Arsenal Drop To Third As Chelsea Rediscovers Some Form

After their weekend draw at Blackburn, I had hoped that Chelsea would slip up again last night when they traveled to Portsmouth to play their game in hand on us in the league.

However, it wasn't to be and Chelsea ran out 5-0 winners in the end after fortune favoured them in the first half.

Both Malouda and Sturridge were involved in incidents where they caught their opponents in the face with their hand or arm and both Portsmouth players had to leave the pitch injured afterwards.

It would seem that Rocha has a broken jaw and Smith broke his nose but after Dave Bassett said that they're not that type of player, we know that obviously it was completely accidental.

The other slice of luck that Chelsea got was when David James came running out to a through ball and attempted to fly kick it clear. Unfortunately for him it hit a large divot and bounced right over his foot to leave Drogba to run the ball into an empty net.

Chelsea never looked back after that and Drogba got another goal with Malouda adding two, and Lampard finished off the rout right at the end. 

The biggest winners last night were the Spuds, though, as the beat Fulham to make it through to the FA Cup semi final against Portsmouth next week.

While they were winning that game, two of their rivals for fourth spot in the league were faltering in their attempts to catch them. Aston Villa could only manage a 1-1 draw at home to Sunderland and Man City were beaten at home 2-0 by Everton.

It means that the Spuds now have their destiny in their own hands and if they win all their remaining eight games, they will finish fourth for certain. Of course they do have to go through a spell where they have successive games at home to Arsenal and Chelsea before visiting "Manure."

They then play at home to Bolton before visiting Man City in a midweek fixture during the last week of the league season.

With their final game away to a Burnley team who will more than likely be relegated by then, what are the chances that they will need a win in that game to make the Champions league qualifiers but fail to get it after a pre match meal of lasagna?

From an Arsenal perspective, the progress of our closest neighbours in the FA Cup is good for us, as it means that our proposed league game away to them on April 10 will be switched to April 14.

It will give us a week's rest after the second leg of the Champions league quarter final in Barcelona, but the Spuds will have an FA Cup semi final with possible extra time on an energy-sapping Wembley pitch just four days before we play them. 

If they win, they will have Wembley on their minds, and if they lose, they will be down after failing to make the Cup final. Either way, I see it as being to our advantage in one of the hardest games we have left.

We have again been linked with Loic Remy of Nice, but with Chamakh supposedly arriving on a free transfer in the summer, I can't see us buying another striker.

There were some ridiculous stories over the last few days about Inter Milan taking out an insurance policy on Cesc because they intend to sign him in the summer.

Whether they have added him to their insurance policy or not will make no difference as Cesc will not join them. If and when he leaves Arsenal, it will be to join Barcelona and nobody else.

There has been a suggestion that Mourinho is playing his mind games to unsettle Arsenal ahead of their Champions league quarter final against Barcelona, but quite why I'm not sure if it's true.

Our ladies collected another trophy on Tuesday when they beat Millwall 6-0 in the final of the London County Cup to. It's the fourth year in a row that they have beaten Millwall in this particular Cup final and I'm sure Millwall must be sick of the sight of them by now.

In April they travel to both Everton and Leeds within a week of each other and they are the two teams that are challenging them for the league title.

Then in May they play both teams again within three days of each other but at home this time. Those games will decide whether they manage to win the league title for the seventh time in a row and the ninth time in ten years.

The boss will have his pre game press conference later today and I'm sure there will be loads to talk about tomorrow.

Ahead of Saturday's trip to Birmingham, the early injury news is that Bendtner is struggling with an ankle injury and hasn't trained all week.

Let's hope he makes it as he's in fairly good form at the moment and I don't know if Eduardo would be mentally up to starting that game after his horrific injury there over two years ago.

That's it for today but I'll be back again tomorrow with my thoughts on what the boss says at his press conference.

Here's a video of goals scored by Eduardo for Arsenal. Poignantly, it was made only 18 days before the injury he suffered at Birmingham two years ago. When you see how easily he dispatched his chances, you will realise what we are missing ever since then.

See You Tomorrow.