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.
Filed under: Rants
the better teams are likely to defend higher up the field so if anything will allow us more opportunities to get behind them. Zhirkov will add a new dimension as he’s got more pace than Malouda or Kalou and with Cole overlapping will scare the life out of Johnson, Micah Richards, Neville or Wes Brown and Sagna. I think we’re looking in good nick but was also unimpressed against Hull. At the time I thought Carlo didn’t have a plan B. I was wrong.
I think we will win more comfortably against the top sides who want to win rather than Stoke or Hull did in their games.
we have the most eye catching midfield players in the world probably the best in the world & Carlo is mixing it up very well
making it hard to be predicted unlike in the Scolari era.
it will be a good test for the team next week against the Spurs
lets enjoy the top of the table battle & hope Chelsea would get through with ease…..!!!!!!!!!
As far as I’m concerned this season isn’t 5 out 5 it’s 6 out of 6 - we beat Man Utd at the start . . . . I think they would qualify as a top team!!!!
I think that offensively the team look better than ever, the diamond formation really suits them (although it was more like 2-3-5 towards the end og the game at Brittania).
However, the defense looks shaky at times, with Bosingwa losing too many aerial battlies and missing his marking on the Faye goal. Although Cech didn’t look good on that one either. Coming from behind in three games is impressive, but shouldn’t be made the norm.
The real question is the squad come January and the Africas Cup of Nations. The team didn’t really start pushing up until Essien was introduced on Saturday. He and Drogba will be sorely missed! Hopefully Joe Cole and Zhirkov will be fit and playing by then and maybe Sturridge will have had a couple of games under his belt, making the team still competitive.
CAREFREE!
Brett - I completely agree better teams won’t necessarily defend as resolutely as sides like Stoke and that’s another agrument I used yesterday.
HoTS - Of course the ACON will have an affect but as you’ve already pointed out, we do still have Joe Cole to come back and our new signings haven’t even featured for us yet, so bearing in mind these should all add rather than detract from the team, I’m still fairly optimistic. It’s not the first time we’ve had to lose players to ACON and Ancelotti must be planning ahead for this. Have to agree with you on the defence/Cech front though - we could do with tightening up there.
guys chelsea iz playng realy wel…and y dunn u look at de other side ov picture…rite nw we r competng wid many city only…manutd r realy rubbish widout ronaldo and tevez…arsenal iz a bull shit side…dey play three attractive games win 9 points and in next one dey lose to any low ranked team…dey r just playng for de fourth spot…liverpool widout alonso iz nt gud at al….and we wuil beat dem easily…spurs r gud buh dey can last for whole season….man city iz realy gud…buh stil dey dunn hav de class which chelsea hav…it wiil still take time fo deirr players to yell….does any 1 ov u realy thnk tht any 1 can beat us(chelsea)???answer iz no..in january we might be in bit ov trouble…buh zhirkov,cole and strudige we wil be alrite..diz season iz al ours….rite guys??
What!??
what you must remember when it comes to top sides we always rise to the occassion.with smaller teams we let them make the 1st move as we dont always know their plan of action.we mostly play in 2nd/3rd gear against them as we have a slight swagga like we know whatever happens we’ll come out on top.like guus’s favourite expression for us ‘we react.’ we almost taunt opposition then come back with a left jab,upper cut and deliver the final blow.
we start slow, that is the main problem. So far except the game against man u, we haven’t conceded in the second half which shows that the problem is really concentration or something mental because in our second halves we look absolutely unplayable. First of the the physical conditioning of our players now is such that well most teams can’t really cope with us for a full 90+ minutes our late goals are a testament to that. Man u for example, can Giggs and Scholes really play a full games against us? are Valencia and Owen really good enough to play in a game against us?
Our main rivals are without question Man city and Spurs and Arsenal. Man city just have enough quality to get a result against us if we defend and play the first half anything like we have done so far. But again in the game against Arsenal they showed that they are not efficient and near the end looked out of focus and tired. Arsenal on their day can beat anyone! But they don’t have the mentality it seems to get results against top sides, against Man U, it wasn’t Man U that won it was Arsenal that lost, they have no plan B, something that under Ancelloti we do finally. and spurs well Defoe DEFOE DEFOE! on his current form, i really hope our defense will be the best option of Carvalho and Terry, because anything else and we will concede.
Well lets not forget the current supposedly best team in the WORLD! Barca barely got past us few months ago, and we all saw what Barca did to the mighty Manure. So the idea that we can’t beat top sides is rubbish, We are a team with a new manager that is playing a new formation and rotating every match, sometimes it wont click 100% specially against lesser teams where the hunger isn’t as much, but against top sides I don’t see us giving them an inch specially Liverpool! With them everyone has smelled blood!
Although none of the league matches played this season have been against sides you’d expect to end up in the top four, they are the sort of results that tend to define a championship-winning season. When we won the titles we were continually getting last-minute wins and taking 3 points where 1 had seemed likely. The same applied to ManU last season. If my memory serves me correctly, they took 5 points from 18 in their matches against the other top 4 sides (4 from us, 1 from Arsenal and none from Liverpool who beat them twice but ended up second). Where ManU succeeded was in taking maximum points against the deep-sitting sides who were playing for a draw. 1 goal margins away at Bolton, Hull, Man City, Newcastle, Portsmouth, Stoke, Sunderland, West Ham and Wigan typified their season, not big wins against the top sides.
Does it matter if you lose to all 3 other members of the top four? 18 points out of a possibly 114 leaves you with 96 points. Yes, that seems ridiculous, but surely we can scrape points against some of the bigger clubs and get some victories. As I say to my Liverpool friends. You can beat us a twice a year, but you lose to the shit when we don’t.
Early season can be hard to get momentum, but it is really important to get points and wins early, no matter who against.
I know that scottish prat at Man Utd believes it helped him win several titles…getting off to a good start and I have to agree with him(sad to say…nearly as bad as agreeing with that other prat from manchester…sham)
Unfortunately I have only seen a bit of the last game, but they look good and look as if they can improve under this guy…which is the main thing….
Our main rivals will be the same as last year and possibly Man City…if they have enough players during the campaign…and with the disciplinary start…it could be a tough year for them?
LOL. u guys have had the easiest fixtures so far and still u struggled to win convinsingly.two injury time winners.and u say united is weak without ron and tevez wow then u should have beaten us convinsingly or atleast in the 90 min in the community shield.
but the scoreline was 2 -2. so u guys are still the same like last season.
ur squad is still the same so howcome u say u can win everything.
united the champs again.
Chelsea has its best chance in three years. I wouldn’t mind except it’s such an unpleasant team. I know it’s a big statement, but I don’t think there’s a nastier, stupider, greedier pratt in the league t han Cashley (unless it’s Adebayor). Cheating, lying Obi, cheating lying Drogba, arrogant unplesant Ballack. Mind you, I’d take Lampard in a second, ditto Cech. Essien in a nano second. Can I just say t his before I get censored: much better the blues than the snivelling loserpool, with their best fans in the world.
The difference in the team I see this season is that there is a rotation - more hunger each time a player steps on the field to secure themselves in the next go round. However, it also means we field a side that doesn’t necessarily click all the time. Also, we have fight. how many times have we fought back and gotten not only the equalizer, but also the winner? As some may point out we have only beaten lesser sides, I believe dropping points to lesser sides is what actually wins or loses the crown.
go chelsea