During the promising 10th tour match of the Premier League, Chelsea London will host Arsenal. This will be the 168th meeting in the history of the London Derby.

Classification:
After a poor start of the season, Arsenal is getting higher match by match. Their recent successes in the Champions League, where the Gunners are leading in their group, improved the atmosphere in the team. The situation in the Premier League does not look as good since the players of Arsene Wenger took only the 7th place, and what is particularly interesting they have a negative balance (15-18). They have only 13 points on their account. Chelsea did not use the last failure of United and after a weak match lost against Queen Park Rangers, which led to them being 6 points behind the leader (Manchester City 25 points).

Team’s condition:
Chelsea has been playing very confidently at the Stamford Bridge this season. Four games, 12 points, the same number of scored goals, and four missed ones – this is a balance of the Blues which deserves our respect. Chelsea is playing uncompromisingly, because it shared the points only once at the Britannia Stadium in Stoke-on-Trent. Arsenal is playing on the wave. But still it earned its points at the Emirates, and it got only 1 point in 4 away games!

Potential and situation in the team:
It looks like Arsenal does not have the players with substantial experience and confidence while Villas-Boas does. Apart from some changes the guests’ defense lacks unity. If we add the lack of Jenkinson, Diaby, Gibs, Sagna, Vermaelen, Wilkshere, now it is not difficult to find out the favorite of this match. It should be noted that Arsenal has not played the matches against the Big Five (Liverpool, United) this season. It seems that we will have a similar situation this time.

History of the matches:
Chelsea has nothing to boast about if we take the derby matches against Arsenal. Even at their own stadium the hosts have the worst results: 26 wins, the same number of defeats and 27 draws. Given the number of goals (97-102) the Gunners are at an advantage. The last two matches between these teams at the Stamford Bridge ended with Chelsea winning 2-0.

Forecast and justifications:
It’s been a bad week for the hosts. But we do not think that this is a bad patch, they just need football luck. Chelsea had nine cards in the away match against QPR, and played against Everton in Carling Cup on Wednesday. According to our opinion the Blues are a hard nut to crack for Arsenal. Chelsea is better in everything from the defense to the attack with “advanced” Torres. We predict the victory for Chelsea.