BlueChampions - The Blog of the Champions of England!

Feels like defeat, doesn’t it? We’re 4 under par! On a serious note, you can’t score 6 goals every match, can you? Frankly, we’re all a bit spoiled by generous goal serving by the Chelsea team. What else would you say when a comfortable 2-0 win has a tinge of disappointment, not from a performance point of view but from the goal tally. One thing’s for sure. The premier league goals record made by Chelsea last season is under serious threat from Chelsea themselves. There is no other premier league team that is as free scoring as Chelsea at the moment. In all this flurry of goals, what should not escape the attention is that we are not conceding. There’s no Carvalho but still we’re not conceding.

I must say Stoke City made it a bit difficult for us. Home or away, Stoke City are always a tough customer with their physical style of play and their determination. I think the Chelsea players would admit that breaking down Stoke City wasn’t easy. Lampard’s missed penalty only strengthened Stoke City’s resolve. Had Lamps scored that, it might have opened the floodgates, but he didn’t.

It wasn’t a good match for Lampard. I don’t know if because he wasn’t playing well he missed the penalty or because he missed the penalty he didn’t play well. Very clearly, ever since he missed the penalty, Lampard was not getting involved in the playmaking. Probably he felt guilty for missing the penalty and hence was trying hard to score a goal. He was playing almost as the second striker while he was really missed in the midfield, which didn’t help in Chelsea creating goalscoring opportunities. I was mightily pleased when Carlo subbed Lampard. It’s not a familiar sight to see Lampard being subbed off but he was in pain and had to leave the pitch in order not to aggravate it.

Lampard will undergo a hernia surgery (like Drogba did last month) this week which will mean he does not have to join the England national team. The next premier league match is only on 11-Sep against his ex-club West Ham. There’s also a possibility that he could miss that match but we’ve got Ramires up and running. He played for about 10 minutes and I think he did well. He was intelligent in his movements, he covered the spaces nicely though we didn’t really see a surging run or a crunching tackle or a deadly pass from him. Like Yossi in the match against West Brom, Ramires was just moving around on the pitch understanding how the game flows.

Nicolas Anelka, for me, was the man of the match. The man’s made a 180-degree turn since his initial days at Chelsea. It’s not often I say that Nico’s work rate on the pitch was top class. He was fighting for every ball in his vicinity. He put pressure, he tackled, he won balls and he never gave up. Two thumbs up for Nico. Brilliant performance. Malouda’s scoring spree continues and this time to the courtesy of a lovely ball from John Terry! I think the real on-the-pitch architect behind Chelsea raking up 100+ goals last season was Malouda. It was his goals, assists, manoeuvres that were a useful addition to the usual Chelsea attacks contributed and scored by Drogba and Lampard. I’d put my money on Malouda getting 20 goals this season.

International break ahead. No real football until 11-Sep. This would still be a busy period for me as I’ve just moved to Singapore on a short term basis. It’s been a couple of days now and I’m settling down nicely. New place, new work, and new people to work with is always going to be interesting. Meanwhile, we’re nearing the climax of the two football gaming titles this season. Both PES 2011 and FIFA 11 would be released in early October. You know that I’m a big Pro Evo fan though I play both these series. PES 2011 is shaping up very well. It looks and plays so good that I just simply can’t wait.

That’s it for now. Catch you later!

Carlo calls it playstation gaming. I’ve been a playstation gamer for god knows how many years. Trust me, it’s not easy even on playstation to score at the rate Chelsea is scoring. This is not just free scoring. This is insanely free scoring. The quality that’s there in the Chelsea squad is immense. Drogba is outstanding, Anelka has a role of his own, Malouda cannot stop scoring, Lampard is showing why he’s the best in premier league, Essien is back and finding his feet, Mikel is only improving, Benayoun is settling in, Kalou is finally turning into a very good player and our defence and goalkeeper hate to concede no matter how many we score. It’s all looking very bright and sunny for us.

If Carlo has brought us one thing that is turning this Chelsea team into a goal scoring machine. It will be an interesting study to research what change in mentality and tactics has made these high scoring wins a norm for Chelsea these days. Ahead of the match Carlo said that it’s not possible to win 6-0 every match and that he’d be happy with a 1-0 win too. He must have been lying. He knows fully well how he’s preparing his team and what he expects of his players. See how many Chelsea players commit themselves to attack even after going well ahead. Chelsea’s approach now is to never stop attacking moves and to score as many as possible.

For the second match running, we didn’t look like ending the match with a 6-0 score. In fact, the first half belonged to Wigan. It is understandable. Wigan had just lost heavily to Blackpool at home. They want to show a reaction to the manager, fans and the owner. They were all over us in the first half hour. I wasn’t too worried because I knew that it if we were to withstand those waves of attacks, our time will come. Wigan couldn’t play at that level for too long. They were getting tired physically and mentally, which ultimately caused the drop in concentration which led to a nice Chelsea goal.

Chelsea score 6 goals but the two men who score more than about 50% of Chelsea goals, did not score even one. Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard may not have found the net yesterday but they were just brilliant. Lampard’s passing range was very impressive but what was more valuable was his creativity. He may not probably get enough credit for his creativity in passing and attacking moves. He also made a few cracking tackles that stopped some dangerous attacking moves by Wigan.

Didier Drogba is the man of the match. When he doesn’t score goals, he creates them. For a top striker like Drogba, he is truly unselfish. He could have got a brace instead he created goals for his team mates and for the team. His run for the first goal by Kalou, was a real treat to watch. There was technique and intelligence than pace and acceleration. Is the striker with the best cross in European football today? Not just this match, overtime Drogba crosses the ball, I’m very confident that it would be a dangerous one and most probably there could be a goal too. He is a real asset. He says he can play at this level for 5 years. He’s had his surgery and he is now fully fit and can afford to play at 100% fitness finally. Rivals must be really worried at how Drogba’s shaping up this season. I think Drogba’s target this season must be to be the world player of the year.

There’s something different about Kalou this season. We’ve seen him in only three matches but he seems to have added something to his game – probably confidence or determination or intelligence or decision making – something. There is some assurance with the way he’s playing. His movements off the ball are good. When he is on the ball, he doesn’t look to walk it into the net by himself. Basically, it appears that he has finally understood his role in the team and has that clarity around the style and nature of play in this Chelsea set up. The introduction of Benayoun and the emergence of Kakuta could have made a positive contribution in him stepping up his game. Can he be the surprise package of this season?

I’m very very please for Benayoun. In the last match, you saw him strolling all over the pitch, getting some on-the-pitch orientation to the gameplan and style. In this match, he was very much part of the proceedings and he capped it all with a nice goal. It was a good cut back from Paulo for which Yossi moved in nice and easy to make what looked like an easy finish.

It’s a great sight when you see Anelka fighting for his team mates when the opponents are in possession of the ball. Yesterday, he covered so much ground that he wanted to be everywhere. It’s not his braces or hattricks that give me as much pleasure as watching Anelka playing with a Drogba mentality – not willing to give up, giving a real tough fight, making his presence felt irrespective of whether he is on or off the ball. I can tell you this much – the version of Anelka that we have now is largely bug-free and vastly upgraded from the version we downloaded from Bolton. By the way, Anelka’s stock has gone up in my books, ever since he laughed off his ban by FFF. Classic stuff. Rub it in Nico!

News is that Ramires would play in the match next weekend. As I’ve said before, I’m a bit worried that Ramires could halt Mikel’s progress. I’ve grown to love Mikel for the last couple of seasons. He’s come a long way this young man. Even yesterday, he made a divine pass for Anelka which showed the other side of Mikel. I’d like to see both Ramires and Mikel sharing the responsibilities instead of one blocking the other. That doesn’t mean we play with two defensive midfielders. It’s just that we have the luxury to rotate even the defensive midfielders.

The new black away kit looks awesome. Unlike last season, we don’t have to put up with an ‘unlucky’ away jersey. This new kit looks brilliant and we scored half a dozen goals. That should make you ‘kit-jinxed’ lot happy. So we still top the table after another round of premier league matches. We scored six goals again for which we didn’t have to be playing at home or playing against 10 men. We went there and thumped them. That’s why we’re champions. All looking well. BlueChampions blog could be experiencing some difficulties as I’m moving to Singapore for a short period. Most probably the next blog I write would be from Singapore. I’ll ensure that this is as seamless for you as possible. That’s it for now. Enjoy!

Guys! I’m down with fever. I can barely write. I’ll make this a short post and as always, leave it open for your wise, interesting discussions. I know this result deserves a longer post but I can’t strain too much. Here we go.

Roger Federer would have been proud of that score. When Blackpool finished the match at 4-0, I wasn’t sure if Chelsea would top the table after the first round of premier league season. I know the league table after the first round means nothing, just as the second, third and up to the 37th round. It is this little sentiment that I’d like Chelsea to top the table as soon as the first round ends. I know what you’re saying. It’s not over yet. Liverpool are playing today and Man Utd are playing tomorrow. Allow me to be a bit arrogant here. Neither of them is gonna score 7 goals.

Well, it was surely a flattering scoreline. I wouldn’t say West Brom deserved a goal but Chelsea’s performance didn’t deserve 6 goals. In the first 30 minutes I wouldn’t have bet even one pound on Chelsea finishing with six goals. Actually, I don’t we ever got out of the first gear. The only thing that got us half a dozen goals was the quality and the ‘let’s not stop’ mentality.

So we have just start from where we left last season. Finished the last one with 8 and have begun this one with 6 and this is the sport of football we’re talking about. I’ve been telling you pre-season results mean nothing. To make you understand and believe I even told you Arsenal won a pre-season trophy this month. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see us start this season like champions. It’s like shouting out loud ‘it’s our title and we’re keeping it’.

The Spurs vs Man City match was a great opener for this season’s premier league. I thought this match was a great advertisement for premier league football for what there is. It was a typical high-tempo match filled with non-stop waves of attacks and counterattacks. There was a lot of heart than skill, more of determination than genius. Most importantly, it was box office stuff and full value for money and time. Ah well, despite the disappointing result, good to see Spurs destroying Man City like they were playing some promoted team. Why don’t the press put some pressure on Man City questioning Mancini’s selection or tactics or asking if Mancini is the right man for the job? Just for some entertainment.

Liverpool to maul Arsenal. Joe Cole to score the winner. Newcastle to beat Man Utd with an injury time winner on the 99th minute (suck it up sunbears!). Time to see who we got at the second place. Cheers!

P.S: For all the Indian readers out there – wish you a happy independence day! Waiting for the news about Roman buying this Indian Premier League cricket club!