Giroud, Morata fight for Chelsea starting spot

Stamford Bridge club face a tough match with West Ham

LONDON: Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri has a tough decision to make over whether to pick Alvaro Morata or Olivier Giroud for a testing encounter with West Ham on Sunday.

The Stamford Bridge club are top of the Premier League table after five wins out of five but the fixture list has been relatively kind to them so far.

West Ham had a miserable start to their campaign but victory against Everton has lifted the mood and they will be further buoyed by last season's results against Chelsea —when they took four points off their London rivals.

Belgian playmaker Eden Hazard has been the star man for Chelsea so far this season, scoring a hat-trick in their 4-1 demolition of Cardiff last week to lead the race for the Premier League Golden Boot.

But who will Sarri pick to lead the line at the London Stadium?

Up until last weekend Morata, 25, was getting the nod, with French World Cup winner Giroud — a stronger physical presence — consigned to the bench.

Spanish striker Morata was criticised last season over his lack of a killer touch after a bright start to his career at Chelsea and has only found the net once so far this season.



But Giroud got his chance against Cardiff and Hazard made no secret of his admiration for his teammate, hailing him as the world's best target man after the Frenchman laid on two goals for Hazard.

Olivier's a target man, maybe the best in the world — I think so," said Hazard, appearing to make it clear who he would prefer to see in the line-up.

Sarri said he needs goals to boost his fragile confidence following Chelsea's 1-0 win against PAOK of Greece in their Europa League opener on Thursday, for which he was back in the starting line-up.

Tighten up, Emery warns leaky Arsenal

Unai Emery has warned his Arsenal stars to fix their leaky defence in time for Sunday's Premier League clash against Everton.

Emery's side extended their winning run to four matches in all competitions with a 4-2 victory over Vorskla Poltava in the Europa League on Thursday.

The Gunners raced into a four-goal lead through Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's double and strikes from Danny Welbeck and Mesut Ozil.

It was the latest in a long line of defensive disappointments for Arsenal, who have failed to keep a clean-sheet in any of Emery's six matches in charge.

Arsenal have endured difficulties at the back for years as Emery's predecessor Arsene Wenger struggled to find the right players to man his defence.



Emery has made changes of his own, giving a debut to goalkeeper Bernd Leno in midweek in place of Petr Cech, while central defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos arrived in pre-season from Borussia Dortmund.

So far that quick-fix plan hasn't worked, so Emery has called on his team to show some steel and learn from their mistakes.

"It's our disappointment. Little by little, we are conceding a few chances to the opposition, the same like in Newcastle," Emery said.

"But we need to continue to improve on this because in the last minute in Newcastle and again today in the last 20 minutes, we conceded two goals.

"Our challenge is to be competitive for 90 minutes of each match and this is one thing to improve."

Emery made eight changes for the Europa League clash as he rested his key players for Everton's visit to the Emirates Stadium.

But the Spaniard doesn't believe that should be used as an excuse for Arsenal's fragile defending.