Our winning run continues. After Southend and Stoke, it was Ipswich today. Like most of you, I didn’t see the match. But you need not have watched the match to understand/realise certain things.

  1. We can’t keep cleansheets.
  2. We still shamelessly concede from set pieces. This has become obscene now.
  3. Scolari is not going to rotate his squad
  4. Scolari has no intention of giving opportunities to young players
  5. When Deco is not around, the combination of Ballack and Lampard works better

Scolari’s team selection has always been very disappointing. Today was no different. He started with the strongest possible eleven from the squad. The subs he brought on were Drogba, Ivanovic and Deco. The unused subs were Cudicini, Ferreira, Mancienne and Stoch. Strangely, I expected these were the kind of players who will get some playing time against Ipswich. We have premier league matches on Wednesday (Middlesbrough) and a big one on Saturday (Liverpool). While we have to these important premier leage matches on Wednesday and Saturday, why play the strongest eleven against Ipswich at home?

Scolari’s refusal to rotate is surely going to give us some serious problems very soon. One untimely injury to Ashley Cole and you’ll see Ferreira playing his first match in many months against Juventus. Or Ivanovic playing left back for the first time after more than a season. I think we have played all those matches where Scolari could have experimented, unless the further draws are kind to us.

This is the team Sir Alex sent out for their FA Cup match against Tottenham.

Foster, O’Shea, Neville, Vidic, F Da Silva, Welbeck, Carrick, Scholes, Ronaldo, Berbatov, Tevez. Substitutes: Kuszczak, Giggs, Tosic, Fletcher, Possebon, Chester, Eckersley.

Some second choice players in the first eleven – Foster, O’Shea, F Da Silva and Welbeck. The bench had Kuszczak, Tosic, Possebon, Chester and Eckersley! Cudicini is miles above Foster. Mancienne is much more recognised than F Da Silva. Chester and Eckersley!?

And Uncle Harry’s best chance of winning something is only in the domestic cups. Still, nothing stopped him from taking this team to Old Trafford.

Alnwick, Gunter, Corluka, Dawson, Assou-Ekotto, Bentley, Huddlestone, Zokora, Bale, Modric, Pavlyuchenko. Substitutes: Gomes, Gilberto, Giovani, Taarabt, Defoe, Rocha, Dervite.

And this is our line-up against Ipswich at Stamford Bridge.

Petr Cech, José Bosingwa, Alex, Ricardo Carvalho, Ashley Cole, Michael Ballack, Juliano Belletti, Frank Lampard (c), Salomon Kalou, Nicolas Anelka, Florent Malouda. Substitutes: Carlo Cudicini, Paulo Ferreira, Branislav Ivanovic, Michael Mancienne, Deco, Miroslav Stoch, Didier Drogba.

I rest my case.

The one thing fans should expect for this heavy team selection is a demolition of Ipswich or at least a less-nervy match. I thought our quota of conceding from set pieces was over for this season as well as next season too. The consistency at which we concede from set pieces is absolutely unbelievable. It does not require an AC Milan or Juventus to exploit our set piece weakness. Southend are Ipswich are too hot to handle for our once-famous once-rock solid defence. It’s dreadful to imagine how Juventus would do in set piece opportunities over a two-match tie.

Apart from the result, there were a few positives too. A brace to Ballack should mean that he is back from his injury and back to his form. Another goal to Lampard. It’s great to see that Lampard and Ballack are back among goals, that too in free kicks. It’s very important that Ballack and Lampard are in form and succeed in tandem. These are very passionate top class professionals who can win games on their own. When both of them play, Deco should be in bench. When Deco joins this duo, he makes the midfield ineffective, slow and vulnerable.

So we enter the four-week period which will define our premier league and champions league this season. We enter this period where our results should be like WWWWWW. If at all we are dropping points it should be in May or when all our rivals also drop. I’m neither confident nor convinced of our performances. If we can’t keep clean sheets against Southend, Stoke and Ipswich, surely there is very little to be happy about. On the positive side, one bad weekend for Liverpool and Man Utd would boost our chances, provided we make the best of their slips. Just one week more in this transfer window. I think Scolari would bring in a couple of Brazilian/Portuguese players. I’m sure we’ll have a new Chelsea player at Anfield.

By the way, since that terribly humiliating defeat at Old Trafford, we have now played three matches and have won all of them – Southend, Stoke City and Ipswich Town. In terms of performance, how have we fared since the Man Utd defeat?

How is Chelsea since the Man Utd defeat?

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