Adebayor, Nasri and Sagna have all been passed fit and you’d have to think we’ll need them all to start, to improve the defence and the attack

Having lost three of the last four games in the league, finding ourselves out of the top four and only in the top five on goal difference, this is exactly the fixture we didn’t want to come up next. We’re in a rut, and chances are we’ll get driven further into it on Sunday. Yes, I said something similar before the United fixture and look what happened there. But I also said “The way this season’s gone, you could almost see us stepping our game up and winning on Saturday, and then losing to Villa and City next week to negate the result”, and look what happened there. The difference also being that we usually step our game up against United, and we were at home, whereas this time we have an injury ravaged squad travelling to a ground where we haven’t won since the ice age, with confidence at an all time low. With our comedy midfield trying to stop Anelka, Deco and Lampard playing havoc with our defence, it’ll most likely be a harrowing experience at best. Chelsea have scored 32 goals this season and conceded just 4. We’ve scored 25 and conceded 18. Having said that, they’re not in their best form of the season, having drawn their last two matches and recently lost at home to Burnley, but in comparison to our current form it’s outstanding.

The loss against Stoke was down to a comedy team selection, the loss against Villa was, in my opinion, down to them stifling us brilliantly, and the loss against City was down to injuries and suspensions resulting in a line up that had “Beatable” written all over it, but the overriding factor is that there just isn’t enough talent in the squad. Take Walcott and Adebayor out of the attack and we seem to be completely bereft of pace and attacking quality, barely able to muster a shot on target in ninety minutes. Still, we’re apparently able to get ourselves “up” for the big games, so maybe we’ll see a big performance from a squad that really needs one right now. I don’t think many people are expecting a result from us, but to not lose would be nice. Hull and Villa failed to beat Stoke and Fulham respectively yesterday, so an unlikely win would put us back in the top four.

In twenty two league meetings between the two sides since Wenger took over, we’ve won ten, drawn nine and lost three. In thirty meetings in all competitions, we’ve won fourteen, drawn ten and lost six. The victory at Ashburton Grove in December last year was the first time we’d beaten them in ten attempts, but obviously we’ve lost again since. Liverpool took our record of being the last side to win at Stamford Bridge. In the league under Arsene, Chelsea have only beaten us twice at Stamford Bridge in eleven attempts, which is a pretty good record. The pretty bad aspect is that we haven’t won there for nearly five years, and that unbeaten team is slightly better than the side that will be trotting out on Sunday. We’ve taken the lead in the last four games against Chelsea and only won one of them.

Team News

Besides long term absentees Eduardo, Rosicky and Walcott, we will also be without Eboue, Toure and Diaby for the trip to Stamford Bridge. Adebayor, Nasri and Sagna have all been passed fit and you’d have to think we’ll need them all to start, to improve the defence and the attack. I expect we’ll line up as below.

Subs: Fabianski, Djourou, Hoyte, Ramsey, Wilshere, Bendtner, Vela.

Drogba is suspended after his coin throwing escapades in the Carling Cup. Essien is out for the season with a cruciate ligament injury. The last time someone other than Drogba or Essien scored against us for Chelsea was in December 2005. Alex returns to the squad after a thigh strain but Carvalho and Belletti are unavailable. Joe Cole picked up a knock mid-week and is a doubt for this game, if he isn’t fit enough Kalou will take his place in the starting line up.