Chelsea: Time To Start Again
It depends what paper you read as to what happened in the aftermath of our Champions League exit and what’s still to come. According to some, Abramovich read the players the riot act, questioning their motives for being at the club whilst on the other hand, he is reported to have given them the silent treatment. As for Carlo Ancelotti, well he’ll either follow the usual Chelsea procedure and be sacked in the summer or be given £150m to rebuild the side. So, we don’t really know either way.
What we do know though is that we were well and truly beaten by a typical Jose Mourinho side this week. An organized, confident, controlled, patient unit, keeping it tight at the back and waiting for the opportunity to present itself to them without taking too many risks in the process. I remember when we were solid enough to play with that sort of self-assurance but instead, on Tuesday night, we were most definitely a Carlo Ancelotti side.
Ok, so to be fair to him, it’s a side he inherited but he’s not exactly averse to older players as his former side – who also made an early exit against United – demonstrates. And that’s who we looked like, with a team that’s already some way past its sell-by-date. Huffing and puffing without creating anything of any consequence and about as deadly as a Rottweiler with no teeth.
Frank Lampard – who, let’s face it just has been a lot more subdued under Ancelotti – was barely in the game, Michael Ballack needs to hope this ‘performance related pay’ won’t really come down to being paid what his performances are actually worth to us these days. I appreciate we have both Ashley Cole and Jose Bosingwa out right now but even with competent stand-ins, defensively we’re just nowhere near the impregnable force we used to be and whilst Ross Turnball didn’t actually do anything wrong on Tuesday, do we really want stand-in keepers who have us all sweating before the games have even kicked off?
Then we come to our strike-force and we have Didier Drogba, who either blows us away when he’s in the mood or spends more time attacking the officials than the goal when he’s not, and Nicolas Anelka, who’s never at his best pushed out wide and yet persistently gets shoved there anyway because the current squad affords Ancelotti little option. And as for our options from the bench, Kalou and Joe Cole have both barely looked capable of striking a ball this season nevermind fear into the opposition, so all-in-all, whatever it was we had – we don’t seem to have it anymore.
Fair enough, having a player like Michael Essien missing long-term has cost us and adding Ashley Cole to that recently really didn’t help considering the form he was in but if just two players absences can have such a dramatic effect, then we seriously need some more cavalry to call on. I’m discounting Bosingwa’s absence because I don’t believe his absence has been that significant and whilst Petr Cech has missed a couple of games, our decline has happened over the course of more than the past season and even his form hasn’t been consistent during that time either.
So, where do we go from here? Well, the FA Cup and Premier League are still up for grabs in the near future but whether or not our players can bounce back hard enough now is anyone’s guess. For the longer term though, it’s time to put Mourinho – and a fair few of his players – in the box marked ‘history’ and start again.
Filed under: Rants
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Good article. I personally have the impression that approx 90% of Chelsea fans are asking for a revamp of the squad. Justifiably so. I think it would be very naive to neglect considerable changes in the summer. This team is, for several reasons, not good enough anymore to be competitive in every competition.
To be honest I felt this squad should’ve started to have been broken up after the Moscow Final. Instead of slowly rebuilding we’ve let it grow staler for a further 2 years and let it reach a point where it needs major surgery.
With the exception of Essien there’s no dynamism in midfield whatsover and our lack of pace and creativity in the final third of the pitch has been evident for a while now.
I don’t think it’s fair for the pressure to be on Ancelotti either as he inherited this squad. Even last summer’s buys Zhirkov, Sturridge, Turnbull and Matic were bought by Arnesen’s scouting network. Having heard Ancelotti say recently he’s had a year to evaluate the squad and the youngsters coming through, it’ll be interesting to see if he’s given the backing to make the required changes. Then in a year’s time a fairer judgement can be made upon him.
If we can freshen up the team with the likes of a ‘marquee signing’ like Aguero or Pato and slowly integrate them with really promising homegrown players like Stoch, Kakuta and Cork then I think we’re heading in the right direction.
Guys i agree we are ageing .. and all .. but the fact remains we are under a new manager with a new kind of play and new to his style of play .. as notd with scolari .. it dint click .. with ancelotti .. tis clicking here and clicking there .. some palyers are just not used to the positions i get ..
We all did see we performed very well under guus hiddink with more or less the same squad ..
Yes.. squad revamp is a MUST .. but then .. there are players who are really good here .. beheading all the defenders , midfielders and strikers is not the solution ..
I think you are right to a certain degree, but only to a certain degree, we are still top of the league, and for large parts of the season, we have played really well. Coming form behind in many of the matches speaks well of Ancelottis ability to motive and change games. So let’s be more positive. We will need to sign a goalkeeper in the summer, but on most other places we already have good young players who need to get a chance. My main critic of Ancelotti is the lack of chances given to the youngsters. Look at Sturridge getting his chance, scoring three goals in two matches before getting benched for two months and counting. Look at Hutchinson getting one chance, and earning a man of the match display before beeing benched, look at Kakuta getting a couple of chances, and showing much potential before being benched for four months and counting.
“According to some, Abramovich read the players the riot act, questioning their motives for being at the club whilst on the other hand, he is reported to have given them the silent treatment. As for Carlo Ancelotti, well he’ll either follow the usual Chelsea procedure and be sacked in the summer or be given £150m to rebuild the side. ”
Epic fail.All the papers i’ve read say that Roman was at the training ground to explain to the players that he still believed in their ability to win trophies.and most probbly,ancelotti will be given the money to make one marquee signing and another two utility.say like 50m pounds.So we dont necessarily have to take the most pessimistic view.
I didnt agree with much of this article,maybe because i dont think one loss a bad week or two makes chelsea a bad team.were still top of the league.lets keep our heads up.lets have faith in the team we supported when the goals were pouring in.they’ll turn up.
I’m not convinced by Ancelotti at all so far. I haven’t been throughout the season. It always feels like we are one mistake away from losing a game. I don’t think we need a £100M revamp. We have some good young players that need games and aren’t getting any. They don’t magically get good by just doing training. I also think this is a crucial time. If we don’t invest or start bringing in young players we are going to find ourselves in a downward spiral. Personally I think we should get Guus for 4 years or however long he wants to manage before retiring and then bring on a young successful coach. Mourinho was great, but I prefer Guus’s style of football and I actually think he’s better tactically.
today was awfull, I could see it happening beftore it did, and I couldn’t understand why Ancelotti didn’t act before Blackuburn equalised. Why has Kalou moved infront of Sturridge in the pecking order?
I ask here also, when is essien back? Our only hope. Is he gone for the season, i see little news about his recovery.