Chelsea has been very busy in this transfer window after all, if the rumours are to be believed. As far as I know there is some or the other rumour about all players except only a few. It appears that Chelsea would lose more than it gains in this transfer window. Has Scolari started his team re-building and if yes, isn’t it a bit too early?

Drogba talks about his love for Marseille the same way Cannavaro would talk about Napoli. It’s natural that he feels he owes them something. Not sure if he gave this interview or in 2005. Journos know their ways to recycle stories with new headlines. Looks like Scolari has still not made up his mind on Drogba. On the other hand, I think Drogba has made it clear that he wants to be here for now. If he wants to leave, he should be allowed to.

I’m a Drogba fan. I’ve enjoyed his great performances for four seasons. Many think he had one good season when he scored 30+ goals. That’s not true. He has been having good seasons since he joined Chelsea. He did not score 30+ goals in his first two seasons but his contribution to the team was outstanding. Certainly a type of player I would have in my team. But if he himself wants to leave, there is no point in trying to hold him. Since JM left, he has not been the same. And I don’t think Scolari and Drogba would work well together. He is cup-tied and I think he is very important if Chelsea has to go further in the champions league this season. Rumours emerge that Man City are interested in Drogba.

Sell him? It’s my choice but I think if someone offers a lot of money, the club might accept it. He still trains very hard and could be in my side next week – but I make the decisions. If people offer money for my players, it’s down to the club to accept them.

This is as good as transfer listing Drogba. If he doesn’t leave this month I wonder if Scolari would be able to keep him motivated and get anything from him.

‘Chelsea is chasing Robinho’ screams Goal.com. The way I see it, Robinho is doing very very well at Man City. He is a big crowd favourite at Eastlands. I’m sure their attendance has improved since the Brazilian came in. He may not be in love with Man City but he knows that he needs to keep patience. They have failed to bring Kaka but there’s lot more to happen. By Aug 2009, Man City could have a different and high profile team. Chelsea’s spending days are over. We have started couting cash finally. Given all these circumstances, I wonder if Robinho would join Chelsea. Certainly not this month. It’s possible in the summer if Man City gets relegated!

You could not have missed this outrageous rumour that Chelsea wants to get Robinho by exchanging FOUR Chelsea players! This did come up a couple of weeks back but I thought this could not have been anything but a misquote. But now, this has come up again with Marca reporting that this might happen. The players in exchange are Kalou, Malouda, Anelka and Alex/Ivanovic. Chelsea would be at a loss if we do this. This would further weaken the squad and also sends out wrong signals to all the players. Four Chelsea players (you can call them first teamers) for Robinho is an obscene deal. Wonder who will we have in the bench then? If I were Mark Hughes, I’d love to pounce on this deal. Leaving Robinho won’t do good to their promises of bring world class players but getting Kalou, Malouda, Anelka and Alex/Ivanovic would be a great thing for the Man City team. With these players, they could avoid the drop by March. I wouldn’t be able to say this otherwise, even if they had Robinho.

It makes a lot of sense to move ahead and look beyond Robinho. We missed the bus and now it is possible only if we are ready to get our hands dirtied. It would be another saga and even then there’s no guarantee if it will work out way. I hope we look at other possibilities meanwhile and hope Man City gets relegated ;-)

I don’t think Carvalho would be around for too long. We should try to keep Ivanovic and Alex as they seem to be the future of Chelsea defence. Somehow, Ivanovic become every team’s choice except Chelsea. From Milan to Fiorentina to Man City, they all want Ivanovic. Ivanovic is a better defender than Alex but Scolari always plays Alex ahead of Ivanovic. It’s a shame if we lose out on Ivanovic, especially to Man City. If at all, he is moving to Man City, we should do a good deal and make the best out of Man City’s situation. Given the current scenario, the Sheikh might offer £10m for a player like me, and that’s only because I’ve never kicked a ball on a football pitch.

Cudicini may not be leaving after all. It is reported that Scolari jumped in to block the deal ala Berlusconi but the difference is Cudicini might be willing to leave. It’s good that Phil has blocked this move but he should also then play Cudicini a bit more than he does now. At least in domestic cup matches or against those matches that are easier on paper.

Villareal are after Malouda. The money they offer is under £7m. I would not leave Malouda until I have a replacement and certainly not for that money. Malouda is not the crowd favourite at Chelsea but he is not a bad player. He is in fact a good player who could not settle in at his new club. Add to that injuries, bench roles and his form – a potential that never turned into performance. I’d keep Malouda unless the price is too good.

Scolari seems to want Manuel da Costa, the 22-year old Portuguese central defender from Fiorentina. Apparently, Scolari knows him all too well, called him up to the national squad and all that. I think Scolari’s vision of the new Chelsea consists of Terry, Lampard, Essien, Brazilians, Portuguese and some youth players. I’m fine with it as long as it’s all done with some time sense, team balance, staff/fan morale and also an eye on the premier league table.

Okay, you know that Man City are eyeing 28-year old John Terry. Scolari is eyeing 24-year old Robinho. If Mark Hughes makes an exchange offer for swapping these two stars, what do you think Scolari’s stance would be?! Of course, I wouldn’t swap Terry for anyone but what do you think Scolari would do, given such a situation. By the way, you may not rule this out. With Man City, you may not rule anything out, including an offer for Scolari himself.

Daily Mail reports that Tottenham has signed Carlo Cudicini for £1m. I know he’s too good a keeper not to get enough starts. He is 35 and he may have another 3 or 4 years to offer. With a world class keeper like Cech in the squad, he has very little chance of getting regular playing time. This season has been particularly bad for him. You know, in 04-05, he started in 11 matches, in 05-06 again started 11 matches, in 06-07 he started in 10 matches and in 07-08, he started in 16 matches. This half way through season, he has started 2 matches. He has a right to feel disappointed. His situation is the same that of Wayne Bridge. Quality player, but has a better quality player as the first choice.

Wayne Bridge was allowed to leave but we have not yet filled the place. Ashley Cole is certainly not the injury-free type of player. We should have a decent left back as a backup for Ashley Cole. If there is a any truth in this rumour about Cudicini leaving, I’d be sad but I’d also think about replacements. We had Hilario start 16 matches in 06-07 including home and away ties against Barcelona but I doubt if Scolari would play him and get the best out of him. If Scolari decided to leave Cudicini for Spurs, at least he could have commanded a better price! £1m for Cudicini? He is one of the best keepers in the premier league. I would only rate Cech, van der Sar and Reina over Cudicini. He is a first choice keeper in most of the teams. We could have certainly got a better bargain. He is worth £5m to £6m in my books. Should have done better there.

With Joe Cole also injured out for the season, we will be short of three players for the rest of the season. This means we should be getting reinforcements. Or Scolari would fill these gaps from the reserve or youth players at his risk. He has some hidden gems to replace Joe Cole. He can use Fabio Paim and the like. Or he may opt never to play the 4-3-3 for the rest of the season so he won’t miss Joe Cole much.

For those who thought that Scolari would offload Drogba this month, his stance on Drogba is very clear. He says that Drogba not being chosen was a tactical decision. There were some matches when Drogba was chosen ahead of Anelka but there were no stories about Anelka being shown the door. It’s just that anything about Drogba makes some spicy news. Allright, Drogba had a couple of poor matches. Tell me which Chelsea player did not have a couple of poor matches this season so far. Only Frank Lampard comes close but that’s because he is Frank Lampard.

There are rumours that we’re after Valencia and di Maria. I know very little about di Maria. I’ve heard that he is young, quick and dribbles well. I’ve seen Valencia in action. He is a very good player. Is he Chelsea material? Well, he can be. Can he be consistent? Possibly. He is a good option to have in the team. If not anyone else, a player like Valencia who gets to join Chelsea from Wigan, would have all the hunger, desire and determination. And he is worth, hold your breath, £20m says Steve Bruce. With Man Utd, Real Madrid and Chelsea chasing, any player would be worth more than £15m, wouldn’t they?

And for you folks, Roman Abramovich has clearly declared that he has no intention of selling the club. He’s even gone a step further. He is suing Times for publishing a front page news that he is considering the selling of Chelsea. Think about those stories of Roman choosing between his yacht and Chelsea. Rubbish. Rubbish. Rubbish.

Meanwhile, Peter Kenyon has talked about the positives of Man City’s rise. For once, I agree with him completely. In fact this quote from him looks like an excerpt of an article I had written earlier on this topic:

We are delighted not to be the richest club any more and other clubs may spend more without having as much success on the pitch. This would dispel the idea that we have just bought our titles. We have taken sound financial decisions recently regarding trimming costs.

Well, he also said something about best players not being available mid-season. Hope Anelka would not mind it. I mean I’m kidding. I know Peter was talking also from the players-being-cup-tied angle.

That’s it for now. See you later. Oh wait, I can’t finish this without talking about Kaka story right?

Berlusconi once again proves what he’s made of. He is a politician first and anything else later. He managed to take full mileage out of this whole issue at the cost of imperial wrath. At more than £100m, it would have been a wise decision for Milan to sell Kaka and get three of four quality young players. Kaka wants to be in Milan and that’s his choice. As I said earlier, this transfer would have been good for football, on the whole. Poor Man City! Now, who’ll they be after? Messi? Aguerro?

It’s going to be a exciting finish to this transfer window too.

He’s done it a thousand times before in his 400 matches with Chelsea:-) It had to be Frank Lampard. Chelsea and Scolari were three minutes away from an embarrassing defeat and an unavoidable sack respectively. Great result at the end of the day. Man Utd won. Aston Villa won. We had to win. We had our backs against the wall and we we were losing until the 88th minute. So this should sound like a great win if you had not seen the match. It is a great win but this was at Stamford Bridge and against a team which has the worst away record in the premier league.

I wonder why Chelsea cannot play all 90 minutes or at least 45 minutes like the way they played in the last six minutes. Just after the 80th minute, we could see that Chelsea fans started to leave the Stamford Bridge. That’s a bad thing for a fan to do. That’s also a sad thing for him to do. I won’t blame the one who were leaving. We were playing poor football and as a team we’ve lost our aggression and confidence for months now. Not many would have bet on Chelsea coming back with two goals in the last 5 minutes. Even if they did, even with hindsight, I’d say that was being stupidly and blindly optimistic. This Chelsea team this season has given us no proof or confidence that they can come back like they did today.

Now the season can progress in two ways. One is, Chelsea can take this win as the catalyst to rejuvenate the rest of the season. Or, when we play better oppositions, we can go back to our recent mediocre best. It has to be the former, to stand any chance of finishing first or thereabouts. If we are to return to our mediocrity, this win has no meaning. My fear is that this might have only papered the cracks for now. Many times this season I’ve thought that we’ve got the turning point of the season. Many times, I’ve thought ‘that’s it, we’re gonna be a different team from tomorrow’. And the fact is, all these have been false alarms. The goal that we let in sums up our season so far – mistakes everywhere from midfield to defence to goalkeeper. On the other hand, the goals that we scored do not reflect our season. The moments provided by Belletti and Lampard were against the run of play as far as the Chelsea season goes, if you know what I mean. Also, even Scolari admitted that the Stoke keeper would have saved the shot from Lampard, if not for the slight deflection. Anyway, a goal is a goal.

For 88 minutes, we were huffing and puffing, losing quality possession, passing for eternity with those occasional pops. We did not care enough to fight for the ball and win the ball and heck, we looked like we did not care much about conceding too. To be honest, we never looked like winning this match. Of course, we had 40+ shots in 90 minutes, which is about a shot in every two minutes. When your team has so many shots and still lose by the 88th minute, you should call your very unlucky not to be winning. I wouldn’t say that about Chelsea. We were absolutely not unlucky. We hardly created clear cut chances. We did create half chances and some chance were made to look a little better but we did not create clear cut chances. And as I said we never looked like winning the match. The urgency set in only after the 85th minute. Anyone who saw this match can correct me if I’m wrong here. For all 85 minutes, we had the possession, we had the shots but I doubt if we threatened Stoke City. Did we hit the bar? Did we trouble the Stoke keeper?

I found Scolari’s post match interview a bit strange:

I think the group today was more together than before. Against Man United we made many mistakes and we pay for these. After we discuss these mistakes and we try something in the training, in the group and on the bench and had a result, because we win two games. It was the same as the other games because we had many chances and then we conceded a goal. But after this my team have spirit, they have heart, they try to draw and they try to win. I don’t remember now but I think it is the first time we scored a goal in the last minute. We received many goals like this. I think we had 30 shots in front of goal. Stoke arrive with one ball and score. This situation we needed to change and I think today they start to change the mentality if they concede a goal. Also we did not concede one goal by throw-in, or set-piece.

You made many mistakes against Man Utd and you corrected it and won against Southend and Stoke? Sure you meant to say that Phil? I did not see those ‘many chances’ but I surely saw the goal conceded. Group together more than before? Not until we scored. We were heading for an all too familiar end and then the goal brought the group together. That’s how I saw it. He sounds almost proud that we did not concede from a set piece. How the mighty have fallen? While I’m saying we should not be conceding against likes of Stoke at Stamford Bridge, Scolari reminds us that we have not conceded from set pieces. Good time to remind you that Man Utd today got their 10th successive clean sheet thereby equalling the record set by . . Chelsea. Remember, cleansheets?

I’m very happy that we turned around this match with two goals in the last five minutes. But remember, if not for the now-scarce display of spirit and attitude in the last few minutes, the press would have had Scolari for dinner. The pressure on Scolari and the calls for his head might have been so loud that he could have even gone out himself. Make no mistake. A defeat against Stoke at Stamford Bridge today might have finished off Scolari’s career with Chelsea. And he was almost there. He must have started to think about what to say in the post match conference. He must have dreaded the possibility of getting an meeting invitation from Roman or Kenyon or both. But he stays, for now.

In terms of positives, stand-in captain Lampard scored. I’m delighted for him. I’m happy for Belletti too. When Bosingwa was signed, I wondered why because I rated Belletti very highly. He is a perfect fit at Chelsea. He has the experience, the attitude, the aggression, the skill and most importantly the versatility and adaptability. I wish we find a more permanent role for Belletti on the pitch and make him play more regularly. And, there was this kid, Franco di Santo. And Salomon Kalou. I think they fairly lived up to the hype I keep creating for them, especially Franco.

There’s certainly some sense in playing Franco. With the wingbacks we seem send down a cross every minute. And who do we have to receive those crosses? Do we have players that are strong in the air to receive those crosses? Do we have players with good headers in the team? Franco is 6’4″. He is the tallest striker in the squad and I’m not surprised that he won that ball and assisted Belletti. The kid is good. And that shot by Miroslav Stoch! Scolari should try starting any of these youngsters and retain some of his experience in the bench. The biggest positive was once again from Lampard. I was particularly impressed with the way he rallied everyone to Scolari to celebrate with the goal and win with him. That would help quash some of the rubbish being spread about the team unity and frictions. I hope those are indeed rubbish.

I’m not convinced yet. The performance today was almost drove us to the fifth place in the table. Many would like to believe that we will be spurred by this performance and this could very well be the turning point of our season. I’m sorry. If it was Man Utd or Liverpool or Arsenal that we had beaten today, I’d have said that. Chelsea should beat Ipswich (11th in championship) and Middlesbrough (17th in premier league) next. Scolari could finally get his four match winning streak. I would still not be convinced because this four-match winning streak would comprise wins against Southend, Stoke, Ipswich and Boro. I would take these for granted. Even an Everton fan (no disrespect here) would take these wins for granted. Our season would be shaped in February and March. Those two months would also mean a lot in terms of Scolari’s future with Chelsea. For now, we’re third in the league. Not sure if I need to be happy or sad about this fact!

Club website reminds that Stoke have failed to win any of their last 31 away top flight league games, losing 23 and drawing eight with 12 goals scored and 72 conceded. And, we are on a winning run aren’t we? We have have not draw or lost since our 4-1 win against Southend at Roots Hall. Stoke is the perfect opponent for these times. This is a match you can win, you can rake up the goals and basically get back the ‘feel good’ factor. This match is not a problem as long as we don’t allow Rory Delap to throw straight into the net.

By the time we play Stoke, Kaka could be a Man City player. This is the biggest story in world football now. As of now the cost of the transfer works out to £243m including the transfer fees, wages and agent payouts. Is Kaka worth £100m? Yes, he is. Man city wants to buy Alexandre Song Billabong for £200m, then he is worth £200m. As long as there is a buyer, you cannot cry about any price. No price is obscene as long as someone’s ready to spend. Roman bought a painting for £80m pounds. It might sounded ridiculous for you if you don’t appreciate the painting or afford the price.

There have loud cries that ‘this is obscene’, ‘this kills football’ and ‘this should be somehow stopped’. I don’t think this is a bad thing for football, after all. With these types of transfers, the Sheikh’s money would get distributed across the clubs in Europe and Latin America. This would mean an infusion of about £240m into football. How can that be bad? It is good for the economy. Money being distributed and circulated. Think of the tax money Kaka would be paying to the exchequer. Think of how Milan would be using their transfer fee of £100m. Now, think of what the Sheikh would have done with this £240m pounds otherwise. These revolutions are good for football. My only disappointment is that the smaller clubs may not be the beneficiary for these truckloads of money. Anyway, top three became top four and now it is top five and it would be top six next season and so on. It is an evolution and directly or indirectly they should all benefit over a period of time. The money would reach clubs at all levels. If UEFA can control people like Wenger from stealing youngsters from smaller clubs using the loopholes in UEFA regulations, it would help them sooner and better.

Man City cannot have 100 players in their squad. They need to have a squad size and they need to have second choice players who are willing to wait for their chances. You can’t have top quality players meant to be confined only to the bench. They need to have a certain balance in their team. It’s obvious that Kaka is not being bought for footballing reasons because they don’t need Kaka. I have no problem in Man City signing all the big players. I’m not even jealous of their situation. I also think one wealthy team will not change football. Man City might create a temporary distortion in the football world but that’s not sustainable anyway. No excess is sustainable.

As a Chelsea fan, I’m loving the fact that Chelsea is no longer the money bags and that there is a club that can spend more than £200m in January while we are not spending even £1. Man City should spend hundreds of millions and fail. That would go to prove that money is not everything. Chelsea spent money but it was not the money that won us the trophies. Now the theory of money is not everything would be proved by Man City. As the saying goes ‘eleven great players may not make a great team’. Call me when Man City wins the premier league. Wouldn’t it be sad if Man City gets relegated right in front of Kaka?

Let’s get back to the topic of maintaining our winning run. We’ve got all except Deco and Joe Cole. Scolari says Deco is still not fit to start tomorrow. So Deco’s omission in the last match is only because of fitness after all. Most of us thought he was dropped but looks like not. Joe Cole’s injury is still a mystery, reports ranging from two weeks to two months. Scolari sums up the situation here.

Carvalho is in good condition today, and Didier is an option for me and trained today. Deco is out for tomorrow for fitness. My choice is this or that tomorrow but only Deco misses the game. The other two are ready, Carvalho and Didier. I have Malouda for tomorrow and I don’t know how long he will play, 45, 60, because he starts again. I have Kalou and young players, and this is the time I put young players in the squad, Miroslav Stoch and [Gael] Kakuta. If I have the opportunity to put them on the pitch I will. This is one thing the people don’t see until now, I put many Academy players in the group – it is a time for the young players to show me they need more opportunities.

Malouda could play tomorrow. So we’ve got back our left footed player. Will it be a 4-4-2 then? I’m don’t think so. Phil has squashed all those rumours on a tiff between him and Carvalho. As always the tabloids just wait for a poor run of results so they can publish all these baseless, outrageous rumours. Scolari also says that he might involve Stoch and Kakuta. I wonder what role Stoch play in the match? We have most probably Anelka starting and Drogba in the bench. We also have Franco in the bench. Why would we need to involve Stoch? What would interest me is involving Mancienne, Michael Woods and Kakuta. I’d look at the bench before I look at the first eleven tomorrow.

Scolari is wary of the Stoke challenege:

This team is more dangerous than all the teams in England, I think the world. If you look at the statistics until December, they scored 17 goals, and 11 by corners, free-kicks or throw-ins. Tomorrow is a very good test for us, change or still mistakes. We trained yesterday and today, thinking about our problems. We have some solutions we tried and are training better than the game against Southend, sure, but we need to look tomorrow.

Put away man marking and zonal marking. Let’s do some Stoke-marking. I have only two requests to Chelsea and Scolari:

• Let’s get a clean sheet

• Let’s defend the set pieces like a top team should

That’s it from me. I think it could be 2-0 for Chelsea with Lampard scoring on his 400th Chelsea appearance!

United beat Chelsea with a three goal margin last weekend. And Chelsea hit back by beating United with a three-goal margin win today. Perfect revenge as long as you don’t mind that those Uniteds were Manchester and Southend respectively.

Has the normal service resumed? I don’t think so. I would say that we are not out of the jail yet. I would not call this a great performance but this was a good result. At least we’ve woken up from the nightmare. We badly needed a win. We needed goals. We needed smiles. We got all that, but not before a scare from a customary ‘cornered’ goal. Until a minute before half time, not everything was going our way. Our eternal passing game was found out by Southend too. Luckily for us, Ballack scored a beautiful goal with seconds to go before the half time whistle. Had we not scored that goal and had we finished the half at 1-0, it could have been a different story. Anyway, we’ve got the win. We have avoided the upset. Scolari has got a little breathing space. Only a little because we are now third in the league table as Man Utd beat Wigan.

Scolari did the right thing in dropping Drogba and bringing on Kalou. I hope someone has that defining conversation with Drogba. What does he want to do – stay or leave? If he stays, it should be under our terms. If he wants to leave, he should be allowed to. A Drogba playing with full of his heart is an immense asset to any team, a superb matchwinner. On the other hand, a Drogba with low morale or motivation is pretty much a liability and an unwanted influence. A decision needs to be taken on Drogba. Soon. Oh yes, Phil dropped Deco too! These little things can make a difference. I’m happy that Scolari is not too stubborn and has at last started to learn from his mistakes!

The final whistle must have been moment of relief than that of euphoria. We need to put this result in perspective. What have we done? We have taken our team of first choice players and have beaten Southend United. These are the kind of matches where if you win, you get no praise but if you lose, you’ll be battered badly. A win with a three-goal margin is what is normally expected of Chelsea when they play against a league one side. We’ve done just that, albeit in a hard way. I’m not convinced with this performance because of various reasons.

• We are still conceding in set pieces. They had just 5 corners and they scored one. How is that Southend won every single 50/50 header while we were always late to react. Whatever happened to our aerial skills! Teams like Liverpool and Juventus are specialists in set pieces. This kind of set piece defending makes us start with a goal down right at kick off.

• We got 16 corners but hardly troubled them. Why don’t we do something different for a change? Not even something outrageously brilliant like Man Utd tried against us. You can just try a short pass or a low cross. Something different. There was not any much variety in the way we handled all those 16 corners.

• Our attacks are still very slow. Mind you, I’m NOT referring to the players here. Players are fast enough but the attacking movements and plays are very slow. With our over-elaboration of attacks, we make  our opponents to defend in numbers, even if they had not planned to.

• Still our attacking play is far too predictable. When we chose to be unpredictable, Joe Cole gave that lob to Kalou who dribbled it, may be because he did not have anyone to pass it to, and then slotted it home superbly. That’s our reward when we want to be less predictable. For about an hour, we were doing our regular drills up and down.

• We still have difficulty in breaking down deep defences. Let’s not be blinded by the scoreline. Our first goal was from the goalkeepers’s blunder. But Ballack took the goal beautifully. The second goal was when we did not play that slow short-passing style. After that goal, Southend was forced to venture out which created space for us to exploit. I’m yet to see us truly break down the defence with our movement and passing.

• We don’t put pressure on the opponent. We still allow the opponent to play his game. Chelsea had about 80% possession today. So, to say that we did not pressurise them might sound like an absurd statement. Southend lost possession not because we won it from them. They lost possession because their passes were poor. We should start pressurising the opponents heavily, like we used to.

• We don’t get into the punitive mood. We could have scared the hell out of Southend. We should have made them pay for forcing this replay. But we never get into this punishing mode. We are always at peace when it come to our attacks.

I have a question to Scolari. He says we don’t use 4-4-2 because he thinks this system is tough, the midfield will be weaker etc. Chelsea have played 4-4-2 very often before. In fact, Chelsea have played multiple formations before. If Scolari is so touchy about using 4-4-2, how come he does not mind the experimenting of zonal marking as against the tried and tested man marking that Chelsea players are used to? I don’t understand the logic here. I also wonder what prompted him to change this! If there is one area in Chelsea that need not be tampered with, that would be defence. Here is Phil telling players to start zone marking while not using 4-4-2 because it is tough. Strange.

There were lots of positives from this match. I’d like to highlight a couple of them. Kalou scored a crucial goal once again. Regular readers would know that I like Kalou. He can be frustrating but I’ve always thought he is good. He can be better if appropriately utilised. That piece of work that he did today was something we are unable to expect from any other Chelsea player as of today. To take that effort, one had to be confident and selfish. I’m happy for Kalou. I hope he gets more playing time, especially as a second half substitute.

And then, the other positive is that Di Santo played for 15 minutes. He couldn’t make a telling contribution but I thought he showed glimpses of what he can do. I had written before that Di Santo’s movement is much better than that of Anelka. I stand by that statement. Anelka’s movement is largely one-dimensional. He does not make intelligent runs to the exploitable space. He makes normal runs that a striker would do and use the space if it’s created in his zone. Whereas Di Santo can be cunning striker. His movements can be troublesome for the keeper. He’s got a good header too. I’m still waiting for him to start and complete 90 minutes. With Scolari’s obsession towards 4-1-4-1, the only chance for Di Santo to start is by keeping Anelka and Drogba in the bench. Di Santo can start against Ipswich but unfortunately, I don’t see that happening.

Okay, we have saved a massive embarrassment by beating them 4-1. Scolari’s job is somewhat safer for now. Stoke at Stamford Bridge this weekend could be a tough game. All the while we have been conceding from corners and free kicks. This weekend we run the risk of adding ‘throw-ins’ to our catalogue. After Stoke (it has the potential to be a tough game but I hope it’s easy), there are no more easy matches. Take a look at this list of next 10 matches: Middlesbrough (H), Liverpool (A), Hull (H), Aston Villa (A), Juventus (H), Wigan (H), Portsmouth (A), Juventus (A), Man City (H) and Tottenham (A). Hope this win has put us back on track. I think this must have brougt back some much needed confidence for the players. Scolari has not put a winning run (home + away) of more than three matches yet. Now that the voodoo is gone and confidence is back, let’s go on a winning run, shall we?