Chelsea and Arsenal will meet for the final time in International Cup pre season friendly in Dublin, Ireland. Chelsea has a very bad record against Arsenal in the recent past as they have won only one match in their last eight encounters.
Both the teams have new managers and both of them will be keen to make a mark in this face off. Arsenal has a slight benefit over Chelsea as Arsenal has most of their first-team players available while Chelsea will be missing most of their first-team players who are resting courtesy of World Cup 2018.
Chelsea
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The major player of Chelsea including Hazard, Kante, Giroud, Cahill and Curtois etc will be unavailable due to their World Cup campaigns. Rudiger and Moses however have made early return after the World Cup and they will be starting in today's match. New boss Sarri will be keen to take a win here to boost the confidence of his team with the International Cup on bay.
The key players will be Pedro, Morata and Azpilicueta. Pedro featured in two pre season matches and scored in both, he will be keen to score again in this match. Morata however, hasn't been able to score in the previous matches but he still will be the key if Chelsea want to make inroads early. Azpilicueta is a world class defender and he will have to play an important role to hold Arsenal attack.
Chelsea defeated Perth Glory 1-0 and Inter Milan in the penalties. Pedro scored in both matches and Azpilicueta scored the winning penalty against Inter Milan.
Arsenal
Arsenal will have good squad to take the field against Chelsea. The new signings Bernd Leno and Sokratis might start for Arsenal. The return of Ozil proved to be a huge boost for the team and now they look to take down Chelsea. Arsenal has most of their star players available.
The key players in this encounter will be Ozil, Lacazette and Mkhitrayan. Ozil came back in the last game against PSG and scored the first goal and then Lacazette scored two, both of them look to be in good form. Mkhitrayan is a class player and we all know it, it is just a matter of time before he unleashes his might.
Arsenal have played three pre season matches and won all of them comfortably. They have in fact scored as many as 14 goals in these three matches, although 8 of them came against Boreham Wood.
Match Prediction
This is really tough to call, however Arsenal will be favourites in this match.
Therefore my prediction is 2-1 to Arsenal.
Let me know your thoughts as well in the comments section.
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