Wish you all a very happy new year. As always, let’s hope that this year bring us more joy and prosperity than the bygone one. What a match on the new year day! The West London derby kicks off around noon time tomorrow. Though they are in relegation zone, they’ve got a new manager, who got them a precious away point last week.
Three crucial points! Thanks to the linesman and Kalou, in that order. In a remarkable day of favourable results, West Ham complete the double over Man Utd but Arsenal top the table which leaves us trailing them by 6 points.
Chelsea face Newcastle in a match where the barcodes would give their everything as a defeat could get Sam the sack. We have a smaller squad to choose from, as our injury/suspension list itself seems to make up a good playing eleven for Chelsea.
Without much ado, here is my team: Cech seems to be only half-fit but he has to start as Cudicini is zero-fit at the moment. Carlo must be cursing his luck that his health and fitness is somewhat equally and directly proportional to that of Petr Cech. It should be massively annoying to wait for months and months and finally just when he gets injured Petr Cech needs a replacement. In defence, I’d like to bring back Essien. Of course I want him in the midfield but the prospect of Ben Haim watching another header go past him made me go for Essien as a centre back. We’ve got Ballack back so he would command the midfield with Mikel. If Malouda is still not playing after reports of recovery, I would have to suspect his intentions or the club’s intention towards him. Sheva deserves another kick about but not sure about Kalou. I’ve just paired them because I’m still not convinced about Sheva being the lone striker.
Sam Allardyce’s neck is on the chopping block and it’s rumoured that if we beat them, he’d be gone. I like Sam as a professional, he is a good manager. After he took Bolton to new heights, not many would have thought that he’d be facing the sack even before the end of the year. Newcastle have been generally poor despite having a very good attack. The fact is they have managed one cleansheet in the last 15 matches and have lost their away matches to even Derby and Wigan.
Just about three days back we had a very physically and mentally draining match against Villa, which we should have lost but nearly we should have won but somehow managed to draw. After the disappointment of drawing the match, the players were in for a surprise from the coach! ‘Well done guys! You lead twice and could not hold the lead for 3 minutes and drew the match at home’. The reason why Avram is unable to express his disappointment is because may be by now he knows that he screwed up with his subs and tactics and that cost us 2 points. So, after a period of lull, Avram is back again with his usual piece of gold. Here is Avram sending out wrong messages to his own players.
That we have so many players out is the reason I want to focus on the half of the squad that can play. We drew 4-4 in the last match, an amazing game, and we came back from 2-0 down. With all the squad available we lost 2-0 to Aston Villa when we played them the time before so I think this is a time to say a good word for the players that have played the last 18 games. We won almost all, drew four, and we had all these problems so I think they did a very good job. I want the spirit to continue that you saw against Aston Villa last game and the games before. I am optimistic by nature and I don’t want to think about the negative things because it is not the right way to think about this.
I wonder how some of those players in the team that lost 2-0 to Villa, would take this message from Avram. Would they be thinking ‘Under Jose, we lost 2-0, but under Avram he has helped us get a point, hail avram’? My foot. To put it simply he says Jose Mourinho lost to Aston Villa 2-0 but my team drew 4-4. But what he didn’t say is we were luckier this time. Anyway, I don’t know why he is comparing himself to Jose Mourinho. Avram is absolutely no match to Jose. JM is a class apart and a few league apart. Avram is getting himself into a trap here. If he is going to compare his results with Jose’s, then he makes himself prone to comparison with Jose in every respect, including titles. I think Avram needs help, needs assistance and conselling and advice – on what he should say and how.
The team that I’ve put here is a very good strong team hoping that Essien comes good in defence. Newcastle are in a kind of crisis. If there is a time to play Newcastle, this is it. Joey Barton is out and spending the new year in jail. Sam wants something out of the game so they won’t put 11 men behind the ball for 90 minutes. They have not scored more than 1 goal in an away match for more than 4 months now. But they know that Leicester scored 3 and Villa scored 4 (including 1 with just 10 men) at the Bridge. After all, with stars like Martin, Viduka and Owen, they should fancy scoring 2 or 3 goals.
Left to this team, they know how to win, hold on to a lead, how to play with just 10 men on our side, how to come back fiercely etc. These qualities are installed in them. It’s now in their DNA. It takes some kind of conscious effort, intervention and misfortune, to stop them doing these things. I’m not hoping for Sheva or Essien or Cech to have a good match. I just hope Avram has a good match, makes the right decisions and gets the three points. Prediction? We will win 12-11.
Avram must have started the countdown for the winter transfers a few months back. I don’t think Chelsea needs all four weeks of the winter transfer window. Given our preparedness and ACN absences, Grant might want to get the signings done pretty soon. He should have all the support from Roman because that’s what I’d understand from the £50 million plus transfer funds made available for Grant for the January transfer window.
A great match for the neutral. A disappointing result for a Chelsea fan. When was the last time a team scored 4 goals against Chelsea, leave alone at Stamford Bridge? This result and the couple of straight red cards should put us out of the title race.
Chelsea look to extend their home league run when they host Villa on boxing day. Last season, on the boxing day, we were winning against Reading when Essien’s own goal robbed us of two points. We had Hilario on goal then too. Hilario should have a good series of games if we are to improve on our last season’s Christmas period performance.
Last season, a hattrick of draws during the Christmas period broke our hearts and conceded a comfortable lead to Man Utd. The six weeks of football starting from the beginning of December till the middle of January is the most intense with the increased number of games, playing in all competitions, and fatigue taking its toll and players falling to injuries. In this 6 weeks period last season, in the premier league, we scored 16 points out of a possible 24 (8 matches). This season we have scored 9 out of possible 12 points so far.
Lampard believes we can win all three matches of this Christmas period. He says even the uninjured available players can go on a winning run!
We are only six points behind and we have still got Arsenal, United and Liverpool to come to our place. Anything is still possible and that’s the feeling we have. We now have to go on a real run of winning games – and none of them are going to be easy – and hope that then we’ll have the big players coming back. The players we’ve got here are capable of going on that run without the injured players, and I’m pretty confident we can go and win all three games over the next few days.
While Lampard exudes confidence, Avram Grant is very disappointed with our injury list. I’m sure he is just waiting for clock to strike 12 on the last night of the year.
I cannot say it will be easy if we lose Cech. To play for so long with so many injured for a long time, I don’t like it, but I cannot do anything about it. It’s fact, and we need to get through it as soon as possible like we have done in the last three months.
I go with Grant here than Lampard here. Our priority now is to cross this bridge with least damage. I’m not expecting us to go on a winning spree while we are missing the big boys.
When we are facing such kind of injury situation in a crucial period of the season, one thing that can keep ourselves in the hunt is the spirit and determination of the players. That’s what kept us in the race last season too. Joe Cole is pretty clear on what’s getting us the points. After the match at Ewood park he said:
What a result in the end because I don’t think too many teams will come here and get many points. We didn’t play well or pass the ball as well as we would like, but we showed great spirit and great desire, the qualities that have made us very successful over the years. We know the task ahead. We don’t look at the other results, we just have to keep winning.
Great spirit and great desire – the qualities that have made us successful over the years. How true this statement is! Joe Cole should certainly start after his super goal against Blackburn.
I can actually bet that Avram would play 4-5-1 with Shevchenko being persisted as the (deep lying?) centre forward. Kalou and Joe Cole should play in the wings. Essien, Ballack and Makelele should play in the midfield. Lampard and Mikel can rest so that they can play Newcastle later this week. In defence, it should Carvalho, Alex, Bridge and Paulo. I’d save Ashley Cole and Belletti for the next match. This is because, I consider Villa to be a more difficult opponent than Newcastle.
Villa are now 8th in the league but have some interesting records this season. They have scored more goals than Chelsea in the league this season. They are the second highest away goal scoring team (behind Portsmouth) in the league. They have some very good players in Agbonlahor (that header last season . . grrr), Carew (in some kind of form), Gareth Barry (trying to impress Capello), Ashley Young (the super surprise of this season for Villa) and Nigel Reo-Coker (I respect this kid for what he can do). They have very good squad overall. We just can’t take this game with any less seriousness than we took Arsenal.
We lost to them at Villa part at the beginning of this season. That was one of those games where we were playing truly attacking football but ended up on the losing side. The official Chelsea website has this recollection of the earlier match this season. Belletti, the man from Barca who knows his bit about attacking football, thinks that we played good football and still lost.
Oh, we played very, very well. Good football, I think we had a lot of opportunities in the game because we played better than them. We can prove this now at Stamford Bridge.
Petr Cech has a different account of the same match from the Chelsea goal. He feels that we didn’t play well but I guess he’s talking more from the defensive point of view, that we allowed them to score.
We didn’t score, had some chances but didn’t take them, and then they scored at the beginning of the second half from a corner, which isn’t really good, we should have marked better. Then we had a draw at home and in the Champions League, and the manager left and everything happened, so it’s a game we don’t like to remember really.
It’s going to be an exciting match but the pity is I won’t watch it. I got this thing called office and I supposed to be at work today. Hope some of you would be watching the match and leaving your ‘esteemed’ comments here so that the less fortunate bunch can see how we performed. I expect a 2-1 for Chelsea but expect us to be threatened and troubled by Villa.
Lots of matches today with all the top 8 teams involved. Apart from our match, the interesting match ups would be Everton vs Bolton, West Ham vs Reading, Sunderland vs Man Utd and most importantly Portsmouth vs Arsenal. I expect (or hope?) the arseboys to lose points at Fratton Park, despite Pompey’s poor home form. If you want an interesting game as a neutral I’d recommend the West Ham vs Reading match. Enjoy your boxing day mates, while I’m at office!
Merry Christmas to you all! After a short eventually-not-so-serious domestic trouble, I’m back here in the blog. I couldn’t watch the Blackburn or even the mouthwatering battles between the two Milan teams and the mighty match between Barca and Madrid. I caught up on the goals, highlights, comments from well-paid experts and your comments too.
When we lost Didier Drogba to his fateful knee surgery, we were worried how Shevchenko and Pizarro would make up for his absence. To be in a position to worry about their performance is such a luxury because they both may not be available for the Blackburn match on Sunday. Sheva is still nursing his ankle while Pizarro has not fully recovered from flu.
Chelsea has made two important teenage signings in the last couple of weeks. The first one is an attacking midfielder and other, a striker.
Not the high intensity match I was expecting for. Rafa Benitez spoiled the whole party by selecting a team with about half a dozen second string players. He has valued the weekend Portsmouth game more than the League Cup. We know that his first team has been playing in successive matches with short intervals. Last season, Chelsea had a similar situations but we cruised along playing 4 matches in a 10 day period and all that. I don’t see Chelsea making any half hearted attempt for any competition.