Feels like defeat, doesn’t it? We’re 4 under par! On a serious note, you can’t score 6 goals every match, can you? Frankly, we’re all a bit spoiled by generous goal serving by the Chelsea team. What else would you say when a comfortable 2-0 win has a tinge of disappointment, not from a performance point of view but from the goal tally. One thing’s for sure. The premier league goals record made by Chelsea last season is under serious threat from Chelsea themselves. There is no other premier league team that is as free scoring as Chelsea at the moment. In all this flurry of goals, what should not escape the attention is that we are not conceding. There’s no Carvalho but still we’re not conceding.

I must say Stoke City made it a bit difficult for us. Home or away, Stoke City are always a tough customer with their physical style of play and their determination. I think the Chelsea players would admit that breaking down Stoke City wasn’t easy. Lampard’s missed penalty only strengthened Stoke City’s resolve. Had Lamps scored that, it might have opened the floodgates, but he didn’t.

It wasn’t a good match for Lampard. I don’t know if because he wasn’t playing well he missed the penalty or because he missed the penalty he didn’t play well. Very clearly, ever since he missed the penalty, Lampard was not getting involved in the playmaking. Probably he felt guilty for missing the penalty and hence was trying hard to score a goal. He was playing almost as the second striker while he was really missed in the midfield, which didn’t help in Chelsea creating goalscoring opportunities. I was mightily pleased when Carlo subbed Lampard. It’s not a familiar sight to see Lampard being subbed off but he was in pain and had to leave the pitch in order not to aggravate it.

Lampard will undergo a hernia surgery (like Drogba did last month) this week which will mean he does not have to join the England national team. The next premier league match is only on 11-Sep against his ex-club West Ham. There’s also a possibility that he could miss that match but we’ve got Ramires up and running. He played for about 10 minutes and I think he did well. He was intelligent in his movements, he covered the spaces nicely though we didn’t really see a surging run or a crunching tackle or a deadly pass from him. Like Yossi in the match against West Brom, Ramires was just moving around on the pitch understanding how the game flows.

Nicolas Anelka, for me, was the man of the match. The man’s made a 180-degree turn since his initial days at Chelsea. It’s not often I say that Nico’s work rate on the pitch was top class. He was fighting for every ball in his vicinity. He put pressure, he tackled, he won balls and he never gave up. Two thumbs up for Nico. Brilliant performance. Malouda’s scoring spree continues and this time to the courtesy of a lovely ball from John Terry! I think the real on-the-pitch architect behind Chelsea raking up 100+ goals last season was Malouda. It was his goals, assists, manoeuvres that were a useful addition to the usual Chelsea attacks contributed and scored by Drogba and Lampard. I’d put my money on Malouda getting 20 goals this season.

International break ahead. No real football until 11-Sep. This would still be a busy period for me as I’ve just moved to Singapore on a short term basis. It’s been a couple of days now and I’m settling down nicely. New place, new work, and new people to work with is always going to be interesting. Meanwhile, we’re nearing the climax of the two football gaming titles this season. Both PES 2011 and FIFA 11 would be released in early October. You know that I’m a big Pro Evo fan though I play both these series. PES 2011 is shaping up very well. It looks and plays so good that I just simply can’t wait.

That’s it for now. Catch you later!