Arsenal Vs Chelsea: Is the season on the line?

Arsenal host Chelsea on Wednesday night after just two wins in their last seven games. Is their season on the line already?

Arsenal entered the season hoping to challenge for the title. While Arsene Wenger, Ivan Gazidis, and even Stan Kroenke, boldly proclaimed that aim, it was largely doubted and scrutinised from those with perhaps more grounded rationales.

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Manchester City laid waste to those dreams just a few short months into the season. Having now played 21 games, the Gunners sit 21 points off the blistering pace set by Pep Guardiola’s relentlessly wonderful side. But the title was never realistic. It was a pipe dream, not a probability.

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But the title is not the only thing that has slipped through Arsenal’s grasp during the first half of this season. After Sunday afternoon’s draw with West Bromwich Albion, the North London outfit sat in the fifth position, only above Spurs by virtue of having played a game more. And now, after the New Year’s Day games, their situation is only bleaker.

With wins against Burnley and Everton, two games that could have yielded dropped points given the strength and form of the opposition, Liverpool and Manchester United stretched their advantage to six points and nine points respectively. Add to that the fact that Spurs have the chance to move to 43 points, five points clear of their local rivals, and it is easy to see how Wenger could see his side drop off the pace quite drastically.

Chelsea, who are unbeaten in their last six league games, winning five of them, now come to the Emirates on Wednesday night. They are already seven points ahead of their hosts. If they were to win, as well as wins for Spurs in what would be their two games in hand, then Arsenal would sit five points behind the top four positions, as well as gaps of nine and 10 to United and Chelsea. That might well be a gap that they find insurmountable.

Unfortunately, this is a game that the Gunners cannot afford to lose. In fact, I would go one step further and ascribe it the ever-dreaded label: ‘must-win’. That is what this game is. Coming off a run of poor performances and results — they have won just two of their last seven league games, with five of those games coming against teams currently in the bottom eight –, against a direct rival for a top-four finish, and with a substantial gap that is only widening, is it fair to say that the first game of 2018 will come with the season already on the line?

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It’s depressing that I have to even posit that question so early in the campaign. But that is the current state that this team is in. This is a huge game. I have little confidence in Arsenal winning it.