Who: Arsenal vs Chelsea What: English Premier League Where: Emirates Stadium, London, United Kingdom When: Sunday, August 6, at 2pm ( ). How to follow: Al Jazeera Sport will bring you all the build-up ahead of our live coverage from . Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is relishing the prospect of facing longtime friend Xabi Alonso in the Premier League for the first time when the defending champions host Chelsea on Sunday.
Both sides have made perfect starts to the season, with Arsenal and Chelsea both taking six points from their opening two matches. Arteta and Alonso, both 44, grew up together in Spain’s Basque Country and have remained close throughout their playing and coaching careers. The pair first faced each other as managers in a friendly in 2024 when Alonso was in charge of Bayer Leverkusen, but Sunday’s encounter will be their first meeting in England’s top flight.
It’s incredible because obviously we have the history we have together,” Arteta told reporters on Friday. He’s been a really successful manager so far.” Arsenal were linked with a number of high-profile attacking targets during the transfer window, including Rogers, Julian Alvarez and Vinicius Junior, but their only forward addition was Greece winger Christos Tzolis from Club Brugge. Arteta, however, brushed off suggestions that Arsenal had fallen short in the market.
That’s it and that’s my main responsibility.” Arsenal will lean heavily on the likes of Kai Havertz, Viktor Gyokeres and Bukayo Saka but Arteta insisted the attack is not weaker compared with last season, despite the departures of Leandro Trossard, Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli. It is what we have and, as I said before, we already have some very, very good players.” Alonso hopes everyone at Stamford Bridge can now “move forward” following the protracted sale of Enzo Fernandez to Manchester City. The Argentina midfielder left Stamford Bridge to join City in a British record-equalling 125-million-pound ($169m) deal ahead of the window closing on Tuesday.
Chelsea had hoped to offset Fernandez’s exit by bringing in midfielder Lamine Camara from Monaco, but that move collapsed when the Ligue 1 side backed out having not signed a deal sheet before the window closed. Alonso, though, insists his focus is on the future, starting with Sunday’s trip across London to Premier League champions Arsenal, when Chelsea will be bidding to maintain their 100 percent start to the new campaign. We want to build a good spirit and a good team, and we have always taken the decisions thinking that we wanted to reach that.” Alonso added: “In football, many things happen, and you need to be prepared for everything.
We have a lot of big personalities, players with a lot of quality in all the different positions and now we are ready to go.” Alonso also refused to go into more detail about the collapse of the deal for Camara. So far, it is just two games, but it has been a good start and now we know who is in the building and that is good to have that certainty.” Chelsea’s squad has undergone major change over the summer. This will be the 216th meeting between the sides with Arsenal winning 87 of the encounters and Chelsea taking the spoils on 66 occasions.
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