Sky Sports analyst Andy Gray writes in depth about where he thinks both Arsenal and Chelsea go from here after their defeats in the UEFA Champions League this past week.
It certainly seems that Chelsea will be more in flux, as they are in the position where they are going to have to initially address the hiring of a new manager - Guus Hiddink has committed to return to Russia at the end of the season - and look at infusing a youth movement in a team that has aged over the past 5 years.
Chelsea will have to start with a new manager. I can only go on what I have heard him say, so I have to assume that Guus Hiddink will stay true to his word and head back to Russia. Unless there is a huge - and I do mean huge - u-turn from the Russian Football Federation.
Whether that new manager decides to move in a lot of new players, remains to be seen. There are one or two who are getting on in years and he will have to decide whether the likes of Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack have more to offer Chelsea Football Club.
Arsenal's changes could be part in personnel and part in philosphy. Ownership has allowed the likes of Viera, Henry, Flammini and Hleb to depart over the past couple of seasons, lending you to believe that moving into Emirates Stadium has been an expensive proposition - you have to wonder about whether the rumors about Adebayor, Fabregas and Walcott possibly following could be true.
The other question about philosophy will have more to do with whether the Arsenal board continues to support Arsene Wenger. His teams play as attractive a brand of football as there is, but have never really been able to replace the loss of midfield general Viera, or the defensive axis of Tony Adams, Martin Keown and Sol Campbell at center back. Not only were those players at the heart of a tight Arsenal defense, but also offered a level of toughness and grit that perhaps is lost from today's Gunners.
It is now four years without one and for all their football and for all the backing he has within the club - I am sure he has 100 per cent support - you just wonder whether there are one or two dissenting voices among the supporters, one or two who will start to have a little moan-up.
And of course, no-one will be putting himself under pressure as much as Arsene himself.
It's whether or not he decides to make a concerted change that interests me though. I actually thought that against Manchester United and indeed in the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea, they were just out-powered. That is a part of their game that is seriously lacking.
Arsene seems to have settled on the small, technically gifted players, like Andrey Arshavin, like Samir Nasri, like Cesc Fabregas, like Theo Walcott, but I wonder whether it's time to supplement those players with someone with a little more steel.
It's all too easy to say 'he needs to go out and buy another Patrick Vieira', but maybe, just maybe, we will see a slight change in approach.
I am not too sure inexperience is a problem for them, though - it is too easy to confuse with age. Manuel Almunia is experienced, Kolo Toure is experienced, William Gallas is experienced, Arshavin is experienced and, despite their ages, Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor are what you'd have to call experienced, too.
I have gained a tremendous amount of respect for Arsene Wenger over this past season - he sticks to his own principles about the game, and is not afraid to play young players. The challenge for Arsenal is that their board needs to commit themselves to keep their young stars - just as Manchester United have done over the past 10 years - and supplement these tremendous attacking weapons with a defensive grit that the great Arsenal teams had earlier in Wenger's tenure.
Chelsea's biggest concern will be the culture within their club - they have had four managers over the past two seasons (Mourinho, Grant, Scolari, Hiddink), with a fifth on the way after Hiddink returns to Russia. They are a club lacking the continuity that Manchester United (Ferguson), Liverpool (Benitez) and Arsenal (Wenger) all have. Each of those clubs have players and a system that have been built in the mold of their manager, and unfortunately, Chelsea is still without an identity - the nucleus of their team was built in a mold by Mourinho, and as that group has aged, the vision and foresight to re-build, re-tool and re-load has been lost since Mourinho's departure, and the club's inability to find a replacement.
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