Former Chelsea striker Chris Sutton believes the west Londoners will be too strong for Arsenal in Saturday’s FA Cup final – and that only a couple of Gunners players are good enough to get into the Blues’ starting line-up.
“If it goes to form, Chelsea will be too strong from Arsenal,” the BT Sport pundit told FourFourTwo. “Player for player, they’re much stronger. There’s only really Alexis Sanchez on the Arsenal side that I think would get into the Chelsea team – maybe Hector Bellerin as well. If both play to their current capabilities, Chelsea will come out on top.”
“I’ve been very incredibly surprised by Chelsea this year, the turnaround from last year has been amazing,” he added.
“It’s testament to Conte, he’s done an incredible job, one that nobody could really have foreseen, especially given some of the problems they had at the start of the season. But he changed formation and showed that he was really adaptable.”
Sutton remains a huge fan of the FA Cup, but his own favourite memory of the tournament didn’t come in a Blue shirt – he admits he was very disappointed to not get picked for the 2000 final, after netting for Chelsea in the semi.
“Scoring for Norwich against Southampton as a youngster was the best moment in the cup for me,” he says. “It was the quarter-finals, and I got one in extra time past Tim Flowers at Carrow Road. That was just fantastic.
“It was a good, old-fashioned, muddy FA Cup game and I loved it – the most important goal I’d scored at that point in my career. To score in such a big game is brilliant for a youngster.”
Watch Arsenal vs Chelsea in the Emirates FA Cup final live on BT Sport 2 from 4:30pm on Saturday, May 27. BT Sport is your home of unmissable football from the Emirates FA Cup and Premier League. For more info visit btsport.com
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Joe was the Deputy Editor at FourFourTwo until 2022, having risen through the FFT academy and been on the brand since 2013 in various capacities.
By weekend and frustrating midweek night he is a Leicester City fan, and in 2020 co-wrote the autobiography of former Foxes winger Matt Piper – subsequently listed for both the Telegraph and William Hill Sports Book of the Year awards.
