The big question before the game was how hard Mikel Arteta would go with his line-up… and my word, did he go hard. I said in the pre-game I thought the Trossard and Saliba injuries were cloud cover for a rest… whatever the suggestion was, Arteta woke up yesterday morning and said f*ck it, let’s go to war with our best troops.
The only notable change from his preferred 11 was Kepa, and Myles finally paying the price for his unfocused return to the first team. The output was very first team as well. We won the game 2-3. xG was 0.73-3.20. Garnacho’s two near-post goals were scored off of 0.32 xG… read: very jammy. Arsenal had 17 shots off 42% possession. Chelsea created zero big chances.
