Matches, Premier League - Written by BlueChampion on Tuesday, December 25, 2007 23:45 | 1,288 Views | 43 Comments | Add Comment
Chelsea vs Aston Villa | 26-Dec-07 @ 13:30 UK
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!
43 Comments
1. fccb
2. Adonis
BC, I don’t agree that we should “save cole.” If anything, we should save Bridge. Ashley has been concistently disapointing. Bridge has joined the attack superbly and we’ve played much better with him on the left than Ashley.
Belletti and Bridge have played much better than Ashley and Paulo.
They should be our starters.
3. Den
its simple, we need to l line up in a 4-3-1-2 formation.
—————-Hilario—————–
——-JB—–Alex—–RC——WB
———-MB—MJO—-FL———-
——————JC—————
———–AS———–SK——-
I have this feeling that claudiop pizzarro will finaly start for chelsea in this match.
4. Den
sorry swap FL with JC and put essien in JC position and thats a solid team, Rst joe for 1 game, if we need hoim put him on subs bench if we are trailing or not gettingany movement going forward
5. Nihongo Blue
whenever i remove a striker from my squadgod team he scores 
this week game i have removed Agbonlahor. so chelsea has to score atleast 2 goals to win 
6. CaLiFoRNiCaTioN
okay … i guarantee that Pizarro will score a goal this time 
i’ve been lying a lot
hahaha
i think KALOU is a virus that it is making us play so screw up
7. king blues
villa have slipped up recently hope it continues
8. mike ayad
——————-cech————————–
paulo——alex—–carvalho—-bridge—-
—————-essien————————-
——–ballack———-lampard————
—J.cole———————-malouda/kalou
——————pizzaro————————
Rest mikel and hand ballack his first start!
9. k.drogba
—————-Cudicini—————–
——-J.Belleti—–Alex—–R.Carvalho——W.Brige
———-M.Ballack—M.Essien—-F.Lampard——
——————J.Cole—————
———–S.Sinclair ———–Sheva——-
CHELSEA..
10. Anonymous
Well i am hoping for a narrow win here for us, aston villa are very good, they pritty much play the same style as us with one big man upfront and young and agbonlahore supporting carew upfront, barry, reo cocker, and possibly stillian petrov or maloney inda middle. it would be very interesting, the only difference is villas wide players are more pacy and more direct, i am not gonna guess what formation AG is gonna pick, it should be his usual, 4-3-3 with sheva, kalou and joecole. or SWP upfront with Mikel, essien, lamps inda middle and back four of belletti, ricardo, alex and cole.
@BC there is a report in spanish media that chelsea are weighing up a 20 million move for david villa from valencia.
11. CFC
@10<<<<<<<<<<<< CFC , sorry guys, didnt realise the name was missing
12. Nubskeh
Chelsea are expected to line up in a 4-2-3-1 formation as follows:
1 Petr Cech
20 Paulo Ferreira
33 Alex
6 Ricardo Carvalho
3 Ashley Cole
5 Michael Essien
8 Frank Lampard (c)
21 Salomon Kalou
14 Claudio Pizarro
10 Joe Cole
7 Andriy Shevchenko
Subs: 40 Hilario, 22 Tal Ben-Haim, 13 Michael Ballack, 12 John Mikel Obi, 24 Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Yes! Perfect! Just what I wanted. Pizarro starting should be good, let’s see if he can offer anything as he is given time on the pitch. SO GLAD Cech is fit! All I would have changed is Belletti in (if he is fit). Hopefully Ballack gets a good amount of game time. Chelsea 3-0 win 
13. owonatty
Chelsea are expected to line up in a 4-2-3-1 formation as follows:
1 Petr Cech
20 Paulo Ferreira
33 Alex
6 Ricardo Carvalho
3 Ashley Cole
5 Michael Essien
8 Frank Lampard (c)
21 Salomon Kalou
14 Claudio Pizarro
10 Joe Cole
7 Andriy Shevchenko
Subs: 40 Hilario, 22 Tal Ben-Haim, 13 Michael Ballack, 12 John Mikel Obi, 24 Shaun Wright-Phillips.
.
Up Blues.
14. CFC
Well seems like AG had a good xmas turky yesterday, starting with 2 strikers, hahahahah,
15. Syed
Hilario
Ferreira-Riccy-Alex-Ashley
Essien
Lamps-Ballack
SWP-Sheva-Joey
4-1-2-3
Obi & Maka should be rested
Subs in 2nd half: Kalou on for Lamps, Pizarro on for Sheva and Sinclair on for Joey (4-1-3-2)
16. Anonymous
What teh hell…………… 2 goals down by first half……… OUR HOME RECORD………^&^%&^%&
17. Khalid
lol……….. junk foul… red card and Sheva converts…. first half ends with some hope left..
18. Maysam
now is 2-1 , every thing is in place for cheslea to win , goal at 45 , red card for Zat , if Avram did not win this game, He would not the coach who can lead chelsea to win CL.
19. Nihongo Blue
life line!!
except for penalty we could not have scored.. anyways nicely taken.
we playing horrible.. gets gear up now.
cech doesnt looks match fit at all..
20. Maysam
by the way, it is time for chelsea to give cech rest for 2 or 3 weeks and use Carlo .
21. Den
we need to replace essien or ferreira for SWP, hmmmmm something mourinho would do
22. CFC
Well well, what can i say, very lucky decison, penalty for sure, but red card, hmm i doubt it, lucky day for chelsea, if we dont fire up second half, sack everyone. seems like the players had a good xmas, all very lazy and lethargic. unlucky villa, lets see what happens in second half.
23. CFC
what a screamer from andriy shevachenko from 25 yards,. hes on fireeeeeeeeeeeee
24. CFC
2-2
25. Maysam
YYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
26. Maysam
COME ON CHELSEA
COME ON CHELSEA
27. Maysam
Sheva is playing much better than Drogba even when he is in his best.
28. Khalid
great stuff………. this is called attacking football…. is AG listening…..lol
29. CFC
3-2 now. well well, lucky lukcy usssssssssssss, but all credit to alex for a superb goal,
30. CFC
well this is all over the park now, 3-3 ahahah wats going on , boxing day special goal galore, hahahaha
31. Khalid
is this chelsea playing…… so may goals in a match… been a loooong time since we saw goals raining in stamford…. the man-city match was a one-sided affair… but this is amazing…
32. Khalid
Villa puts in a fresh offensive player. time we have SWP…. AG c’mon……
33. Khalid
I am not watching the match. Did Carvalho deserved teh RED…….?
34. CFC
ricardo off , straight red card, this is boxing day football,
35. CFC
hahahahah ballackkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk 4-3 what a match hahahahahaha this is football, red cards, goals, goals, goals, hahahahahah this is what i wanna see,
36. Khalid
I still can’t beleive this is Chelsea playing at Stamford…… lol
37. CFC
oh my god, cleared of line , it wud hav been 4-4 what a game we haveeeeeeeeeeee..
38. CFC
ashley cole sent offffff, penaltyyyyyyyyyyyy my god, i am getting a heart attack here, wats going on???
39. CFC
4-4 wat a festive feast,
40. Khalid
This is so baaaaaaaaaaad………..
41. Khalid
One more for us. It would be great having three points from this game….
42. Khalid
never mind… great football anyway…
43. Maysam
shit 4-3 could be the best
EPL was over for chelsea
———- hilario ———-
fereira-alex-carvalho-bridge
mikel
–essien–lampard–
swp kalou
sheva
joe cole resting
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