Can the Gooners hand United the title?

Arjen Robben returns
By Pablito
May 5 2007

After a soul-destroying performance on Tuesday night that makes one want to know what a damp squib actually is, a nice, throwaway fixture against a stagnating also-ran with nothing to play for would seem the perfect way to get things out of our system. Good job we're playing Arsenal, then.

While worrying about a potentially draining fixture such as this seems futile now, with hopes of the title all but dead and one last cup-shaped hurrah on the horizon, there's still the small matter of keeping ourselves in the hunt until Manchester United have passed through our doors and avoiding a heartbreaking guard-of-honour moment. Because of this, extreme care must be taken with Sunday's performance, lest we rub more salt in some quite ghastly wounds.

Last season, at the peak of our remarkable form, Arsenal were made to look amateurish as a flawlessly controlled Chelsea side played them off the park. Thankfully, having gone through a season frustrated by the continued absence of our goalscorers that day, Arjen Robben and Joe Cole, Sunday represents the first time since our draw at Old Trafford in November that the two of them will be free to take to the pitch at the same time.

Cole's return from injury has been timely, putting in one or two fantastic performances to win us vital matches, but on Tuesday he finally looked like a man severely lacking in match-fitness, and perhaps the decision not to substitute him earlier was, in hindsight (or, in a pub in King's Cross full of scousers, damned plain sight) a misjudgement from our usually impeccable manager. Still, he's more than capable of twisting his way past another certain injury-prone, only just returning player who he may well be directly facing.

Oh, yes. Robben, though, may well have to settle with a substitute's role, having only just recovered from surgery, but his ability to instantly tune in to the pace of a game from the bench means that he's often as potent from there as he is from the start, so if all is not going according to plan, an extra option is there. Just like it was, indeed, in our terribly unfortunate 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge and later the Carling Cup final, when young Arjen terrorised full-back after full-back after being called upon to make amends for lacklustre first halves. Also, while his penalty miss was disappointing coming from someone with a left foot like a rifle at times, the immediate improvement in set pieces when he took over corner duty from the lately wasteful Frank Lampard was extremely heartening, and will be a powerful weapon against a very suspect Arsenal marking strategy.

Continuing on the fitness front, Andriy Shevchenko should be available after a groin injury kept him out of Tuesday's game, but since it will need surgery at the end of the season, we can't be sure whether we will be seeing the creative, quick-thinking and deadly forward we've seen in recent months or the sluggish, struggling-for-fitness Shevchenko that graced the middle-third of the season.

The continued absence of the outstanding Ricardo Carvalho, too, is distressing, but Arsenal don't possess a Crouch-like threat up front (I'm sure Thierry Henry would have to double-take that line if ever he were to read it), and Michael Essien's pace and strength alongside John Terry shouldn't be too much of a step down. Losing Essien in midfield is a bigger blow, though, with Michael Ballack recovering from surgery. Despite being perhaps the most maligned player in the Chelsea squad this season, it's no accident that after winning every game that mattered up until the point of his injury at Newcastle, we've tailed off significantly, looking rushed and lacking ideas in midfield where his composure and vision were starting to impose themselves on our play. For all his astonishing maturity and apparent inability to lose possession, John Obi Mikel doesn't yet see the killer passes as early as the German does, nor does he offer the long-range and aerial threats that come as standard with Ballack.

Arsenal themselves have their injury problems, missing Henry, as well as Robin Van Persie, Freddie Ljungberg, Carling Cup final "wonderkid" Theo Walcott and, most likely, Tomas Rosicky. If ever there was a time to take them on at the Emirates for three vital points, this is it, crippled and lacking any sort of meaning. Oh, and finally getting to play against William Gallas, dressing room favourite and man of commitment, should provide any extra incentive we need.

As the new boy here at SportsNetwork's Chelsea branch, I'll continue in stellar stalward dixon9's tradition and make a prediction, too, though I'm never the best at these things. The line up, I imagine, will look like this in an interchanging diamond/4-3-3: Cech, Diarra, Terry, Essien, Cole, Makelele, Mikel, Lampard, Cole, Kalou, Drogba I'll hazard a guess at a 2-1 victory for Chelsea, with a couple of breakaway goals giving us the cushion before Arsenal make us sweat by exploiting our weakened defence.