In the last three years, I’ve never felt so negative about a match. I had always believed that we would win, irrespective of injury situations, boardroom problems, Cech’s absence etc. But this time, I feel that we can’t beat Valencia. The results of the opinion poll in this post have confirmed that I’m not alone. We have had many such polls in BlueChampions before. Not even once have we seen such majority votes against Chelsea winning the match. Number of people (out of 92 so far) who voted for a ‘Chelsea win with a cleansheet’: FOUR. How the mighty have fallen!

All odds are against Chelsea. Valencia are the bookmakers’ favourites to win this match. Player to player, the Chelsea team is much better than the Valencia team. And then, if you add other parameters like form, morale, stadium etc, Valencia are the hot favourites.

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It was not like this last season. This is how we fared at the Mestalla in the champions league last season. 64% possession, 21(6) shots against 9(2) shots from Valencia. Not many teams have dominated Valencia at Mestalla and come out with a win in European matches. We completely outplayed them and scored a well deserved historic win. You can see that thrilling stoppage time goal from Essien, thanks to the aid and assist by Joe Cole and Sheva. To top it all, the strong and vocal Valencia crowd applauded the Chelsea team after the full time whistle.

Morientes talks about their loss to Blues in April.

They were playing away from home and this is a difficult place to do well, but in the second half they kept the ball really well and we simply couldn’t get near enough to their goal to create good chances. They are a very good side indeed.

[video]http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/2nnYxYLsrprCsbRhJ[/video]

While Grant keeps talking about playing with style and scoring more goals, I don’t think he has a different objective for Wednesday. He should be quite satisfied to come out with a point. In group stages, even if you’re only second best, that’ll do for your qualification. If we don’t believe we’re the best in the group, then it’s gotta be Valencia and if you get a draw at Mestalla, then that should be a very good result. He’s also made it very clear that points are now more important than anything else.

We lost two points in the last game at home against the team that is on paper the weakest in the group so we need a good result tomorrow to continue in the Champions League. First we want to win any game. If we can make tomorrow an exciting game with plenty of entertainment we will do it but the result is more important.

His team selection for this match is going to tell us a lot about his methods. He cannot afford to choose an attacking formation as fear of failure would be looming large. For his confidence and also for the players’ confidence and morale, he would try to avoid a defeat. Playing organised and efficient football and controlling the game and the opponent is one thing while playing men behind ball chasing shadows is another. In the name of defence, I hope we dont end up doing the latter. With the kind of players, he won’t have to do that either.

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In team news, John Terry would most likely play, interestingly with his new pirate-like face gear. Essien should be back as well. Carvalho has trained but I’ll be mightily surprised if he plays. Drogba and Mikel can play as their red cards would be considered only in domestic competitions.

Going by our current form we need a formation that says “not losing is more important than winning”. My formation for this match would be 4-2-3-1. I would pick Alex ahead of Ben Haim for his form, quality and champions league experience. Essien and Mikel as the holding midfielders would be a unpenetrable wall for any attack. While the left and right attacking midfielder roles can be taken up by Malouda and Joe Cole, I would choose Pizarro to be the attacking midfielder centre bordering on second striker. The lone striker upfront will be none other than Drogba.

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If you wonder why do I feel so negative about our prospects, read this piece from Joe Cole on this match.

I think when you’ve gone a while without winning you want to win. This game is important now as we only have one point in the Champions League group, so it’s a game we mustn’t lose and we’d like to go home with all three points. As a team you go out there to win the game, maybe a draw would be a good result but a win would be a great result and we want to come here and win the game. We won’t be sitting back but it’s a tough place to come, it’s a top side with some great players, so we need to be five, ten percent better than we’ve been all season.

“mustn’t lose and we’d like to go home with all three points” – someone who is confident about winning would not talk about ‘mustn’t lose‘. For all those criticism (unjust, in my view) of Jose’s style, he never plays for anything less than 3 points. And look, Joe Cole also says “we won’t be sitting back” which is quite a disgrace. Have we become so bad that we have to make this clear about not sitting back? Top side with great players – well yes, read this short guide to Valencia players, in the official Chelsea website.

All said, we can still qualify irrespective of the result of this match. A win could be the exact turnaround that can energise the team. If this team beats Valencia at Mestalla tonight, we will be back in the hunt in the premier league. If we lose it won’t be a new low but Bolton would be fancying their chances this weekend. A draw would not improve our situation in any way but atleast make things easier for qualification. More than the result, once again, I would be keen to watch how we play – do we create chances, do we dominate, do we control etc.

While I expect a score draw or a defeat, I could not help but hope for a 2-1 win. I wish Jose Mourinho watches this match from the stands. The very presence of this man could inspire the team to put up a fiery show!

Guess the outcome:

{democracy:75}

[tags]Chelsea, Valencia, Jose Mourinho, Avram Grant, Champions League, UEFA, Estadio Mestalla, group stage, Drogba, Essien, Terry, Mikel[/tags]