Chelsea v Arsenal LIVE: Team news and line-ups as Cole Palmer and Martin Odegaard start Premier League clash

Here we go then. The players are out on the pitch as kick-off is moments away…

The Chelsea boss said: “In this moment, the feeling from us is that we can compete, and we can win against any team. We have the right feeling that we are going in the right direction. Hopefully on Sunday, we can give our fans a good day.

“I also like to get pressure from these kinds of games. For sure, [Arsenal] are the closest ones with City. Both, I consider them better than the rest. But we’re going to try to make life difficult for them. Set pieces, they are very good. I watched the Champions League game against Inter Milan, and every corner was smelling of a goal.”

Cole Palmer has been involved in a joint-high 12 Premier League goals this season, scoring seven and setting up five.

Mikel Arteta is unbeaten in all five Premier League away matches as Arsenal manager versus Chelsea with three wins and two draws.

Meanwhile, Arsenal have lost just one of their last 26 Premier League games on the weekend after a European fixture (W19, D6).

Mikel Arteta’s side have won all six Premier League London derbies in 2024 by an aggregate score of 22-3. They’ve scored five or more goals in three of those games.

Chelsea could concede in seven consecutive Premier League home games for the first time since 2016 but the Blues have scored seven goals from set pieces (including a penalty), the highest tally in the top flight.

Arsenal could lose three in a row on the road without scoring for the first time since August 1994.

Despite having the best defence in the Premier League last season, Arsenal have conceded the opening goal in four of their last six league games and dropped points in five of their last eight.

Can they rediscover their back line stability?

Chelsea’s only three defeats in their last 25 Premier League games have come against Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool.

Their tally of 18 points is six more than they had after 10 Premier League matches last season under Mauricio Pochettino.

There’s an example some modern coaches use to show a team that has run out of ideas: it is when they start swinging in crosses, repeatedly, to no effect. Arsenal tried that 46 times against Inter on Wednesday. It isn’t quite the 81 that David Moyes’ Manchester United attempted in the case study example against Fulham in February 2014, but it’s clearly a problem.

Three defeats in six isn’t even the team’s worst run in the last year, but the issue is that it feels like there is something deeper going on. The jubilant excitement about Mikel Arteta’s time, stretching back to the summer of 2022, has abruptly transformed into anxiety, manifesting in an impotent frustration on the pitch. It just isn’t happening for Arsenal right now. It’s all so forced. Headlines about issues the surprise departure of sporting director Edu then become even more consequential, fostering a sense everything is going wrong.