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Conte seeks revenge as Chelsea, Arsenal clash at Stamford Bridge

By Chinasia Ibonye
16 September 2017   |   7:01 am
Two of the biggest clubs in London - Arsenal and Chelsea - will clash at Stamford Bridge in the EPL just as Wayne Rooney leads his boyhood club to the club where he became a man as Manchester United hosts Everton at Old Trafford.

Chelsea’s Italian head coach Antonio Conte (L) and Arsenal’s French manager Arsene Wenger gesture during the English FA Community Shield football match between Arsenal and Chelsea at Wembley Stadium in north London on August 6, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Ian KINGTON 

Days after the opening night of the European Champions’ League group phase, we’ll be having another feast of football this Sunday. Two of the biggest clubs in London – Arsenal and Chelsea – will clash at Stamford Bridge in the EPL just as Wayne Rooney leads his boyhood club to the club where he became a man as Manchester United hosts Everton at Old Trafford. The day has been appropriately tagged, Super Sunday. These fixtures aren’t the only ones taking place in the EPL this weekend, but they are definitely the biggest fixtures that will draw the attention of a few hundred million football fans this weekend.

Chelsea vs Arsenal
Arsenal will head into Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea and would love nothing more than a win against one of their fiercest rivals, knowing that they haven’t claimed a point there since 2011. The Gunners have had a shaky start to the season, but seem to have turned a corner since the international break as they comfortably dispatched Bournemouth in the league and showed some character as they came from a goal down to defeat FC Cologne 3-1 at the Emirates in the Europa League on Thursday. A third win on the bounce for Arsenal will show that they have completely recovered from their wobbly start to the season, but Chelsea might have other ideas.

Alexis Sanchez was amongst the goal scorers in Europe and that is something that Arsenal fans will want to see frequently as this might just be his final season with the gunners. Jack Wilshere also made an appearance for Arsenal in Europe and could be called upon at some point in this game. The defending champions, Chelsea, will be very confident heading into this tie as they have shown amazing recovery abilities. Since that shocking home loss to Burnley on the opening day of the season, they’ve rebounded with four straight wins since then. They have already defeated a North London club this season, when they beat Tottenham at Wembley last month and repeating that result over another North London side will be fantastic for them.

Antonio Conte seems to have unearthed another gem in his deadline day acquisition of Davide Zappacosta. However, the Italian also has a losing record against Arsene Wenger losing three and winning just once in four meetings, in fact, he has lost his last two games to Wenger and will definitely not want to make it three in a row to the French man. Theo Walcott is one player who enjoys this fixture as he has scored six goals against Chelsea and that might just prompt Wenger to hand him a starting shirt in this game. We cannot wait to see how this game will pan out.

Manchester United vs Everton
Manchester United will be looking to get back to winning ways in the league when they host Everton after drawing 2-2 with the Stoke last time around. The red devils amassed ten draws from nineteen games at home last season and definitely do not want to continue in that stead as they have already won two out of the two games they’ve played at home in the league this season.

Manchester United have a very impressive home record over Everton in the league winning eighteen and losing just once in their last twenty-four Premier League home games against the toffees. In fact, the only team that Manchester United have more Premier League wins over is Aston Villa (they have beaten Everton 33 times in the competition and Aston Villa 34). Jose Mourinho will have to play this match without his most expensive player, Paul Pogba, who picked up an injury in their 3-0 win over Basel in the UCL.

Everton have been disappointing so far this season, They signed a lot of players at the start of the season, but got ripped apart by Tottenham last week and weren’t much better at Stamford Bridge before that. They were also outclassed by Atalanta in the Europa League during the week, which means that they have conceded eight goals from their last three games and scored nothing. They cannot afford to suffer yet another loss when they travel to Manchester and will have to show up or get tossed aside by the red devils, a team that has been scoring goals for fun so far this season.

A lot of attention will be on Wayne Rooney’s return to his old stomping ground and we will be watching to see what he will come up with against Manchester United.

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