William Gallas has been revealing some interesting insights from his career, speaking specifically about the times he would face Chelsea after leaving the club.
When he was with Arsenal, the France defender was paired up with some pretty good players, but some pretty shaky ones too. He recalls one of his teammates was literally terrified of one man in Blue:
“I knew Philippe Senderos, before a match he would need to speak a lot, you could see that he was sweating, that he did not feel good,” Gallas is quoted as saying on Le Vestiaire.
“Especially against certain players. I saw him against Chelsea, against Didier Drogba, where he would genuinely panic, like he was going through his match before playing it.”
That’s hardly surprising for any Chelsea fans reading. The Senderos v Drogba matchups came at the peak of our dominance over Arsenal, and really summarised the two clubs at that time. The power and aggression of Drogba was just too much for the Swiss, whose confidence then just went into a spiral game after game.
At that time, there was no doubt who had the upper hand mentally, and it’s only in the last few years that the terror Didier wrought in the Arsenal defence has been forgotten, and they’ve recovered their record against us.
