Chelsea travel across London on Sunday to take on Arsenal in the Premier League and the Blues players are surely one nervous bunch.
Chelsea made a pretty great start to their new campaign but during the past couple of months, they have been on the steady decline having lost three out of their previous five league matches.
Their latest defeat came at the hands of Southampton on Boxing Day and according to Charlie Nicholas, Arsenal could very well pick up all three points against Frank Lampard’s men at the Emirates.
Writing for Sky Sports, Nicholas has predicted that even though Arsenal have their own set of problems but it could be the Chelsea defence which could be the reason for their downfall on Sunday.
The pundit wrote: “Chelsea are still up and down, with significant class and real quality. I touched on it last week, but Willian has been class this season – he was left out and they lose at home to Southampton.
“They are in a better shape organisationally. The movement of Willian, Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham and Christian Pulisic will cause problems.
“They have nice pace and nice balance, while Jorginho and N’Golo Kante have been good when they have time on the ball.
“What changes do Chelsea have to make? They are very limited to the changes they can make – the three at back worked at Tottenham but did not work against Southampton. There are too many mistakes within the defence, but let’s switch it back to Arsenal.
“Granit Xhaka may be off, so he picked what he thought was the best balance in midfield. As much as I like what Matteo Guendouzi has, he has been poor and struggled at times, but he will come good and may come back into the fold at some point.
“You see that he had to play Bukayo Saka at left-back, but he has done very well considering he is an attacker.
“Alexandre Lacazette is back in the team, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is scoring, but Lacazette was sluggish – he needed that game. Mesut Ozil was subbed but was not finding the space, so you can see why.
“I enjoyed the desire and a bit of fight from the Arsenal team I saw at Bournemouth. This should lift the big players. He could make a few changes, but my heart is ruling my head here.”
