Joe Fitzpatrick 
Yes, Arsenal have achieved a great series of results recently in the cup competitions, and I was of course jumping for joy like a deranged lunatic and beaming a broad Gooneresque grin after we defeated Udinese, took the lead in Dortmund and somehow snatched a victory at the Velodrome. I was equally delighted when we defeated the mighty Shrewsbury Town and Bolton Wanderers with what is essentially our second-string side, such is my obsessive passion towards all things Arsenal. Arsenal are in my blood, win lose or draw, and every victory at the moment tastes like the sweetest ambrosia, nectar or indeed manna sent from heaven itself.
"We’re on the way back!" I hear some of you thinking, but don't you dare go and believe it, my fellow Gooners, not even for a nanosecond.
There is a real acid test looming ominously like the sword of Damocles over the heads of Arsène Wenger and his Arsenal side on Saturday and, without the aid of a crystal ball or spiritual channelling, I'm predicting an epic failure of this acid test that may sting our eyes just a little bit. Like having lemon juice squirted directly into our eyeballs.
As Arsenal prepare to visit Stamford Bridge, no one but the most blinkered of us Arsenal fans are expecting anything but a Chelsea win. Even if Chelsea are to be without our nemesis, Didier Drogba, suspended for his ridiculous challenge at QPR, nobody is giving Arsenal a snowball in hell’s chance of beating Chelsea in their own back yard.
I don't know about you, dear reader, but I'm so gutted that the small part inside of me that could somehow believe that an Arsenal team under Arsène Wenger, Pat Rice and Boro Primorac's coaching could get victories at places like Shite Hart Lane, Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge has slowly withered away and died.
Granted that we should never expect to win every game away from home against handy opposition, but when even the faintest glimmer of hope of such victories has finally died in the hearts of most of the more knowledgeable hardcore fans, and even some of the more talented players, your football club has a serious problem - a problem that could result in a terminal decline if not addressed with swift, surgically-precise, wholesale changes in coaching and playing personnel à la Liverpool or Tottenham, i.e. trading up and not down as we have been since the move to the Grove.
Take a look at this quote I found from Cesc Fabregas back in 2008 in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. He said: "Our squad is a bit short on numbers and we are very young. It's hard to imagine a midfield where I am the oldest member. We find it very hard to win matches, as we don't possess enough experience. I scored 13 goals last season but then I had plenty of allies. Rosicky was around, Flamini covered every blade of grass and Hleb was like a brother to me out there. The team played with a lot of skilful touches, we were as solid as a brick wall and our opponents would not get a look in. Now none of those players are in the side and I feel like a rare being. We are more defensive-minded and sturdy as a team but we don't play so much skilful stuff."
Sounds eerily familiar doesn't it? Arsenal have spent the last six years taking one step forwards and then two steps backwards because we are constantly selling players or failing to keep them interested in playing for us, meaning that the cycle has continued to the point where Song and Walcott are the senior men in our midfield alongside the newer signings of Arteta, Arshavin and Benayoun. So we now have to face facts and ask ourselves a simple yet profound question.
Fellow readers of the Gooner, are we going to fall for the PR spin of Wenger, Gazidis and Kroenke whilst greedily guzzling down all of their rose-tinted visions of a tomorrow that never comes OR are we going to take a look at the results on the pitch and trust the evidence of our own two eyes and those of our fellow supporters all around us in our not-so-very-full stadium?
In my opinion, if you don't attend or have never attended live matches regularly, you cannot form your own sensible opinions from the television because you simply cannot see enough of the off-the-ball movement and positional play of the team to understand where improvements are needed. You also run the risk of being brainwashed by the constant stream of utter shite that some of the commentators and so-called experts spew forth every week. I don't mean to sound condescending, but if you don't attend live matches or have never done so, you really aren't in a position to form a decent opinion on football tactics.
I hope that I am made to eat humble pie and that Arsenal find a way to destroy Chelsea on Saturday but I'm predicting a Chelsea win by at least two clear goals and here's why...
Arsenal play a "fluid" 4-2-3-1 or a "loose" 4-3-3 system depending on who you listen to or what particular personnel are fit and available to us on a game-by-game basis, but very often when we lose the ball in the opposition half we are actually playing more like a 2-7-1-0, because we are leaving our poor centre-halves exposed, while congesting the midfield areas without actually having anyone in the opposition penalty area or moving correctly with any sense of a tactical game plan in the final third - barring of course the risen Lord himself, our new messiah, Robin Van Persie.
Our full-backs are encouraged to bomb forward to provide the width as our "wide forwards" are being asked to cut inside to support the central striker. Our so-called holding midfielder(s) are also encouraged to bomb forward whilst also trying intricate passes and delicate through-balls that, quite frankly, would be better left to the more technically-gifted attacking players to perform. With three (or four) of our defensive players being asked to play in this irresponsible way, we are leaving our two poor centre-halves hopelessly exposed, sometimes as far up the pitch as the half-way line!
Now if you are going to play such a very high line it is highly recommended that you (1) play the offside-trap correctly and methodically as a cohesive unit and (2) have very mobile, athletic defenders who can recover from positional errors by virtue of either electric pace or pure old-fashioned muscular presence, preferably both.
Arsène Wenger is employing kamikaze tactics with a team that is still yet to gel, and that is why Arsenal’s banzai charge at Chelsea will result in a gruesome yet somehow strangely familiar and bizarre hara-kiri ritual that seems to have skipped on loop like a scratched Bluray copy of Tom Cruise's Last Samurai for the last six long groundhog seasons.
If Arsenal lose the ball while Santos/Gibbs, Song and Jenkinson/Djourou are caught out of position, then we had all better hope and pray that it is Vermaelen or Koscielny chasing Torres, Kalou, Mata, Sturridge, Anelka and Malouda, because Per Mertesacker couldn't even catch a cold in a doctor’s waiting room, let alone a finely-tuned premiership athlete.
It's not Mertesacker's fault that he was signed by Arsenal and asked to play in a high line that is completely unprotected by the midfield at times, but that doesn't change the fact that your granny could have him in a straight foot race any day of the week now does it? Arsène Wenger signed Per Mertesacker because he was cheaper than both Cahill and Jagielka, and he won't be feeling good about that decision come May. The extra mobility of a Cahill or Jagielka might have covered up Wenger's fatally flawed tactics, but the big Meat-sack and his obvious lack of pace will be ruthlessly exposed by the elite strikers both domestically and in Europe.
Alex Song, please, please, please play like Claude Makelele against Chelsea. Don't listen to anything that Arsène, Boro or Pat tell you. Just watch DVDs of Makelele non-stop for the next few days.
If our full-backs are going to bomb forward to provide the width outside, then please can someone get into the f***ing box? Van Persie ("the messiah") drops back to influence the play and has the talent and vision to do so (much like Rooney does for Manchester United) but there is no one making the runs into the box for Van Persie when he drops back. Either Wenger should sign a proper out-and-out goal-scorer in January like Benzema (who cannot get a game at Real Madrid because of Higuain’s rich form) and give Theo or Gervinho the chance to play up front until then, or he should move Arshavin into the shadow striker role behind our flying Dutchman and tell Van Persie to stick to central positions in the final third. Arshavin looked to this contributor to be relishing the chance to play more centrally against Bolton.
What's that you say? I'm talking rubbish? Maybe you will listen to an Arsenal legend who believes that Arsenal's defence is not the only part of the team that needs more than a little cosmetic surgery.
