Arsenal vs Chelsea Premier League Match Preview
Arsenal won both of their Premier League matches against Chelsea last season, last winning three in a row against the Blues in the competition between January 2003 and February 2004.
Chelsea have only won three of their last 14 games against Arsenal in all competitions (D5 L6), losing each of their last three games against the Gunners (2020 FA Cup final, both 2020-21 Premier League meetings).
Arsenal are opening their league season with two London derbies – against Brentford and Chelsea – for a second consecutive season, having played Fulham and West Ham last season. Prior to this, they’d only done so once, in 2015-16, while Chelsea have only started a league campaign with two London derbies in 1989-90 previously, against Wimbledon and Queens Park Rangers.
Chelsea have won their last four away Premier League London derbies, last winning five in a row between January 2005 and January 2006 under José Mourinho.
Arsenal haven’t beaten Chelsea in any of their last 10 Premier League meetings on a Sunday (D2 L8) since winning 2-1 in November 2008 at Stamford Bridge. The Gunners are, however, unbeaten in their previous eight Premier League Sunday matches overall (W6 D2).
Chelsea have won 15 of their last 20 away Premier League matches in August (D3 L2), although this is their first away league match against Arsenal in this month since 1984, when they drew 1-1 at Highbury with Kerry Dixon cancelling out Paul Mariner’s opener for the Gunners.
Though they’ve won their first home league game in each of the last two campaigns, Arsenal have lost their first league match at the Emirates in five of the last 10 seasons (W4 D1). The Gunners had only lost their first home league game in five of the previous 29 seasons.
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Arsenal (who ranked 11th for total shots in the Premier League last season) had more attempts than any other top-flight side on MD1 (22). However, the Gunners failed to score, and had just the 13th highest expected goals figure (1.2).
Arsenal left-back Kieran Tierney created six chances against Brentford in the season opener, the most by an Arsenal player in a single Premier League game since April 2019 (Alex Iwobi, 7 vs Watford).
Since Thomas Tuchel’s first game in charge of Chelsea in January, Blues keeper Édouard Mendy has kept more Premier League clean sheets than any other goalkeeper in the competition (10). Overall, Mendy has kept a clean sheet in 53% of his Premier League appearances (17/32), the best ratio among all keepers in the competition’s history (min. 10 games).
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