I wanted Chelsea to win. I wanted us to win handsomely. I wanted a cleansheet. I wanted Lampard to play well. I wanted Deco to give a telling performance. I wanted us to top the table after this first round of premier league. I got it all in this fantastic match where Chelsea made the FA Cup champions look like relegation battlers. In the last one week, we have seen all our top four rivals play two matches each. Now we can fairly reassure ourselves that Chelsea are the best prepared of the lot.

Arsenal were lucky to win their matches against Twente and West Brom. Liverpool did not deserve their two results. Man Utd could not win their home league match against Newcastle who they beat heaily last season, home and away. The team that Man Utd could not beat in full time last week, were mauled by Chelsea today. We should have very easily scored more than half a dozen goals. That tells you Chelsea are tipped by every expert to regain the title this season from Man Utd.

We were all curious about was which formation and composition would Scolari play. He surprised me by choosing a 4-3-3. I know that he used it in the pre-season but he was also saying that he is trying something new. Anyway, we have the players for any formation. He surprised me further by playing Deco in the right wing. I knew Deco could play in the wing and in fact, in my FIFA 08 I do play him in the wings, but I didn’t think that he would play Deco in his second choice position in his debut match. As the match progressed, it could see that it was not really a 4-3-3 but in fact was a 4-1-4-1 with the midfield four being a curved one with side midfielders. Deco and Joe Cole were not playing like wingers in a 4-3-3. Not sure how you would agree with me!

In the match, it was Chelsea at their best. We had attacks through the centre, down the wings, interesting corners and even some spicy long shots. We mixed it up so well that Portsmouth had no answers at all. They simply could not match us. They must be relieved that we scored only four. Portsmouth are a good team and it must be so embarrassing for them to have played a match like this. They were simply not in the game.

It was a typical attacking Chelsea in its full flow today. But I noticed a few differences. Firstly, the bombing wing backs, that are a hallmark of Scolari’s teams. Secondly, the versatile midfield play that could dictate a wide range of attacks. And then the unconventional corners. I’m happy that Scolari is focusing on improving our set piece conversion ratio.

The wingbacks were brilliant. Bosingwa really impressed me. That was simply not a debut performance. He played as if he has been playing in the premier league for seasons. Finally, we have a right back whose every cross is meaningful. Both Bosingwa and Ashley were pushing up all the time, which put tremendous pressure on Pompey as they had too many Chelsea players to mark. For a good part of the game we had pushed all eleven Pompey players into their own half. Few times I saw that when Cech was preparing for his goal kick, both Ashley and Bosingwa were almost in the attacking third.

While that was brilliant to watch against Portsmouth, I’m curious to see if we’ll employ the same tactic against top four teams. I could see that Mikel did not participate in the attacks. He was completely confined to the defensive duties. He did make a couple of pointless shots though. But credit to Mikel for protecting the defence when Ashley and Bosingwa were away on attack. If I tell you that Mikel did not even get a yellow card while keeping guard, you’ll understand how well Pompey attacked.

And then about the midfield versatility. Deco, in one match, proved why he is expected to transform us with his playmaking abilities. The beautiful thing about Deco is, he does not seem to be in a hurry at all. He has the skill to keep the ball and do what he wants. Whenever Deco had the ball, he alone had more than half a dozen way of dealing with the possession. His wide range of passing plus the other quality midfielders that we had, made it a brilliant midfield game that would put fear in the minds of Sir Alex, Rafa and Wenger.

What was very pleasing to see was how Lampard and Ballack could play alongside him with so much ease. Deco was the clearly the playmaker, pulling the strings and feeding and creating attacks. The fact that he made so many attempted aids proves his role as a playmaker. Just in case you’re not familiar with the term ‘aids’ in football, it is the pass that leads to the assist which in turn leads to a goal.

The first goal was a Ballack special. A very very typical ‘outside of foot’ chip from Ballack, gave a somewhat surprised Joe Cole, a golden chance on a plate. And boy, didn’t Joe Cole finish it well! Joe Cole as a second striker for England has impressed me before because of his finishing skills. I’m ready to forget that FA Cup semi final against Liverpool where he had a golden chance to put us back into the game on the virtually the last moment of the match. Generally, Joe Cole is a fantastic finisher. The second goal goes to Anelka’s credit. Timely jump and good, safe header. In a match like this one, Lampard had to score. It came from a well taken penalty, after an attempted cross from Joe Cole induced a hand ball. Finally, the encore. It was justice that Deco scored on his debut. He thoroughly deserved it. That was a fantastic strike from a good distance. I think he surprised James there. James was not really expecting a long shot from Deco and in a flash the ball was too close to him to be stopped.

Lampard and Ballack too had a great game. Lampard in particular, hardly got anything wrong. He was great going forward and won back possession for us so many times. He was I guess trying fill in for Essien. Talking about winning the ball, I was surprised how well Deco was tackling and restoring possession. That’s when I thought Deco has truly merged with our team. He had a truly high work rate. Did anyone else also notice that he was often in the left back area and proceeded to his right wing with a series of one-twos and he did that many times. He was trying to fill in spaces when we were not in attack. And there was this moment in the second half, in the centre of the pitch, Joe Cole lost the possession but in some anger and vengeance he fought and got the ball in just few seconds. The spirit was all over. Every single player played with some purpose. It appeared that the roles of the players were clear and they had understood and executed their roles very clearly.

There were also some negatives from the match. Ballack’s injury was a worry. Scolari fears that it could keep him out for a week or two. But we are getting Essien back in time for the next match. Anelka was not really sharp enough. If he was sharper, he’d have got atleast one more goal for himself. On many occasions, he was slow to react, he wasn’t even reading the game properly. Mostly, he was playing as the centre forward but towards the end of the match, he was again found loitering in various zones of the pitch.

Malouda could have been better but he was better than what he was last season. I’d surely give him more games. He’s shows some promise. I wonder why SWP was given the chance, while we could have tested Di Santo. Leading 3-0 at home with 20 odd minutes to go was the right time for someone like Di Santo to make a debut.

The biggest negative was the central defence. This must be a strange statement for two reasons. One is we got a cleansheet and another is we had Terry and Carvalho in the central defence. The fact is, we weren’t too comfortable in the box defending today. We got out of jail because we could throw in a lot of bodies, thanks to these high work rate players. Not once or twice, but more number of times, we were shaky in defending the goal. It was evident as Cech tried to collect the ball in areas where he should let the centre backs manage it themselves. Anyway, I guess our defence would improve when we play more and more with the new system and methods.

Elsewhere, Man Utd started their season with a draw. They were missing key players but I have no
sympathy for them. When Chelsea were missing two goalkeepers and centre backs, they marched ahead and won the title in 06-07. If Chelsea’s game is an indication of anything to come, Man Utd will succumb, injuries or otherwise.

Wisey wanted this. Here’s our MoTM poll:

Where will Chelsea end up this season?

    • View Results

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Whoever you choose, tell us why chose them ahead of the others. If you choose ‘any other’, you certainly will have to explain, who that ‘any other’ is!

Thanks to all those who were at BC Shout for the live match chat. It was really good fun with more than 250 messages exchanged in about 90 minutes. We’ll join again at BC Shout for the Wigan match. Let’s see if we can beat our own chat record.

Chelsea were great against Portsmouth but I don’t want to start dancing already. We beat a team at home, that we have always beaten comfortably at home. I’m very very curious how this new Chelsea team would play against the top teams. Unfortunately the nearest top team encounter is only in the third week of September when we play Man Utd, almost at the same time as last season. Until then, let’s thrash the other teams on the way. The message is loud and clear to the reds: ‘be afraid, be very afraid‘.