Chamberlain – Arsenal can beat Chelsea by controlling the game
The Arsenal midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain seems to be in the news a lot more since his goal against the Spuds on Saturday and he has now revealed that the Gunners will not be changing their attacking style when they play Chelsea next week, but he expects a much better outcome than last years 6-0 demolition from Mourinho’s men last season.
“We do understand what happened there last season,” said Oxlade-Chamberlain. “Maybe we have got a point to prove there, we know this year we have got to step up in the big games and get some results in them this year.
“We’re really looking forward to that game. We definitely give Chelsea the respect they deserve but, at the same time, I have belief in my team-mates and we do in ourselves to be able to go to a place like Chelsea and set the tempo and hopefully take control of the game. There will be times in the game I’m sure when they have a spell, because they are a top team.
“It’s two good sides. They are going to have their time, we are going to have ours, we just have to make sure that when we do have our chances we make them count.”
He was then asked if he thought that attacking Chelsea would leave them open to Costa and Co hitting them on the counter-attack, which the Blues do so well under Mourinho. He replied: “I think that’s the risk you take when you play the way we play football, we send a lot of bodies football in a positive and attacking fashion,”
“You do leave yourself at times a little bit vulnerable to the counterattack. As a team we do work on trying to stop that at source. Sometimes you do get countered and I think teams maybe set up to do that against us. But, as I said, you can’t have everything.
“You either don’t send so many bodies forward or you do and sometimes you can be susceptible to the counterattack. It is something we have always worked on because it is an area I’m sure teams look at to try and break us down in that aspect. We have got to be ready for that and we will continue to work on it.”
“We try to take control of games, we like to set out and set the tempo, be positive, that sometimes means sending bodies forward,”
“It’s just important that when we do, we have got people in the team that are willing to take the responsibility of holding back and being there to stop counterattacks. But, yeah, I do love playing in this team, and the style of play that we do, as I think all the players could say. But we do need to obviously be careful and make sure we are defending at the same time as when we are attacking.”
I guess we should all know by now that Wenger refuses to change his tactics no matter who we are playing, but I can’t help thinking perhaps we should be a little bit more conservative against Big teams like Chelsea. What do you think?
