English premier league week two match preview

Chelsea

In the first few months of the Chelsea new managers stay have not been overly exciting. The team managed just three goals during four of their pre-season friendlies and losing the community shield to Manchester city just some weeks back. Nevertheless, they seemed to have taken a glimpse of home from their 3 nil trumping of Huddersfield on the opening weekend. Let’s talk about the London derby (Chelsea vs. Arsenal)

Sarri’s side did take a while to find their feet but finally did in the 34th minute by a Ngolo Kante strike. The former Leicester man now has a more advanced role upfront under the watch of the former Napoli manager. After Kante opened the scoring from a weak strike of a valley. New signing Jorginho put his name on the scoresheet from the spot after Chelsea were awarded a penalty. And with the introduction of Eden Hazard in the latter stages of the game, Chelsea got the third goal in the 80th minute to seal off a well-deserved victory.
Huddersfield is popular for their compacting defending especially on home ground. Surely this result would offer some bit of hope for Chelsea, and arsenal could prove to be a bigger challenge.

ARSENAL

Arsenals new manager Unai emery’s debut in the premier league didn’t go as well as that of his opponent. He was in charge as arsenal deservedly lost 2-0 at home to defending champions Manchester City. It was a very dismal performance as the stands started to become scanty towards the end of the game.
Against a man city side with ravish talents, they created just about the fewest of chances with an expected ratio of around 0.46.

Chelsea having Hazard in their possession could offer more threat and create all sorts of problems for their opponents come Saturday.
The Gunners have a very poor away record in the previous season, winning just four matches, losing 11 in 19 games.

EXPECTATION

This game is to be contested by two of the high profile teams and we aren’t expecting a goal fest in this encounter. It’s not news that Chelsea saw under three goals in most of their home games last season. Statistics also show that Chelsea’s home matches against the top six teams in the league saw fewer than three goals. It’s also worthy of noting that Arsenal has failed to score in four of their last five trips to the Bridge.
With that being the case a halftime under1.5 goals looks like a good pick. Also, considering that Chelsea has won four of their last five games at the bridge by just a single goal. We would be backing the home team to win/draw and under 3.5 goals.

KEY STATS

In the last six meetings between these sides, the results of five of them had been draws with arsenal winning one. The Gunners have also failed to find the net in four of their last five visits to the bridge.
Arsenal and Chelsea have met 52times in the league with Arsenal having a win rate of 54% in the first set of matches (26) while Chelsea has an equal win rate of 26% from the last set of matches.

PICK

Under2.5 goals