Superb win for Chelsea. Having been down 0-1 by half time, Chelsea turned it around with 3 goals in 20 minutes in the second half. Another match where we dominated thoroughly. What would you say about a 74% possession and our 25 shots to Sunderland’s 4. Still, the conversion rate is not all that impressive. We need to get more shots on target and force more saves and score more goals.

I couldn’t see the match as it was not telecast over here. None of the streams were helpful. Thanks to the updates in BC Shout, I thought of using BBC Radio’s live audio coverage of the match. It was really good. I actually enjoyed it. The commentary was very engaging and lively, and more than anything, neutral.

Ancelotti’s team selection was spot on. In the last blog, I had mentioned that I’d start with Kalou and Ballack in place of Anelka and Mikel. That’s exactly what he did. Then I thought, in that match, Deco played decently well in that short period he did. He got to start this match. I’m happy for Deco. Ancelotti started with him and he paid him back. Also, I liked the fact that Ancelotti brought on Sturridge and Sheva.

The goals were superb. Special mention to Deco’s goal. Fantastic strike. May be I’d be the last one to say this but still let me say it – Deco is more suited to be the attacking tip than Lampard. Frankie needs to come from the deep, be able to control the midfield and direct the attack. I can’t expect Deco to control the midfield. Simply it’s a case of playing to the strengths and weaknesses of our players.

This win puts us on top of the league. I was annoyed to concede in this game. Once again, we had trail and chase the game. But I was sure that we’d come back and hit them but to score three goals in 20 minutes in the second half was pretty impressive. By the way, Ancelotti is still unbeaten as a Chelsea manager. Long it may continue!

Oh yes, keep checking here for the fantasy league exploits! Before I leave, a fantastic quote from Steve Bruce, manager of Sunderland:

Sometimes you just have to admit that you have been beaten by a very, very good team. There’s no disgrace in that. We tried our utmost, they gave everything they could give and in the end, we just couldn’t cope with Chelsea. That is what we aspire to. That’s why they win Premier League titles and challenge for the Champions League – a class act. They were frightening weren’t they?

Quick update on the fantasy league. My team was quite decent and I was doing rather well after the first gameweek. An adventurous and maverick like me cannot be content with the team he put up. So I tampered with the team and made 5 transfers. The pop-up warning told me that 16 points will be reduced because only one transfer will be allowed anything more will cost 4 points each. I didn’t care. All I did was to realise my mistakes in selecting the team and I just corrected them all.

I had Anelka in my team. In a couple of matches, I’ve known that he seems to be back in his annoying for them, I had to move him out. Basically, I should have chosen players only that I’m very confident that they would play the matches. So Anelka is out. The money that I saved by moving Anelka, I spent on a Wayne Rooney as he starts to look like the real deal for Man Utd this season. I also, strangely, had Essien and not Lampard in my team. From a fantasy league point of view, who would not have Lampard? Because Lampard was the most expensive player I had to make a few other changes which had me do about 5 transfers to achieve the balance in the team and the budget.

There are now 162 players in the BlueChampions.Com league. After the cost of additional transfers, I’m now ranked 104 in the list. That’s something like India’s rank in the world football rankings, to put it in perspective. I thought I was better than that. Anyway, there is no reason for me to be surprised as history tells me that I’m not out of character here. Okay, a quick look at the leaders. No.1 is Evolution (Samuel Seah – 106 pts). No.2 is FC Magico (Paulo PL – 102 pts). And No.3 is Manchester United (wayne rooney – 100 pts).

Everyday, I’m learning something new in the art of managing a fantasy league team. Though there is a gap of a whopping 40 points as of today between me and Samuel Seah, I hope I would catch up in the next few weeks. How’s it going for you guys?

What a start. What. A. Start. This is gonna be some ride guys! In some ways, this is the kind of start we should have. At hindsight, we’re better off with such matches early in the season and we’re better off winning these type of matches rather than easy ones upfront. I have  not forgotten how high-flying we were early last season – winning matches, dominating games and scoring goals and all that – until our tactics and weaknesses were found out. Given that Ancelotti is trying out something new, we don’t really need to get early success. Let us struggle, work hard and find out the other side of this system as early as possible, when we have the players in the squad. Basically, let’s not get ourselves in a corner when Drogba, Essien and Kalou are going to be away for the African Cup of Nations.

From that point of view, I’m very happy with this game. The big plus is we played magnificently, at least I thought so. We were very comfortable on the ball, we dictated the pace of the game, we dominated them all over the pitch. We had about 70% possession with a ridiculous 33 shots. We had several intelligent and decisive attacking moves and also created numerous chances. The most glaring thing was our inability to finish off the game with the million chances we created. Drogba could be a lot of things but he is not the best finisher in terms of conversion rate. Anelka, unless given on a plate, does not convert enough chances.

With the new system, I do see that Chelsea can control the game as well as create a lot of goal scoring opportunties. I do understand why the club is after Sergio Aguerro. I haven’t see too much of him. We have a Drogba so we don’t need a similar striker. We don’t need another Anelka because that’s not what we want. We need someone with the strength and skill of Drogba and the finishing prowess of Anelka. I’m not sure if Aguerro is the answer. Someone like Samuel Eto would have fitted right in.

I’m always seen as someone who picks on Anelka. See, my stance has always been clear. When he started playing for Chelsea, he was poor. He missed the penalty that lost us the champions league. And then he improved. Started finishing better. Under Hiddink, he worked harder, for himself and the team. At one point, I even had an Anelka wallpaper in my laptop. All that when he was trying and working hard. Now, he just seems to have gone back to his inglorious Chelsea past. He is the weakest link in our attacks. I’m very sure and confident about this. Personally, I’m not even open for arguments. He is the weakest link in our attacks. So much so, that I’d start Drogba with a Kalou or Sturridge in the next match, instead of giving one more chance for Anelka to also-run.

Lot has been said about Mikel’s performance of late under Ancelotti. Mikel has been brilliant for us but this new formation is a bit new experience for him. Our players are very matured to adapt to changes and play different formations. The ones that lack experience are the ones who are going to find it difficult to get accustomed to the new set up. That’s why I think Mikel is finding difficult. He is a great young talent but he is a bit inexperienced too. I’d be lot more patient with him. While I’d be patient with him, I would not start him in the next match. I’d rather have Essien in the holding midfield and start Ballack. Mikel can then impress Ancelotti in the training ground and get back in.

Coming back this match, we were seconds away from a morale killing start to the league campaign. There was a time when no team could score at Stamford Bridge. It used to be such a prize for the opponents to score a goal at the Bridge. It’s no longer the case, which is a bit sad. Why is that we need to concede a goal to pick things up? Is this becoming a habit? And the goal that we conceded was very shabby. Mikel should take the bulk of the blame for making a poor headed which instead of clearing almost assisted them and for posing like a statue in the middle of the box. Mikel certainly lacks two things in his game – reflexes and acceleration. He needs time to think and it works when he has the ball because he knows how to keep it. When he is off the ball, he does not have the reflex to quickly anticipate and react.

With this new formation, it is a bigger responsibility for the holding midfielder because the attacking midfielder and the side midfielders are play up and would not always get to the defending box. Earlier, Mikel was always helped by Essien and Lampard. In the current set up, Essien and Lampard are supposed to be more attack-minded which means more responsibility for Mikel. It’s a question of whether Mikel has what it takes to take this role. If he finds it difficult, I’m not surprised and I won’t blame him. We can afford to keep him in the bench until he’s ready while we have Essien as the holding midfielder and use Deco and Ballack in the midfield.

That said, the Hull City goal was certainly against the run of play. And it’s so sad that it had to be Stephen *unt. The bridge crowd did nice job of reminding him of his thuggish attack on Cech and his lack of courtesy in dealing with that issue. The Chelsea goal was always coming and when Hull City scored and I was double sure that we were going to dump them. When we had that free kick opportunity so close to the goal, I was truly hoping that Didier takes it. I have seen him score free kicks from close range. Even in PES 2009, I use Drogs to take those close range free kicks. His shot becomes unstoppable because of the shot power if he gets the angle right. And that’s what he got damn right yesterday. I thought I was super-excited until I saw Roman celebrate the goal.

Second half was just Chelsea trying everything possible to get that winner. We were a bit unlucky and mostly were guilty of not being clinical with our finishing. Which is why we had to wait till the death for the winner. I was not quite convinced with substitute decisions. Carlo got Ballack for Mikel at half time which I thought was just right. Deco coming in for Malouda made our attack lighter and slower. If I were going to make this compromise Deco must bring in something that Malouda did not. If the expectation was to bring in some flair and creativity to break the Hull defence, I’m not sure if Deco did that. Anyway, he did provide the assist where the idea was certainly Drogba’s while Deco executed the pass. The subbing of Anelka was way too late. I thought Anelka could have been taken off at half time or at least before the 60th minute.

Kalou was brought on for just 15 minutes including the stoppage time. The impact that Kalou made in those 15 minutes was much more than what Anelka did in 75 minutes. Haven’t I said this line a dozen times before? Unfortunately, all I have to do is just repeat. I’ll be pleased to see Kalou start the match with Drogba. We all know that Drogba and Kalou partner the attack for Ivory Coast and they in fact, play well together. Plus, most of the times, Kalou has always got to play only out of position. Let’s play Kalou as a striker along with Drogba. It’s worth the punt.

Not sure if Drogba meant to score and I think he was only trying to cross. I think so because he chipped it with his left foot. If he was trying to score, it would have put it away with his right foot. Anyway, Cheslea were truly deserved winners. Credit to Drogba for trying until the last moment. He believed that we could win. Three cheers to the spirit of Didier Drogba and Chelsea FC.

Something tells me that this 4-4-2 narrow diamond would work for us. I also have a feeling that this formation allows us to play more attacking football. I believe we will stick with this and will also master it. While we are in the process of mastering it, there could be some glitches here and there. As long as Ancelotti is quick enough to react to the match situations, we should be fine. We haven’t got the opportunity to see what Carlo’s so called ‘Plan B’ is. All that he had to do was to just do subs. We haven’t really changed formations as we were chasing the win. I’d even say, we didn’t have to.

The 4-4-2 narrow diamond was creating chances for us till the last minute. Because Hull City were defending deep and narrow, this formation of ours actually helped. On the other hand, if we were playing 4-3-3, we’d have seen more inefficient passes and less support for Drogba and Lampard upfront. Overall, I’m still positive on Ancelotti. When things didn’t go well, I liked the way he was getting angry. In comparison, Scolari was getting upset and worried and his body language showed that. Whereas Ancelotti was more angry and furious than upset and worried. I like those kind of football managers.

Good start for the season. We are winning. Drogba is scoring. Lampard is doing well. We are settling down with our formation. We have a series of winnable matches in the next few weeks. We should be able to continue winning while getting accustomed to the new formation. Don’t worry much about today’s result. Remember the opening day match against newly-promoted Wigan in the 05-06 season? We won with an injury time goal from Crespo and absolutely did not deserve to win that game. Mourinho even admitted that to Jewel when he shook his hands with him. And you know who were the champions that season!

Meanwhile, we are supposedly still very active in the transfer market. Aug 18th will be a key date for a lot of transfers because that’s when some of the clubs and key players could possibly make their first champions league appearance this season. Expect some transfers to get done before the players get cup-tied or get some strong hints as players don’t get named in their squads.

Finally, the first round of fantasy league and IKTS results will be out by this evening. I’m not really topping the table as of today but that’s fine. Interestingly, there was a winner in all the matches yesterday, there were no draws! I was really surprised that some people could really predict the results so well in IKTS. Anyway, a separate post on the fantasy league to come later. Cheers till then!

It’s here! The wait of more than two years . . err . . two months is over! On Saturday, we’ll play the first of the 38 important matches of this premier league season. The first match of this premier league season would be played at Stamford Bridge as we start the season with a noon-time kick off. Is Hull City a good opponent for a first match? I’d say so. Anyways, technically this is our second official match of the season. Our first opponent was the defending champions and we beat them fair and square. Hull City have made a couple of key signings in Jozy Altidore and Stephen Hunt.

Playing at Stamford Bridge, I guess Hull City would be happy with a draw. It’s public knowledge that we would play narrow 4-4-2 and I fear that Hull City might just be comfortable with that. When we play the teams from the bottom half of the bottom half, the best way to break them down is by stretching them and create spaces. Our narrow midfield would just be what the doctor ordered for Hull City. They could be more than willing to pack their defence and midfield and defend deep and defend compact. I’d expect that we’ll see more of the ball but it could be rather frustrating if we don’t try to be innovative. How much we will use our full backs is a something I’d love to see. In full flow, we might even see a 3-5-2 with the defensive midfielder dropping back.

There’s still some time to go to see who can play and who cannot. For now, it appears that Carlo has the whole squad minus Joe Cole to choose from. Talking about the squad, we seem to be very clear on what we want to do with the squad. The loaning of Di Santo, Sinclair and Mancienne seem to be very planned and calculated. Di Santo’s is a half season loan, so he would be back on the new year day of 2010 by which time the Africans will be packing their bags for the biggest football event (bigger than world cup?) of their continent. Mancienne is on a season long loan and if Riccy wants to leave next summer, Mancienne can fit right back in.

We seem to be keen on using the youngsters but we don’t want to risk our chances by playing them. That’s why all these youngsters are being loaned out to teams where they have a better chance of getting more pitch time. Gael Kakuta is injured but he is certainly one for the future. There is also a strong expectation that the 20-year old Serbian midfielder Nemanja Matic would sign for Chelsea in the next few days. Plus, you have Sturridge who has come in and Kalou seems to be staying as well. And, you even have a young goalkeeper in Turnbull. Do you see that we are able to put together a very young but decent squad with good premier league experience sometime next season?

Coming back to the playing eleven for Saturday, I’d go with the best playing eleven possible. I’d put Essien back in defensive midfield and get Ballack to start in the right midfield where Essien did not find his feet last weekend. I’ll have Malouda start on the left midfield and as always have Lampard as the attacking tip. Anelka did not impress me in the last match but I’d still start with him as he had the knack of scoring goals against teams like Hull City. As far as the formation is concerned, there is no discussion. It is going to be narrow 4-4-2 diamond. Some people seem to be very uncomfortable with this formation primarily because this does not seem to play to our strengths. This formation seems to disregard the late season unbeaten run that was achieved in the last season. 4-3-3 was successful and we have the players to play and win in that formation. Anyway, the boss seems to be clear on what he wants. I’m fine as long as it works and wins. There was this opinion poll in the club website on which formation to use. Looks like we have started to embrace this unChelsea formation little earlier than expected.

I must admit that we are a bit lucky with our fixtures in first couple of months. Until the end of September, our list opponents reads as Hull City, Sunderland, Fulham, Burnley, Stoke City, Tottenham and Wigan. During the same period, Man Utd gets to play Arsenal, Man City and at White Hart Lane among other matches. So there’s a bright chance for Chelsea to lead the pack and pushing to become the winter champion. If this Chelsea team leads the table by some margin by Christmas, they will be the champions. That’s when the ‘players are old’ argument turns into ‘players are experienced’ adulation. As you had seen in my IKTS, I predict this match to be a 2-0 win for Chelsea. I expect Malouda and Drogba to score.

I didn’t even talk about Arsenal and Liverpool there. You know how much I admire Arsenal. Let them rot in hell while they get relegated. On a realistic note, I do honestly believe that Man City would finish fourth and assign Arsenal to Europa. And Liverpool are back with their ‘this would be our season’. Oh yes, this would be their season, to finish third. Jose Mourinho has made this term ‘zero tituli’ very famous in Italy. It was one of his typical snub to Ranieri to say that the Italian has won zero titles. After Inter won the league, Adidas even made and sold shirts that had the lines in Italian “Me – champion, you – zero titles”. It was a big hit there. That’s what to do for Liverpool too. They have won zero premier league titles. Yes, zero. We have won two. I don’t want to go back to pre-war periods and days of Elvis and Beatles to measure success. When we talk about Olympics, we don’t count the medals from the Greek civilisation, do we?

Ok, I’m itching to talk about this now. Few days back in the comments section, I saw that JoseHoliday was making a reference to the Himalayan sun bears and how manures in the new jersey look like them. I didn’t quite understand that then. But when I googled to see some images of sun bears, I couldn’t stop laughing. So here is my little photoshop work to substantiate JoseHoliday’s claim. It’s a pity that the sun bear does not have a sponsor, otherwise he would have matched Rio every inch. Credit to you JH, let sun bears be synonymous with Manchester Town :-)

In the last blog, I had said that we should reach the 100 mark by this weekend in the BlueChampions fantasy league. I must say I underestimated you guys! We are 115 already! Keep it going! Surprisingly, I find so many non-Chelsea fans signing up in this mini-league. Very surprising and interesting. By Sunday, we will have the first rounds of fantasy league results and the IKTS scores. I’d say the IKTS is more challenging than the fantasy league. Why don’t you come up with our IKTS predictions. You know mine. Let’s see how we fare!

So we start another premier league season at BlueChampions. This is the fourth season start here at BlueChampions. Ironically, since this blog was started, we have not won the premier league. I want Chelsea to win the league. And I want all of us to celebrate that together, right here! Let’s have a great season guys! May this season be filled with peace, joy and trophies for Chelsea FC. I’ll leave you all with Michael Essien’s words:

We are the Champions at the end of the season; ENJOY THE SEASON BECAUSE WE WILL.

Great progress, guys! Now we have 94 people signed up for the BlueChampions.Com mini-league in the Fantasy Premier League. Hope we cross the century before this weekend. I’m really charged up about this whole fantasy league business primarily because of the interest and support that you have shown. As promised, we will have regular (weekly?) posts or updates on the progress of our fantasy league. I have also create a separate category (you can see it in the menu bar) for the fantasy league related posts.

Today, I thought I should write about the basics of a successful fantasy league team. Before I could apply my thoughts, I came across this crisp and neat article on the premier league site and I thought this is what I would have written as well. Go on, be enlightened.

Building a Fantasy Premier League team seems easy but it actually takes a good deal of thought and preparation. A few careless selections can leave you lagging behind fellow competitors from the off, but that scenario can be avoided by doing just a little homework. Setting yourself up for a good season is the aim here, so follow these five pointers and give yourself the best chance of getting off to a good campaign.

1. Make sure your selections will play…

This is the golden rule with any player you pick. After all, if he doesn’t make it on to the pitch, how can he score you points? Check through last year’s statistics to see if one of your fancies is a regular performer or a reserve team member. Does he play both home and away? Is he used as an impact substitute? In fact, while you’re looking at the ‘minutes played’ stat, arm yourself with as much information as possible by taking a good…

2. Look at last year’s stats

These numbers are your friends if you’re striving to gain an edge on fellow managers. A host of information is contained within from the simple – goals scored – to the more obscure – teams selected by – for instance. All are there for a reason and should be interrogated to gain an edge on your less studious competitors.

3. Study the transfer market

New arrivals can be significant as they can signal the end of the line for some former favourites or could be bought to form a partnership with another player. The loss of Cristiano Ronaldo from the Barclays Premier League will cause plenty of managers to have a rethink for 2009-10. The Portuguese winger was a fixture for many and the regular choice as captain in most teams. But Sir Alex Ferguson will surely have planned for life at Old Trafford without this regular provider of goals. Antonio Valencia has been brought in on the right wing, and we are likely to see more from Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney upfront. All three – though high profile already – have big seasons ahead of them.

4. Check the first month of fixtures

The fixture list is hugely important. Few teams are going to relish a month that includes games against Manchester United, Everton, Chelsea and Liverpool, yet that is what faces Burnley after their opener at Stoke, itself not an easy game. It is, of course, possible to have two players from any Premier League team, and a canny manager will load up on these performers when a relatively easy patch of games or – even better! – a double gameweek comes around.

5. Look beyond the big names

We all want a midfield featuring Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Cesc Fabregas. The good news is you can have one, the bad is that it will leave you with very little cash for anyone else. With that pot of £100m the goal is to achieve a balance between the big names and lesser known players, attacking flair and defensive solidity. Again, check over the stats for solid performers from less glamorous clubs. These purchases can free up the funds for big name signings and can prove to be effective pointscorers themselves.

I don’t think this is comprehensive but it covers the key points. One other important thing is to be updated on the injury situations. Be sure to track the availability of your players and also keep an eye on value-for-money players becoming available after injury. The other thing is the choice of captain. See, this is not a real team that’s going to be put on the pitch to perform. So don’t go for the leadership qualities, behaviour and discipline of the player and all that. Just take a guess which one of your players will earn you the maximum of points and make him the captain. Finally, when you choose players based on stats don’t go just by the points they earn, check their points per million rate. That’s where you’ll get your value-for-money players.

To reiterate, do look at the stats. Any guesses on who topped the overall premier league list in the fantasy league? Ok, that’s easy, the one and only Super Frankie Lampard. Below are the toppers in various categories.

If you have not signed up yet, do sign now. The name of the mini-league: BlueChampions.Com League. The joiners’ code: 897502-183475. Here is the SIGN-UP page for Fantasy Premier League & here is the RULES page of this fantasy league.

Also remember that there is a I Know The Score (IKTS) mini-league as well. IKTS is in the same fantasy premier league website and it works with the same login that you have for the fantasy premier league. It’s very simple. This page shows you the list the of all games of the next game week and allows you to update the scores. You get points based on whether you got the correct result or correct score or the correct goal difference.

For instance, let’s take the match on 10-May-09. Chelsea thrashed Arsenal 4-1 at the Emigrants stadium. If you had predicted this correctly as 4-1 to Chelsea (correct outcome, correct score), you’ll win 30 points. If you had predicted, a 3-0 to Chelsea (correct outcome, correct goal difference), you’ll win 15 points. If you had predicted 5-0 to Chelsea (correct outcome, wrong goal difference), you’ll win 10 points. If you had predicted a 1-1 draw (wrong outcome), you’ll get minus 10 points. If the game was a draw and you predicted the draw with a wrong scoreline, you get 20 points. Also, you can choose one of those results (banker chip with the dollar sign) which you’re sure about whose points will be doubled. If you are unsure about a certain result you can choose (insurance chip with lock symbol) that as well where your minimum points will be zero.

Sounds interesting and fun? The name of the mini-league is again BlueChampions.Com League. The joiners’ code: F9E63-GKV. The premier league website is on single sign-on. So if you already have a login for the fantasy premier league, it would work for IKTS as well.

Now what you see above are my predictions for the first game week. Now you can comment on my predictions but also do join this mini-league as well and update your predictions there. Let’s who’s the best predictor in the BlueChampions universe :-)