelsea this season in the League Cup. Can Arsenal provide a response from their 6-3 thrashing at the hands of Manchester City or can Chelsea show their experience and mettle to earn at least a point on the road.
If you will be watching today’s match, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.
Enjoy the action.
Judging from the BBC online commentary this match was terrible?
as a neutral viewer, i liked it. it was high-speed and a little bit out-of-control; kind of a bundesliga vibe to it.
i’m not sure why people are complaining about it, and especially about chelsea. they were never looking to out-possess arsenal, but they outshot them by far, and i thought there were quite a few good attacks from both sides.
enjoyed it too
Typical Mourinho game when playing a decant team. Hard tackles and defend with everybody. The reason he got ran off from Real Madrid
feisty battle in the rain. as a neutral I’m enjoying this
mike dean has completely lost control of this game, rash challenges flying in everywhere (from both sides) and he looks totally overwhelmed.
Id be ok if NBC didnt broadcast another Chelsea game for the rest of the year, Mourinho teams are simply terrible to watch. He is good at what he does but honestly these games are not entertaining in the least.
that was a miserable game for viewing, just about as bad as the united v chelsea game from earlier this year
couldn’t agree more, Travis
Winning is entertaining however and it’s tough to argue with his results.
Winning isnt always entertaining, it will make the fans happy but that is far different than entertaining. Mourinho’s teams have been awful to watch for a decade but people love him because he gets good results for the most part. He has a highly talented team and yet he plays every game as if hes manager of some team fighting relegation. Also please don’t throw a goals scored stat at me, they pad their goal counts against the bad teams, I’d be more interested in how many goals they’ve scored against teams in the top 6 or something like that.
Agreed his teams aren’t great to watch for neutrals but he’s a winner everywhere he goes and if he coached my team I’d find all that winning entertainment enough for me.
thats one way to look at it, interestingly though didnt di matteo get fired for winning but playing ugly? how is mourinho any different than that?
About as entertaining as a poke in the eye.
not a game for the timid out there today that’s for sure, wet skipping balls tough to control with hard tackles awaiting those who lingered too long trying. very different game than what Arsenal wants
arsenal just got jobbed on back to back decisions. mikel just destroyed arteta and got nothing called. willian took out walcotts legs in the box and nothing was called. easily could have been red (think yellow would have been better) and should have been a PK
Think the Mikel foul was a straight red… no chance to get the ball, crunching studs up right into Arteta’s chin.
meant to say *shin*
Not watching the game, so I winced when I saw “chin”. That certainly sounds like a straight red to me.
the reason i thought yellow is because both of them did go in a bit wildly and that is the risk when two people go to ground.
it was Ramires not Mikel, and could easily have been red. the high boot from Ivanovic could have been red too
no it was mikel, you are talking about the later tackle which was ramires.
gotcha. Ramires’ could have been red, break legs with lunges like that one
guess i’ll contribute a different point of view:
mikel was late on the tackle, and it looked painful. but both he and arteta recklessly went in studs up, so if you’re going to red card one for that, you’d have to card both.
on the walcott decision, you might want to watch the replay. he certainly did not ‘take out walcott’s legs’. walcot was in a standing position, willian’s foot bumped into one of his, and walcott threw himself to the ground. he *might* have gotten a penalty if he hadn’t been so dramatic, but then he wouldn’t have gone down at all.
ivanovic’s high boot on ozil should’ve been at least a yellow card.
ive watched the replay on the walcott thing, willian misses the ball entirely and sweeps walcotts left leg out. he probably goes down a bit softly but that is usually going to be a penalty, chelsea got extremely lucky it wasnt.
20 mins in and Arsenal’s best chance was a long ball over top.
Landon Donovan wants a tie, I’ll root for that.