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Chelsea Heading For Trouble On The Pitch Next?

After our late win against Stoke at the weekend, I was having a bit of a debate with someone yesterday around our results so far this season – or rather, his perception that we’ll come a cropper as soon as we play ‘bigger’ sides.

I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’m wrong but I think the conversation went something like “how do you think you’ll do when you have to play a top side?” to which my indignant answer was “I think we’ll be ok.” We went backwards and forwards a bit, with him suggesting that so far this season, we’ve played sides who’ll finish in the bottom half of the table or possibly lower and it’s taken either lucky mis-kicks or injury time winners to scrape results. Fair point I suppose, we have scored some late goals and Didier Drogba did own up to a bit of luck against Hull but I argued that nobody who’d actually watched our game against Stoke this weekend – irrespective of the timing of our winner – could say we’d scraped it.

Ok, so we haven’t turned the likes of Arsenal and Spurs over when they’ve previously been playing at their best, but then as my sarcastic side couldn’t help pointing out, we haven’t lost to Burnley either – in fact, we haven’t lost at all yet. But is that really just down to the sort of sides we’ve played? Well, not being one to get carried away on the optimism front, I couldn’t help but have a bit of a recap just to check.

We started off against a gritty Hull side – fair enough, not exactly top opposition but it was the first game of the season and they certainly hadn’t come to Stamford Bridge to lose. We went behind to a Stephen Hunt goal, had a ridiculous amount of possession, 27 shots to Hull’s 6 and still had to wait until Drogba’s ‘miskick’ in the 92nd minute to take the points. TheChelseaBlog’s reaction at the time wasn’t exactly one of optimism for the season ahead, stating Three words pretty much summed up my reaction to Chelsea’s start to the 2009/10 season – ‘for fuck sake!’  And such was the repetition with which these three words were used throughout the game that anyone within earshot must have surely concluded I was stricken with Tourette’s.  But alas no, I was merely watching a return to Chelsea at their frustrating best (or should that be worst?).” So, for that game at least we probably should’ve done better but it was the first game of the season, our first Premier League game under yet another new manager and at the end of the day, we got the win one way or another.

Next up, Sunderland away and again finding ourselves having to come back from a goal down, although to be fair we dominated the play and the points were never in doubt. A fairly comfortable 3-1 win in a game where the gulf between the clubs grew more apparent as the game went on.

A short trip to Craven Cottage next for a derby game against a Fulham side who were looking pretty decent under Roy Hodgson although it was a much more comfortable win than most would’ve predicted with a goal in each half and none conceded. Fulham were pretty organised defensively although didn’t offer much in attack but then we didn’t exactly give them much in the way of opportunities as yet again it was a game we pretty much dominated.

The Burnley game could and maybe should have given us a bit of a challenge – afterall, they’d just beaten Everton and Manchester United – and if the argument presented to me yesterday was to hold any water, the fact that Burnley had just beaten the current Premier League champions should’ve meant it was the worst possible time to play them. Fortunately that didn’t prove to be the case because in all honesty, if it wasn’t for Jensen’s outstanding performance in the Burnley goal, the score would’ve been a lot more painful than the 3-0 we inflicted on them.

Finally to this weekend’s game against a Stoke side with one of the best defensive records at home and little wonder given their defence was nothing short of phenomenal no matter what we threw at it – and we were bloody hammering it for most of the second half to be fair. Ex-Arsenal man Paul Merson was following this one on SkySports and after the game said “The most impressive thing about them was all through the second half, they were dominant, all over Stoke, but even when it got down to the last three or four minutes, they were still passing the ball.  There was no getting to the half-way line and lumping into the box, they kept on passing it, passing it, getting it out wide and putting it in the box into proper areas. For me, that was outstanding, they didn’t panic.  Chelsea were outstanding but Stoke were outstanding defensively.” Yes, it took a goal late into injury time to win it but the fact is, Stoke showed why they can be such a difficult side to beat at the Britannia Stadium and late or not, we kept at it until the winner came.

So, seeing as I’m usually pretty pessimistic, do I think the games we’ve had so far suggest we’ll struggle against ‘top sides’ this season? Actually no, I stand by my original opinion. We might not have played ‘top sides’ but you can only beat what’s put in front of you – and with the exception of maybe the Hull game, we’ve done that pretty convincingly.

Drogba might not have meant his goal against Hull but he was certainly aiming for the general area of their goal at the time and whether someone else got on the end of it, or a large helping of luck saw it sail in unassisted, the intent was there. As for the late winners, well the last time I checked, injury time was still before the final whistle and seeing as that’s what you play to I can’t see that we deserve the result any less. If anything, it’s a credit to the lads that we seem to be having a return to a couple of seasons ago where the mentality is such that they just don’t know when they’re beaten. Hardly cause for concern in my book.

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