Could this be the defining day of Chelsea’s title defence? Anything can happen on this Saturday when Chelea is hosting Bolton and Man Utd travel to Goodison Park. On one side it appears that we are destined to cut the gap tomorrow, with injuries in Bolton and Man Utd, Everton is top form and we play at home and Man Utd play away. On the other side, it could be a tough task with fatigue really catching up and some of our top players badly needing some rest. Out of the 4 matches left to be played, Chelsea plays 3 at home and Man Utd play 3 away from home. So, this Saturday may still not be a ‘nail in the coffin’ types, for Chelsea.
We are still missing Ballack but he might be ready for Anfield. If I had Robben’s phone number, I’d have called him myself. There are so many varied reports about his current state of fitness and his return but surely he is available for this match. If I see Drogba or Lampard on the teamsheet, I’m gonna scream! Let’s get real. We can beat this Bolton team at the Bridge without Lampard and Drogba. We have the most enviable midfield in the Premiership and one of the finest in Europe. If there is no Ballack or Lampard, we still have Maka, Essien, Mikel and possibly even SWP and Joe Cole. While I’d surely rest Lampard, I might even consider resting Mikel and play him in the second half if required.
Drogba has become a very integral part of not only the team this season but also our success which makes it sometimes impossible to think about his absence. Why I would rest Drogba is (i) c’mon, he needs rest before he collapses on the field (ii) we can beat this Bolton team without him (iii) I’d like to see Sheva playing as the lone striker. Who knows, it could be Sheva’s day. That’s what you’d say if you come to know that newspapers have started issuing apologies to Sheva.
Bolton could be missing about half a dozen first teamers – Diouf, Ben Haim, Faye are out of selection while Nolan, Hunt and Stelios are doubtful. I respect Bolton for what they have done and what they could do. Players missing or not, they would give us a good fight. They play a very physical game and are dangerous set pieces. And that’s why I dont think Jose would considering resting the central defenders. I’d preserve Ashley Cole and Diarra for the Anfield game.
Tomorrow, Chelsea and Man Utd kick off at the same time, which makes things a little more interesting, managers checking the score of their rivals etc. If we seem to finish the match in the first half by any chance, I might even be tempted to watch the other match, praying for an Everton win. Something tells me that it could be a 2-1 win for Everton while ours could be a 2-0.
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i wouldnt be so sure of a chelsea win
i wud like to see joe cole play to his level……….sheva show some class
lampard should be rested …. mikel should play
hopefully kick manu s ass tonight
i’m with you john, but we should have some faith on jose, he knows what he is doing , i think that man utd’s match is more important , i hope they lose,
ok bye now
see you after the game, and have some faith mates !!
Finally my words after the Liverpool defeat proved to be right. Our title race was over in January.
Today’s game showed clearly that we cannot play without our main players. Jose lacks creativity to be able to play and win with subs. Mancs gave us lot of chances recently to catch them, we couldn’t catch so they deserved this title. Take it easy guys.
As for the Champions league, Carvalho is injured, so we can lose it too.
Good luck on Tuesday.
Well, we had our chance to take the title last week against Newcastle. We didn’t take it then and we didn’t take it this week, either. Credit to Bolton for holding us but it was really our own missed kicks and frustrations that cost us this match. How much must Fergie love Rooney’s recent form? The last-gasp clincher in Champs League and now the go-ahead against Everton. Man, I’m sad.
All Chelsea can do is win all their remaining games and hope that United’s makeshift defence collapses, which CAN happen (just look at Kaka’s 2nd goal in that first-leg). I think I’m gonna swap out Drogs for Kalou in my EPL fantasy pool. I was really bothered by how easily Drogba went down in the last 15 minutes of this match. I understand why, of course, but still, he should try to make it not so obvious.
Bridge played well again, as he has whenever he’s called upon. I’d take him over Cashley anyday of the week. Sheva was very, VERY disappointing today. C’mon, where the world-class striker? We’ve waited long enough, thank you very much.
I’d probably start crying about this loss if it weren’t for us still being alive in 3 competitions. We just gotta wait, and keep the faith.
BLUE FOR LIFE
Just to clarify:
“I’d probably start crying about this loss if it weren’t for us still being alive in 3 competitions,”
This WAS a loss, in my books.
If there was an opportunity I would sell Sheva, Ballack, Lampard and would buy Kaka for Chelsea. We need speed and creativity, not waste of space, time and money.
Well i hope the nincompoop bloaters going by the line– Keep the faith r now ‘keeping their big mouths tightly shut’!!!!! Call that salt on wound but the worst thing fans like these do is create a false atmosphere of belief and hype , then r shut by the results!!!
Still they do not learn by their mistakes and their over-sized heads blast-off again , before every single match!!! The point before evry game M_D and i hav been fruitlessly trying to get past their thick heads , but now perhaps they just might finally see sense(i hope)!!!!
Overrating a team does no good to anybody , Essien at CB thats what u get when u hav a manager of a fool who is just like these fans, goes and buy all the big names for as much money as is asked and does not hav even a spoonful of sense to buy a decent CB, and then u nutters claim him to be the greatest , even Uniteds 3 string defence is better than ours!!!!
No M_D lets go and but a soon to be flop Villa for 45 mn pounds and some other names like those , why bother with awesome players like Kaka , surely our GREATEST manager can see further sense in making Roman bankrupt!!!!
I’m sorry to say today left a dry taste in my mouth.
Sheva it seems has lost the plot and is probably biding his time before packing his bags. It’s not a loss of form/ finding form thing now. I think he has been underestimating the opposition all the time and doing what he wants( although he may be good at disguising it) therefore making the whole team play 10 against 11 all the time. And why we play two different games for each half
It all there to see in his facial and body language. ( I manage a lot of people and I feel that I know enough about that stuff to make comments about him)
I said in a comment a while back that I felt we would see darker days before we felt better/ played better again.
I’m sorry that I was right .
All credit to ManUre and Bolton today.
I’ll take it like a man on the chin but I keep the faith as always for the remaining games and cups.
But for next year we need a first class and young striker,a solid -center back and winger in the mold of Damian Duff.
Joe Blue
Are u callin me a nincompoop bloater ?
How long have u been watching football or been working or living in this life?
U think logic ,tactics and talent are the only things that bring success ?
I’ll tell u I came up from the dumps and have fallen so many times before getting up again before I made it in this stupid world.
U can criticize all the hell u want the faults of urself and others but I tell you it makes no difference.
Without Faith in urself or others, people are just shit.
Well if second-string Bolton can get 2 past us , now m really fearing L’pool , imagine having to deal with Crouch and Kuyt when Davies looks like an awesome forward in front of our defence , Drogba was pure rubbish but u cant blame him , how many matches is he supossed to score in?????
Right u r finally Roman_Holiday , but quite late on the scene, now u guys might remember what i and M_D had been emphasising from last October , but better late than never , United win cuz everybody puts their hands up when the team needs them , unlike here Drogbe please score an injury time stunner , is the best we can come up with!!!!!
We need a regular , strong , clinical goal-scorer , an injury-free winger , a creative , fast mid-fielder , a good RB and some backup CB’s , but hey our manager is the shit-nut JM so lets go and spend 100mn pounds on pure crap and ask the strikers to be the sub-goalkeepers , the midfielder to be the sub-defender , he himself to be a sub-blabbering crap machine like he always is!!
I ain’t finished with u yet boy
Live ur life like u move ur little players on the PS3.Do it starting from tomorrow.
Be so logical and Don’t take any risks . I think ur just a kid who gonna turn out to be a lower-middle class grumbling office clerk who thinks everything has to be perfect before he’s successful.
Go ahead approach life that way.
What u never lost anything ur life before ? Daddy been shielding u all ur life?
Afraid to lose ur paycheck ?
Well perfect boy , I think a life like that is SHIT.
Chill down R_H big guy , and stop giving me ur bio-data , i dint name u , but if ur guilty consious pricks u …..hmmmmmm that seems suspicious!!!!!
Anyway what r u trying to prove by telling me life story????
Does that prove u r always right???? Sorry to say pal but u were wrong more than u were right , throughout the season!!!!
And if u wanna scream out ur frustration go get a pic of JM or if u dont hav that , there is always the mirror!!!!!!
U think we were blind to the fact that CFc didn’t get reinforcements ?
That we were getting by major injuries ?
To the fact the manager could be gone in a flash?
That most of the big-name signings were letting us down ?
Of course we understood all that shit but we still had faith ( which is belief and hope in what we did have rather than crying about what we did not have ).
It means not giving up until the final whistle , until its mathematically impossible to get title.
I just hope u don’t piss people off like that in real life cos ur life ain’t gonna be pretty if u do.
Oh so now u start venting ur frustrations personally , what was ur life like boy???? The same things u explained , seems u know a lot abt such famalies , or u are part of such a one , why do u care abt my paypacket????
Is that what makes u think ur a big man???? Or the fact that ur oversized ego has been having lots of grub lately????? I’ll live my life my way and even if needed directions , it wont certainly be U , whos more wrong than right!!!!!
Stop behaving like u r the start all and end all , and if u think taking a dig at me helps u in any way , or has any effect on me , stop right now and punch urself in the face maybe that will put ur bloaty head in the right place!!!
Cheers!!!!
Bulls eye !
Seems like u know everything ‘almighty’ , so why visit this blog with so many mortals , oh now i see ur trying to pass on ur wisdom great sage and multi-millionar how very nice of u to claim urself to be such a know-all!!!!
R u writing from the school of the over-sized egos or from the mental asylum???
Either way , i dont care a damn , unlike u m not interested in other peoples personal lives, thir number of wives , paypockets etc… all that is for people like u who take pleasure from the fact that they r superior but in fact r mentally so downgraded that even their own famalies stay away from them!!!!
It’s only a game ,kid
I’m sorry if I hurt u in anyway.
And everyone else I apologize that I reacted to being called
a “nimcompoop bloater ” cause I was one of those who used the phrase regularly and support the team whatever the situation might be. I will never do so again whatever the provocation is.
Please accept my sincere apologies
RomanHoliday
And ” Keep the Faith”
It’s only a game ,kid
I’m sorry if I hurt u in anyway.
And everyone else I apologize that I reacted to being called
a “nimcompoop bloater †cause I was one of those who used the phrase ” Keep the Faith ” regularly and support the team whatever the situation might be. I will never do so again whatever the provocation is.
Please accept my sincere apologies
RomanHoliday
And †Keep the Faithâ€
Joeblue is right but there’s no need to argue.
If we critisize Jose and the team’s display that doesn’t mean that we don’t support the team. We support Chelsea Football Club and this club is bigger and beyond of Jose and 11-14 men who play for this club week in and week out. The real maturity and rationality is to face the problems and mistakes made by our manager and make them clear publicly. It was him and only him who wanted this squad to be small in size at the beginning of the season. If he is a professional manager who spent 2 years here he should know that in a country like England a top team has to compete in 4 tournaments at the same time and thus injuries to the main players are inevitable. So what was he thinking about at the start??? Apart from injuries he should have known that even if a player is not injuried it is very hard for him to play every game through the whole season. Thus he should be able to create tactics and strategies to play without his main players and win games while resting them. Have we seen games this year when he could win a game without Drogba, Lampard, Terry and Carvalho??? It’s ironic that we could rest all first 11 in the last games against Newcastle and Bolton and still manage to draw those games. At least our squad would have easily beaten Liverpool on aggregate and proceed to the Champions’ league final. Instead our manager used all players in all games and we lost the league title and there’s fresh Liverpool waiting for us at Anfield next Tuesday.
Hey mate Roman_holiday no hard feelings in any way , we both were just venting out our frustrations and i too am sorry for my comments!!!!
I usually get carried away by these results but dont take it to heart ,i know ur a good person and we know each other more than this to hav reacted in such a way!!!!
This ones for u mate——” KEEP THE FAITH PEOPLE WE R STILL IN 4 COMPETITIONS”
GO CFC , AND SORRY AGAIN ROMAN!!!!!!!
i hope sheva is dumped off as soon as possible…..
i have nothing 2 say….it was a dissapiontment but not a failure. We made it this far and we gave manchester a very hard time, we just have 2 accept that this is not our premiership season. We cant cry and make excuses and fight over it, what has happened has happended, now we need to focus on tuesday and tha fa cup final. May we end this horrendous season with as much trophies as we can….Keep the faith. Blue4lyfe
It’s time to realize the truth. All big teams has had players who could change results single-handedly. I’m not talking about decent players who score wonderful goals from time to time, or regular skilled goal-scorers. I’m talking about players like Zidane, Ronaldinho, Messi, Christiano Ronaldo and Kaka. Can you imagine Manchester Utd playing the way they play currenty without Ronaldo??? Can you imagine that old-gaed (though GREAT) Milan in current position in Europe without Kaka?
If we want to have the greatest team in England and Europe we should get rid of Lampard and Ballack. All of them are waste of space, money and time in comparison to Zidane, Ronaldo and Kaka.
I would swap Lampard and Ballack with Kaka.
Even Gerrard will do for us.
PS: Sheva passed it. Get rid of him too.
Blimey a bit lively over here! Today was a disappointment and I’ve been pretty scathing in my own review. However I also believe that Sheva is a passenger and should go. He contributed nothing today. Mourinho is a still the best coach around but he did make a big error with the experiment of the small squad and I think he’ll learn from this – either that of Kenyon will take the matter into his own hands and order Jose to make the squad 4 players bigger. The runour is he will have £75m to spend. He needs to adopt the old Vialli/Gullit approach whereby the coach gives someone a lsit and like Colin Hutchinson used to do they go off and negotiate.
The PL is lost but we have two more to aim at. Riccy’s injury is just a plain old disaster and couldn’t happen to a better player at a worse time. If we defend like we did today then Liverpool will batter us. We need to get past Tuesday, settle for second and rest the big players for the cup final(s). Then when the season is done we need to buy
a right back and bring back Glen Johnson
a centre back to challenge and backup JT and Riccy
a striker who knows where the goal is to partner Drogs
A winger to replace Duff
Players out – Makalele (one season too long), Ferreira (a shadow of his former self), Cudicini (too old and not enough games), Shevchenko (the worst buy since Robert Fleck!), Geremi (waste of space)
Players in – Kaka (no chance, Milan will never release him), Richards from Man City, Mancienne from our reserve squad, Sahar and Smith (our reserves again), Carlos Tevez, Glen Johnson, Darren Bent. Anyone know of a good second goalkeeper to replace Carlo?
I want Bastien Swartzsteinger from Bayern , David Villa from U know where and and as defender that guy on loan to PSV , ah yes Alex or Lucio.
And also Benni McCarthy ( if he isn’t that old yet ).and also for striker , Berbatov.
Back goalie : Robert Green.
I don’t think that’s the real RomanHoliday. May be, someone’s stolen his identity.
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