Chelsea travel to Stadio Olimpico, hopefully not for the only time this season. Unless Chelsea are content with a draw, we have a great match to watch. Roma has no two ways of playing this match. They’ve got to play to win. One reason is that their progression is far from confirmed and the other is, they are under pressure to win. When their own fans are stoning their team bus you can understand how well they’re faring in Serie A.
Roma would be forced to play an open game tomorrow. They’re tottering just above the relegation zone in Serie A. The fans are now demanding for better results and at least a better showing. They have to now come out attacking, looking for goals. Unfortunately for them, they might be missing two key players in Totti and Aquilani. Nevertheless, there are left with no option. They should know that the home / away differences do not matter much to Chelsea. We play the same way everywhere. Chelsea team would never be intimidated by the away conditions or crowd or whatever.
I think Scolari would like to win this match and confirm the progression instead of drawing this one and winning the next match. He does not seem like someone who would leave things for later. If Chelsea play to win, and if Roma play an open and attacking game just like a home team, then we’re in for a treat and also a favourable result. In terms of our attack, if we see spaces, we’ll score goals. In terms of our defence, this could be a big test. This would be the biggest away game thus far this season, against a very good opposition, no matter what the Serie A table suggests.
Ashley Cole would be missing this match, and then the long-timers Essien, Ballack and Ricardo. As always, there are no doubts about who would be in goal, in defence and in midfield. All the discussions are about the front three. Scolari has confirmed that he won’t play Drogba. That means the attack would be spearheaded by our goal machine. The front three would be complete with Joe Cole and Malouda. The last match was a rare occasion where all our forwards fired. So it makes sense to retain them. Joe Cole first step towards consistency starts tomorrow, when he faces a better defence.
I think we’ll win 2-0 or more. Roma will try as hard as possible. They’ll grow impatient. The fans will get angry, start throwing flames and all that stuff. Players would lose their cool. Chelsea on the other side would be playing like they’ve set the stadium on mute. I’m confident that we’ll win handomely tomorrow. You want to know why? We’re on fire. Roma have lost 5 consecutive games now. CFR Cluj won at Stadio Olimpico. Period.
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guys what about Martins??? he’s quick and has good technique!
I would LOVE him at Chelsea.
and the last time we played there… we stuffed Lazio 4-0
COME ON CHELSEA
wats goin on blue-mates!!!
its a great plus fo chelsea that totti aint playing. and if they really up an attacking game, that wil make our lifes much better.
But lets not underestimate Roma. At any given night they can beat anyone. Chelsea is suprior roma, we just have to prove that and not just show up on the pitch!!!
the worst thing that can happen to roma is if we score an early goal=) so lets hope for that.
BC isnt DD gonna be on the bench either?
and shouldnt Ballack be back soon?
/go chelsea
I do not think it will be such a breeze. Roma will give us a fight for sure. I’m going to go with 4-1. Roma scores an early equalizer but we pull away. Lamps, Colesy, and a brace by Anelka. I would love to see JT get on the score sheet again!
If Malouda and Cole push further up and in, this will create more opportunities for Anelka to move and run at the ball to create space. The movement of these two along with Lampard from the midfield will be pivotal to how good of a game Anelka has. I’m confident that Mikel will dominate in mid allowing Lamps and the two wingers (along with Bosingwa and Bridge) to create enough space for Anelka to make some runs. I dare say that Anelka will have a good game for us. Just remember how many people said what a shitty goal Drogba’s was in the FA Cup Final. The passing was brilliant but the goal was not. But they don’t have to be pretty, its a goal either way. Regardless of that fact, I think Anelka will show his quality against Roma.
January – Offload Kalou, Malouda, and Ferreira. Possible striker pickups are Luis Fabiano, Guillaume Hoarau, or someone from the Brazilian league (plenty of hidden talent there).
Totti is going to play tomorrow – http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=946400
Totti or non Totti, it will be first tough away test for chelsea this season at Europe. Our away games have not be that good recently . draws at Cruz and Olympicaous , loss to Fenerbache and a luck draw to Liverpool..
If we win the title or enter the final, I want it to be in style winning across the europe ..
Another good news is that Roman is sanctioning only 10 MM this Jan. This is going to be great news because our scouts ( who were useless till now ) or scolari will have to find a good striker with this money.
@5 BlueYank – I wouldn’t offload Kaluo or Maluda as we are left with only Joe and probably Scott as the wingers. Ferrera is sure candidate who may want to go as he has just played only one game – Carling cup and not even started..
Belleti or Ivanoic will provide as good right back in absence of Paulo Ferrera or we have versatile Essien next season
5. BluesYank that goal in the FA cup final was NO SHITTY GOAL youth!! are u mad!! it took real alertness to beat Van der sar to that ball and finish that calmly!! I think you talking shit about that goal boss. Everyone is on Anelka’s back even though he scored a hatrick… saying it was not pretty .. I remember DD’s hatrick… just as ugly… but everyone jumped up great it was…..so of you guys a a bunch of waste man!!
……………. cech…………….
bosingwa….. terry……alex……. bridge
………………mikel…………………
lampard………..Deco( Belletti)
Joey…………………………Malouda
Anelka (Di Santo)
Bench: Drogba
Kalou
Ivanovic
Sinclair
Paim
Ferreira
@7 denver: the key word was “what people said about the goal” they said it was an ugly goal just like we are saying many of anelka’s are. my point was the buildup is what matters and so what if the finishing wasnt emphatic or legendary, the ball went in and thats what matters. My point was that he is producing and that is what matters.
@6 bcfan: the point of saying offloading all those would be the having extra cash to replace them (that is if they are still lackluster through until January) Offloading Kalou will also give Di Santo more time on the pitch. If we are keeping anelka and DD that means we need a backup for each, we have di santo as a backup for DD and kalou would be a backup for anelka (as in 2 out-and-out strikers and 2 center-forwards) i however think we can get someone better than kalou. Belletti is older but he can play more positions so Ferreira will need to go. We have two good centrebacks loaned out and we have 4 now, that may be too many. Then our midfield is getting older now. Interested to see if we invest in any midfield youngsters.
Also, our formation, bench and subs for tomorrow:
———cech———-
bosingwa(belleti)-terry-alex-bridge
———-mikel———-
—lamps——deco—–
joey————–malouda(di santo)
———anelka(drogba)———
bench: cudicini, belletti, stoch, di santo, drogba
how bloody good has malouda bin this season, scolari has completely transformed him
I gesss its gonna be a tite game.. Coz, Spalletti knows roma r conceding goals fr fun.. so hes gonna mk sure they r nt gonna get slaughtered at home as he knows dat wd surely be the last nail in his coffin then !!! Another thing is fatigue.. Chelsea hv played wednesday.. then saturday.. now again teusday… so i m nt sure if we wud be able to maintain our energy levels like in the previous 2 games… but hopefully it pans out the opposite way n we win comforatably…
Sorry for being off topic here.. but hsa any1 bot FIFA 09 n RAW vs SMACKDOWN 09 for ps2 in india ?? If so, wer n wats d price dat u paid ?? Original r p***ted will do
Concerning Monsieur Sulky , I think some of us feel that he might let us down at the crucial moments in this year’s campaign by being seemingly languid and dispirited. He clearly is not the inspirational leader type which is really important when Chelsea are behind but then again he might be Mr Lucky and score / tap in / poach a goal at the right time and win our love !
and if he plays together with Drogs ( who will have most of the tender attentions of the opposing defenses ) Mr Sulky could make himself useful and score a few beauties !
This is what I wrote after Didier Drogba scored his hattrick against Levski Sofia:
I thought of posting the goal video here but I saw that none of the goals were all too impressive, kind of, scratchy, scrappy and lucky. May be the set up before the goals were too good (I didn’t watch the highlights too) but the goals were not awesome.
Cech; Bosingwa, Terry, Alex, Bridge; Mikel, Lampard, Deco; Malouda, Kalou, Anelka
Subs: Cudicini, Ivanovic, Ferreira, J Cole, Sinclair, Di Santo, Drogba
Reason why J Cole does not start is because he has a slight injury. I predict a 2-0 victory with Anelka and Lamps scoring.
Terry & and Belleti to score !
and Obafemi Martins to Chelsea in January !
( BTW this is not the first time time I have wanted him to lead the line for Chelsea )
JH,
I second that…
I think that drogba should play
that is may prediction: Roma 0 – 2 Chelsea.^^
i am expecting an exciting match as roma will nt be sitting back to defend…they will be attack too as they need a win and this allows us to play our game…..chelsea to win 2-0…lampard,anelka
Chelsea 3- Roma 1
Crap, now the match may be canceled due to bad weather….this can’t be good for us looking at our tight schedule ahead….
@blue yank,
Kalou is more consistent than Joey.He scores more than Joey.He is deadlier than Joey.Knows how to beat his man which Joey is not good at.He is younger than Joey.He is 23 while Joey is 26.So why should we offload him and keep someone like Joe Cole.If we can over look Joey short comings we should also be able to over look Kalou’s short comings.Two years from now Kalou would be one of the deadliest strikers in the world.peace
I read some articles saying that Anelka is unhappy with his role and his manager Big Phil. I hate players who complain in the papers and then can’t play well or could not score goals. What has Anelka done for Chelsea to tell the press he is not satisfied with his lone role? The man is really fucked up; Scolari should bench him for saying such ridiculous things. I saw Newcastle playing Aston Villa yesterday. O. Martins was absolutely outstanding and scored two fine goals. His attitude and movement is top-class. He really plays aggressive football just like most African players do and could be great partner for Drogba. I will surely buy him and let Anelka go to Newcastle if I were Big Phil. Drogba-Martins duo will be deadly one even better than Berbatov-Rooney partnership.
The comment above mine is the stupidest comment on this blog EVER.
I wont even bother to argue with this guy, Chaka pls watch and understand just a little bit of football bfr u decide to get urself humiliated like this, and next time dont come out with such silly stuff abt Joey Cole or u wnt have an ounce of respect on this blog(or even as a sane human being). PERIOD.
the match might get washed out what a shame, thought we wld just get this group stage over with and for now concentrate on the league. Anyways njoy fellow blues………..KTBFFH.
Cech, Bosingwa, Alex, Terry (c), Bridge, Mikel, Malouda, Lampard, Deco, Joe Cole, Anelka
Subs: Cudicini, Di Santo, Belletti, Ferreira, Drogba, Ivanovic, Kalou
JUST ANNOUNCED
Quoting Chaka
Completely agree. At 26, kalou will be a much better player than joe cole. At 23, joe cole was not as good as kalou now.
LFS should probably come to rome as a spectator .. poor performance .60 percent possession and very minimal chance. couldn’t break the defense of a good team.. left exposed badly in counter attacks.. need to win the next two to be sure to top the group
This was a very bad night. The players seemed uninterested, the manager seemed confused. Perhaps Scolari is still on a learning curve in European club football, perhaps the players had an ego problem tonight. Cole was anonymous after being the shining star against Sunderland. Bridge, whom I normally prefer to A.Cole, was rusty from lack of top-class play. Lampard was not his usual commanding self. Deco’s petulance and swaggering has cost us. The defense was unbelievably bad. And only yesterday we booked rooms at Rome’s top hotel for the CL final. Maybe hubris has tripped us up.
correction, we only need 1 win to confirm a spot to the next stage. with bordeaux away and cluj at home, i would expect us to go thru easily.
If anyone hasn’t seen Stevie Me’s penalty for L’poo, let me tell you it wasn’t soft. It was a hard jumping dive by Stevie Me into the opposing player. Stevie Me should have been given a yellow card, not awarded a penalty. Once again the L’Poo Diving Academy has produced when it counted.
Well he´s such a great coach, and still i feel pity that he can´t make a tactical change, We are lucky that we have still 2 games in our hand, though we need to win any one of them now to qualify…..i now now the readers must be really tired of hearing this…..but plz great Scolari find some reliable and effective PLAN BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB. its our worst loss since that 2-0 loss to liverpool last year…..with the number of goals we ate, its worst performance in last 5 years…
and its just the starting….games will be more difficult as we move ahead….
its funny how our defender must come and score goals. get a fvckin good striker that can fvckin score goals. im still hoping on drogba but that is still not enough. fvck this shit, 60 % ball possision for fvckin what? if they cant score i dont care if they have 99% ball possision. still we can eat small teams with our midfield but the big teams we need a good striker. this isnt LFS fault, we just need good strikers. anelka walked around the first half like he was walking in the park, someone should hav brought him a umberella and some fvckin icecream cause he wasnt doing shit. and for the second yellow for deco, is the ref serious? he can kiss my a*s.
we deserved this lost. We underestimate EVERY team.
Well it was the fault of coach. I didn´t see Scolari making necessary changes once we were 1 down. A decent chelsea manager should have been really worried and made an immediate change and tried to turn things upside down. Instead he sat there, looking frustrated, as if he just lost a bet and nothing else. I am sorry for scolari fans, but really throughout this season, i´vn´t seen him much active in the pitch. Specially when we are at the wrong end of the game. He should have been yelling at the players, motivating them, giving them ideas, pointing out there positions, and shouting at them to fill in the gaps. What he did today was nothing, nothing that i expect from a great manager. One thing i realised today is that Chelsea have lost the feeling of self confidence, a “we can still do it” feeling, that inspires heroic comebacks. We panic when we concede goal, and then give away our posssesion too quickly. and defenders were sleeping today, not exactly sleeping, but they were displaced too much from their position, which was the cause of our downfall today. But lots of credit to our players for that bad performance, it looked like they just got up from their bed and came to play without any preparation. they were dreaming in the middle of the game…..
its a pity that our defenders had to take additional responsibilities.
i really donno wtf is goin on with LFS. i had great respect for him, but i kinda getting a feeling that he is the kind of a couple of years manager. what we really need a consistent manager with a long term vision and capabitily to meet romans dream of making chelsea a super power by 2011.
anyway, the man with the mask has again scored against romans.
wat can I say! 3-1 to roma. bad result but the way we actually played made it even worst. this is the badside of bein a impassioned blue-fan.
the positive side, oh yea there is one, is that fact that we have now have gotton this bad championsleague performer out of our system. as bad as things can go I cant really se us bein worst then we were in the second half. the other positive thing is that it came in the group stage.
lets not over-analyse this game. lets the coaches do that, we dont get paid to do that.
a few comment though on some players: MIKEL, as much as we have praised him all season, we need to clown him. this will only do him well though, he is young and he is still learning. was it fatigue maybe? he have been playing alot.
Lamps had a few glimps of kewl play like th shots in the first half but overall he was invisible. this are the occasion were he needs to showcaste his talent. we need him to be a leader in on the pitch.
Deco, to me he is just a moodplayer. I know he just got back from injury and he aint getting younger, but he still should hold his own. the big question is, is he still hungry?
Anelka could have been on the side line all first half and it wouldnt have made a difference to the chelsea team. but he it wasnt all his fault, they didnt give him much to work wit.
our crosses today were non-existent!!! maybe he was out of place a few times in the second, but hell i guess he felt like, “if ya all aint gonna get any cross in, I might as well try ma self” lol
Drogba, well he made his present felt by buffing on a few defenders. he needs to stay healthy and bast himself to get back to a decent form. cause we kinda need that. but as long as he stays healthy am not worried their.
Kalou- ur just a joke to me. can someone tell him u cant dribble urself through defenders every single time u get the ball, its not a one man show u fool. We need to trade his ass away.
Beletti came in but wat did he do? and his crosses gosh.
Malouda? it just hit me during the game, he a decent individual player but team-ball nah lets not kid ourselfs. he cant make a decent pass and crosses he just throughts in prayers. I never saw him in lyon buy I cant understand he was player of the year in france!
Cech, we kinda left him alone today. he hardly get tested usually and I been actually wondering about that. today he coudnt do much on the first and third goal but he should maybe have saved the second. but when was the last time we saw chelsea give up 3 goals in a one game?
Overall it was really sad to watch the players look so un-intressted in the game in the second half. Why cant big phil start to make decent coaching move during the game to change it to our advantage.
we kinda roll in the same flow. thats what u get paid to do PHIL, and you should stop talkin about wining the CL, EPL and goin unbeaten all season. cause everytime u do that we kinda have a bad game. let our play on the pitch do all the talking. Great players win games but great teams win championship! so lets start playing great now. lets do the best out of the resources we have in our squad. but I wouldnt complain if we offload some of our wingers!!!
is this the end of the world…no WE WILL REBOUND from this and be even better. and as I said earlier, we have gotten that out of ur system. We will be alright. LETS supporte the team no matter wat!!!
other shockin results. barca 1 bacel 1 and liverpool scoring on a penelty that was wrongly given. no way in hell atletico madrid would have gotten that penelty if it was the other way around. with that being said, I think someone up there is cheering for liverpool. but even that wont help them. the championship goes throu Man u and the nr one contender to do that is Chelsea.
I cant wait for sundays game, and am looking forward to se BC´s thoughts.
/go chelsea
This result may not be the greatest disaster ever. Keep in mind, Liverpool struggled in the group stage last season. But yes, there is a problem when a team opens up a can of whipass Saturday only to get one opened on them three days latter. Lack of a “Plan B,” how I remember the good ol’ days when “TSO” would throw unique tactics match to match and half to half. Chelsea still can make it to the next round and sits on top of the table. Big Phil should NOT WASTE TIME, but has time to learn from this mistake.
I am afraid there has been too much made of “beautiful” football. Our fighting to the death of old attitude is gone. We beat the little teams but struggle against the top flight we used to dominate. This is like a return to the Ranieri era, and FS is of the same generation. Whatever happens, remember he is in his 60′s, and this is the top-up to his pension. Of course he wants to win the EPL & the CL and all the cups, but whether he has the stamina and endurance remains to be seen. And unfortunately that may rub off on the team.
i think what ever it is, TSO is still unmatchable…his abilities to turn the game around, turn the tactics, deploys different style of game within the minutes is something really special where not many manager can do it…LFS may learn from this mistake…sometimes i think that Chelsea tactics is easily determined with opponents…its time to turn to franco and paim…give the chance for them
Quoting BlueFan #1
LOL… well said
The beauty of Mourinho was his ability to come up with a surprise team formation . Only Fergie can do that in EPL. With Avram Grant or even with LFS, anyone can predict the starting eleven or the substitutes who are going to come. This becomes very easy for other teams to come up with strategies.
Second point is we have not learned to break defense of teams, which defend deep. Once we enter the last third , we try to shot from long distance and frustrate ourselves. LFS has to clearly work on this aspect. This is going to happen in later stages of CL ,( Ok thinking too far, we have not yet qualified for next round). To qualify we need to win atleast once and to top the group, we have to win twice . (if roma wins twice, they top the group).
Fatigue- I think LFS has to be blamed for this. Squad rotation is very much in his hands and he fails to do so.Even in Carling cup, youngsters were not started .Consider this with Fergie, he started with Evans against Chelsea, Rafael de silva starts quite often.
Quite recently in the Sunderland match also, we were leading at 3-0 in half time and match was in the bag, he should have rotated players and given others a chance. His first change was due to injury and other two were post 60 minutes.
The player we missed the most is hardworking Essien today. Clearly , there is no plan B.
yep…defence make alot of mistakes….nw is the time to move on and learn from our mistakes….We need a plan B….and scolari certainly need to be able to make subs to change the game just like mourinho did….Scolari is a good manager but maybe he need to make daring tactical changes….its quite sad to see us losing 2 games recently
this loss may be a blessing in disguise….players will be grounded after recent accolades and will be eager to jump back which will certainly help in coming league matches….
why is it that we cant keep up our wins… meaning… under JM we could loose and after 18 games… we might draw a match… or the odd away loss. but under Scolari… its like only a three match winning run….why is that guys?
AFTER Chelsea 4 – 0 Bordeaux—-Chelsea 1 – 1 Man Utd. AFTER Portsmouth 0 – 4 Chelsea AND Stoke 0 – 2 Chelsea—– CFR Cluj-Napoca 0 – 0 Chelsea AFTER Middlesbrough 0 – 5 Chelsea AND Chelsea 1 – 0 Roma—- Chelsea 0 – 1 Liverpool AFTER Chelsea 5 – 0 Sunderland—-Roma 3 – 1 Chelsea……………… it seems the winning runs are getting shorter!
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