Arsenal's attacking players have a key role to play in stopping Didier Drogba, says Andy Gray.
Collective mettle needed to end Gunners' Drog days
Even at this stage of the season Arsenal's
Super Sunday trip to Chelsea is a huge game - for the Gunners in particular.
Lose - which is what they have done in five of the last six meetings - and there's a danger the supporters will think 'here we go again, we're not quite good enough'; lose and it means one point from nine in the league; lose and Chelsea will have a seven-point cushion on Arsenal after just seven matches.
That would leave Arsene Wenger's side with a real mountain to climb, but the most immediate obstacle in their way is the familiar frame of Didier Drogba.
The striker has become a real nemesis for Arsenal, as a tally of 12 goals against them since he arrived in England suggests, and you can almost see his eyes light up when the fixture comes around.
Mental
It's quite common in football for players to have their favourite opponents, and I certainly remember during my career there were times when I walked onto the pitch sure I was going to have a good game just because of who we were playing.
So Drogba will have a mental lift straight from the first whistle at Stamford Bridge, but that's all it is and there's no practical reason Arsenal cannot deal with him more competently than they have in recent seasons.
Take the centre-halves: even if Thomas Vermaelen is missing they have the experienced Sebastien Squillaci - not a novice by any stretch - while both Laurent Koscielny and Johan Djourou have the presence to give Drogba a contest.
Discipline
But ultimately the responsibility for stopping him falls to the whole team, and Arsenal must prove that they understand the old maxim 'defend from the front'. I have my suspicions.
The likes of Samir Nasri, Andrey Arshavin, even young Jack Wilshere are bang in the game with the ball at their feet and going in the direction they want to be going in.
But there's another phase in football when you don't have the ball, and that's when you need real discipline and toughness. I think Arsenal lack something in that department, and there are times when the protection given to the back four and the goalkeeper is negligible.
Errors
Manuel Almunia gets hammered, but the so-called crisis with the Gunners' goalkeepers is a collective problem as much as an individual one on occasions. In fact, I don't go along with the view that they can't win the league with Almunia in goal.
There was talk of Mark Schwarzer moving to the Emirates in the summer as a solution to the 'problem'. Is he really a better goalkeeper than the Spaniard? I would say categorically not.
Almunia makes errors, of course he does, but he's a goalkeeper and that's what they tend to do. Petr Cech, Edwin van der Sar, Joe Hart and Pepe Reina have all made errors of their own, but in general they get far more protection than Arsenal's keepers.
I have no concerns about Arsenal's footballing ability, and if Sunday's game was non-contact I'd back them to get a result all day long. But I just feel that power plays a huge part when these two meet, and there has to be a doubt that this side as a whole is better equipped than in previous years to cope with the Blues' physicality.
