Trust me, we’re really doing good! Even after a run of form that looks like that of Wolves, an ‘unlawful’ dismissal, an unwanted appointment and injuries to key players including the captain, we are still No.1. We are still the team to beat. Let the recent defeats not erase the fact that we’re the best team in the league. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be on top of the table consecutively for so many weeks. You may have your opinion on how well Chelsea plays but what I say no matter how well Chelsea play, they happen to have played better than the 19 other teams in the premier league. You won’t get to create premier league history every season. As long as we’re the best of the lot this season, I’d be happy.

The win over Zilina was very important. When you’re going through a rough patch, nothing pulls you up than a win. I’m very happy that Carlo played the youngsters. It showed that he’s not succumbing to pressure. If he had, he’d have played a ‘safer’ team in the fear of another draw or a defeat. I’m sure he wanted to win at any costs. He couldn’t have afforded to continue the current form. There’s even rumours about him getting the sack and he had to respond to those questions. Despite all this, he took the risk and put the youngsters in the game. You know what, it paid off.

I was pretty pleased to see guys like Josh, van Aanholt, Bruma and Kakuta starting the match. It was like Carlo Ancelotti visited www.bluechampions.com and read this article . Now I want to see these players being fielded in premier league matches. There will be howlers and there will be blunders but if we don’t expose them at all, we’re getting into more serious trouble in the future. We should brave up, put the kids in alongside the greats and it’s only a matter of time the kids become first choice starters.

It’s true that I wasn’t fully convinced that Carlo was the right man for the Chelsea job. But then, he’s come and won the premier league title. What can I say? I never doubt the winners, especially the league title winners. To be honest, I don’t mind if we win the league title this season. On the other hand, if we are not winning it, that should be because we are laying a very strong foundation for the future in terms of the squad and also a playing philosophy. I have a strong belief that Carlo will rebuild the Chelsea squad while retaining the Chelsea identity and creating a distinctive playing style. Which is why, even if Chelsea lose so badly nowadays, I tend to go easy on him. Carlo has a lot of passion. He plays to win. He’s terribly angered and disappointed with our draws and defeats. But he keeps his cool with the press and the opposition. He seems to work hard. He deserves a lot of time and patience. See what Kalou says about Carlo:

He is very important, he doesn’t put pressure on the players. Even without winning we are still training the same way and doing the same things. He has that calm and brings it to the team making us play to our full potential. There are periods where everything doesn’t go as you want, and now is that period. This was a good opportunity for us to go back to the confidence zone, and then you can play to your best. When you play for Chelsea and the team is under pressure, you don’t want the whole team to be scared because it’s difficult to perform. He has that belief that everything is going to be good if we work hard and continue to train the way we do. It worked in the past, last year we had a difficult time too, we didn’t change anything. He brings that self-belief and it helps to keep the pressure off the team.

This is a testimony to Carlo being cool under pressure and being the source of inspiration than sorrow and disaster. I can’t end this paragraph by not talking about Rafa Benitez here. Granted, he took a tough job – he inherited a treble winning team and had to replace someone like Jose Mourinho – but he’s continuing with his tag of ‘big club destroyer’. Inter have fallen so low in the league and are not flying high in the champions league. I have never thought Rafa can inspire players. I can be totally wrong but he doesn’t come across as him. Meanwhile, I like the way Carlo deals with defeats and I like the way he reacts. He has this look of ‘I’ll get you next time’ rather than ‘which is the best excuse today’.

Surely, Carlo is in the most tricky of times at Chelsea. Our pillars are getting older and more injury prone. We’re no longer the big spenders. We want to be self sufficient. We want to win as well. He’s got a massive challenge, probably the toughest in the league. Arsene Wenger’s failed project doesn’t come close because he can consistently finish at No.4 and can come under no pressure. Carlo on the other hand, has to carefully rebuild this squad by phasing out the senior legends and also grooming the youth and while he’s at it, he should be winning titles too. Generally, where there is pressure to win, there’ll be money to support the desire. Where there’s no money, the pressure won’t be there as well. For Carlo, he’s got to win with the given constraints. Not an easy thing to do. If he pulls it off, this could be the biggest achievement of his career, even better than his champions league titles with Milan.

For now, the recovery is not over yet. A home victory over Zilina (of whom most of us hadn’t even heard of) doesn’t mean much except that we’ve tasted a win in a long time. Things change quite quickly in football. It takes only three or four rounds of premier league matches to restore all the early season glory. Let’s hope that it starts with Newcastle on Sunday.

And Carlo, if you’re reading, just play this team – oh well Cech for Turnbull please.

Today is Tuesday and it could be a bit too late to recollect anything from Saturday’s match. But I will try to present my little case of the match that we could have won. But at the end of the match I thought even if we tried to shoot at the empty goal, it would have stayed out for some reason! That was our fate at St. Andrews. One of my buddies (a gunner) said after we lost to Sunderland “whoever is the next opponent, Chelsea is going to thrash them”.

And yes, we were supposed to thrash Birmingham! Against Sunderland we lacked passion and the winning mentality, but at St. Andrews we showed both in plenty. And every statistics, except the goal, is in our favour but sadly it is the goal that counts at the end of the day. Here is from the BBC website:

Possession
Birmingham 39%
Chelsea 61%

Attempts on target
Birmingham 1
Chelsea 10

Attempts off target
Birmingham 0
Chelsea 15

Corners
Birmingham 4
Chelsea 16

Fouls
Birmingham 9
Chelsea 2

It is simply unbelievable to have such a great statistics and still lose a match!

Few points that I can smile over against Birmingham:

1. Mikel’s through passes are always improving;
2. Ramires, after an awful Sunday, played comparably well on the following Saturday;
3. Chelsea, as a team showed a lot of passion and desire and power.

Few ugly moments:

1. Referee was bad, knowing we are trailing, he wastes time acting to warn and lecture Carr. Moments later he blows the final whistle right on time! He also wrongly over-ruled his assistant and gave Birmingham a goal kick from a clear corner of ours;
2. One thick-skulled ‘Chelsea-hating’ commentator: “Great challenge by Johnson, did he get the ball first or the man?”

Anyway, figure shows how we played at St. Andrews and I regret to report that I would have really wished Drogba to roud the keeper off and slot an easy goal instead of taking it straight at Foster! Also Kalou could have squared it for his team mate instead of trying to shoot from a tight angle. Jamie Reeves summed it well: “Combination of not so good chances created by Chelsea and a great goal keeping by Birmingham”. Whatsoever, past lays in the past and let us look ahead.

Zilina at home is not a big match and we are rightly going to rest our star players. So it will mean that McEachran and Bruma will start. I hope this will be the chance for the youngters to showcase their talent, McEachran need not, we already know him! I would be happy for us to win this match because it would built up for our trip to St. James Park. Tonight this is my starting 11:

Sturridge……………..Nico……………..Kalou

Malouda………………………………..Ramires

………………………McEachran…………….…..

Aanholt…Bruma…Ivanovic…Bosingwa

………………………….Turnbull………………….

2:1 to us.

Back to EPL. We are still at the top of the table but merely by the virture of a +6 goal difference. So it means that we shouldn’t be as happy being at the top as we were. And on this note I would like to heartily thank Gareth Bale for keeping us at the top, he also fetched me good points in Fantasy Premiere League! As I have said before, I still consider the two Manchesters as our real rivals in the race for the title. And they have both won quite fascinatingly and the weekend ahead is quite predictable for the red half of the Manchester but we can have faith in Big Sam and his physically strong boys! And I think Stoke will do us a favour! But we must do our own homework because if we win then there is nothing to worry about. I want our players to show the same desire and determination against Newcastle but improve on our finishing. And we must do our best because the big December brings us Tottenham (a), Manure (h) and Arsenal (a) on a stretch!

And may be we can smile over the good news of Terry (that he could be back soon). Let us also pray for the swift recovery of, amongst others, Essien and Zhirkov.

I pray a lot for Chelsea and I feel it from the heart that Chelsea currently needs loads of true prayers. So, let us do our part and leave the rest to our heroes. Chelsea is the best and we are a part of the best.

Enjoy tonight’s match!

It’s not very often BBC predicts a draw for Chelsea when they play a non-top four team. They’re predicting this to be a 1-1 draw. It will be devastating if it happens. I think we will win but winning at St.Andrews is no easy job. With Chelsea losing to Sunderland at the Bridge, all eyes are on Chelsea this weekend. We’re back in the tabloids for all wrong reasons. If not for the off-field issues, you’d see experts backing Chelsea to make a turn around.

More and more rumours around Ray’s dismissal are emerging. It’s not possible to write off all these as tabloid nonsense. One thing’s sure – there’s something really wrong with the whole episode. To sack Ray in the month of November, especially when Chelsea is still on top of the table, doesn’t sound right at all. I thought Carlo was consulted and it was with his consent that Ray was dismissed. This week it’s become quite clear that Carlo is very unhappy that Ray is gone. Reportedly, players are unhappy too.

For Ray’s relationship to have gone so bad with the club administration, something seriously wrong should have happened. I’m still not taking any sides here but as I said last week, the way we handle these episodes seems to be very unprofessional and insensitive. What I don’t understand is, when such big decisions are made such as the sackings of managers, appointments, signing of players, releasing of players etc why don’t the black suits come out and speak to the press. That’s an important part of their job, isn’t it? They can speak the official line with utmost diplomacy but at least they can speak to the press and clear the air.

Michael Emenalo is now the assistant first team coach. There is very little information about him in the internet ocean that you wonder if he is big enough for the assistant coach of one of the best clubs in the world. Ray going out is one thing but I do wonder why we can’t replace him with a more established assistant coach? Look at what Carlo says about Emenalo’s appointment. This is from the club website.

Nothing changes for me because Michael Emenalo started to work with me when I came here last year and he was involved and supported me for every game. He will not be involved in the training because I have Paul Clement and he will maintain the same position. Now Emenalo has a formal position of assistant first team coach but he was an assistant all last year so nothing changes. It was not my decision but he has been working with me for one and a half years and was a fantastic support last season as an opposition. He was involved in our meetings and he will do the same in the future. He will support the team by being close to me in the tactical situations.

What do you make of this? I find this a bit too statement-of-factey. Does this make you feel Carlo was consulted before the appointment or he is happy about this? Interestingly, in other news websites that carry this news, the part about the ‘fantastic support’ is missing! Also, in the news websites, you could see ‘the club made this decision after the decision on Ray’. This is missing in the club website version.

Check this piece from Telegraph:

Having found the perfect combination to run the club, Chelsea may now have created the perfect storm. They have the beautiful winning football demanded by Abramovich, the emergence of exciting young players, the revival of flagging careers and the synergy between a top-class manager, in Ancelotti, and technical director, Frank Arnesen.

After years of aggravation, politicking and crises, it appeared that Chelsea had found an unprecedented sense of calmness. They sit two points clear in the Premier League, have won all four Champions League matches, are scoring goals and have created the fabled identity craved by Abramovich who, last season, was given an unprecedented league and FA Cup double and more than 100 goals.

All that in Ancelotti’s first campaign and with a squad that, under his predecessor, Luiz Felipe Scolari, appeared to be too old, too jaded and ready to be broken up. It’s understood at that time, for example, that Didier Drogba was offered to Manchester City for £12 million. Chelsea are even verging on being popular. They are seeing the fruit of five years of work with the elevation of players from the club’s academy into the first-team squad, talents such as 17-year-old Josh McEachran, who genuinely excites Ancelotti, and Gaël Kakuta. Ancelotti has bought into the ethos of the club, the development of youth, the desire for attacking football, because it represents his own beliefs; beliefs which had, perhaps, become somewhat stifled at AC Milan. He has also, crucially, forged a close working bond with Arnesen, who recruited him.

Do you believe that the press have started to give credit to Chelsea at last?! And then this happens.

Okay, we’ve got some football to play on the pitch this weekend. Birmingham are not going to play for a draw. They’re going to come at us. They know we are a bit vulnerable now. They might even think that this is the right time to play Chelsea. From our side, losing 0-3 to Sunderland at Stamford Bridge is big enough motivation to beat Birmingham. Our centre back situation is still a worry. Talking about centre backs, read this piece in the Telegraph – a great interview by John Terry – such a fantastic captain! Good thing is Terry might return much earlier than what we feared. Alex is delaying his surgery so he could play this weekend. This also confirms to me that Terry would be back soon. Otherwise, why would we delay Alex’s surgery to play Birmingham?

I’m surprised that Carlo goose to the extent of delaying surgeries than giving a start to a young defender like van Aanholt or Jeffrey Bruma. When Jonny Evans debuted for Man Utd, he was 19 and he started on his debut against Roma in an away champions league match. The first start for Rafael da Silva was in the Manchester derby at the age of 18. Unfortunately, Carlo doesn’t give these kind of opportunities to young players which would mature them and increase the depth of our squad. If players like van Aanholt, Bruma, Josh, Kakuta etc don’t get opportunities during an injury crisis, I wonder when they would get their chances.

The midfield holds the key. With Zhirkov not being available, I’m curious to see which midfield combination would play today. As I mentioned in the last blog, we need to play a bit conservatively. We don’t need a 6-0 win. We only need a win. Let’s keep in mind that the results at the North London derby and at St.Andrews could determine who leads the table by this weekend. Let’s get a win, a grinding, boring, dour 1-0. I’m fine with any kind of win. I like these words from Carlo:

I don’t want my team to play fantastically tactically. I want my team to play with fighting spirit and differently from the last game.

See you there at BC Shout. Cheers!

It’s only a few weeks back I thought it’s all going very well for Chelsea, probably too well. We had made a great start to the season – we were playing great football, it was raining goals and many even thought we were running away with the league title. Things seem to have taken a turn now. We’re not in the same phase anymore. We’re still on top of the league but so much has changed between our being top then and now. So what’s changed between then and now.

We’ve lost too many matches and there’s a sorry pattern in our losses. Last season we lost 6 matches in the league whole season. Now we’re done with one-third of the league season and we’ve already lost 3 matches. The fact that we’re still on top of the league even after this high loss ratio tells us about the relative strengths and performances in the league. Despite that fact more losses only show that Chelsea are more vulnerable. They make the opponents to play us with a hope that they could do us – even at Stamford Bridge.

To lost to Sunderland 0-3 at Stamford Bridge was probably the lowest point for Chelsea in the recent past. Honestly, I’ve still not digested Chelsea’s 3-0 defeat by Middlesbrough at the Riverside in the 05-06. It was so humiliating. We ultimately won the league title that season though. Still I’ve not been able to digest that defeat till date. Very similar was our 3-1 defeat against Wigan in the last season and we again ended up being champions. This time though, this 3-0 defeat has been inflicted on us by, of all teams, Sunderland and right here at Stamford Bridge. This is a result at the Bridge that Rednose, Voyeour etc would die for and we gifted that to Sunderland, a team that we are used to beating with tennis scores.

The worrisome pattern is that, the moment we see teams showing more desire and passion on the day, we seem to hand them over the win. The days when we are watched in awe, we are the best team in Europe. But as soon as teams take the fight to us, we seem to surrender. This is very Arsenalish. This is not Chelsea’s identity. This is not how we play and this is not what we’re known for. the toughest team to beat in all of Britain is Chelsea FC and the reason is, they play like their lives depended on this match, every match. Giving up is never an option at Chelsea. So what’s changed?

Ray Wilkins’ departure has put Chelsea back into the papers with the usual ‘arrogant billionaire owner sacks club legend’ stuff. It’s kind of clear that the players and the coaching staff including Carlo were very happy with Ray and they were disappointed with his leaving. Which also tells us that Ray could have left for non-footballing reasons. I’m not judging anyone here. We have no clue what was happening behind the scenes. I won’t be quick to jump in defence of Ray and shower my sympathies. Having followed Roman for many seasons, I can safely say that this man knows what he’s doing. In the last 7 years, he has proved beyond doubt that he respects the club and he wants good things for this club. He is not a megalomaniac billionaire who’s having fun with a real time fantasy league.

No matter how good or right the intentions are, we seem to drop ball when it comes to public relations. We don’t yet act and communicate tactfully enough. We’ve had several PR disasters because of lack of communication or poor communication. I think they did not decide last week that Ray would move on. I’m sure these discussions may have been on for weeks or months. It’s just that we didn’t do a good PR effort in this instance as well.

The behind the scenes developments around Ray were one of the reasons why Chelsea weren’t focussing well on the pitch? To say no would undermine Ray’s impact and relationship with the players and coaching staff. To say yes, to undermined the professionalism of our top class players. I tend to think that our recent drop in form is more to do with issues on the pitch than off the pitch.

Injuries have been difficult. Rumours are emerging that Terry could be out for several months. For now, Terry does not have a return date and same’s the case for Alex. There goes our first choice centre back pair. Lampard has been missing for an uncharacteristically long period and he’s not back until the end of this month. Benayoun will be back for the last few matches of this season. At various points, we had Drogba and Essien missing as well. Injuries aren’t new to Chelsea, so why we talk them up now?

The injuries have had a major effect because of the performance gap between our first choice and second choice players. It’s not easy to replace Lampard. His absence leaves such a big hole in the midfield that it’s so obvious in every single match we played in his absence. Ramires is not there yet. I remember even Essien not being all that good in his first season. Luckily, he had a Frank Lampard who hadn’t missed a match for seasons and the maestro Makelele. Essien had the luxury of acclimatising to the new league while Lampard and Makelele did the job for us. Similarly Mikel had Essien while he was busy getting red cards and arriving late for training sessions. Relocation is a massive challenge. I’m speaking out of my personal experience here.

This Brazilian Ramires was playing in Brazil until he arrived at Europe to play in Lisbon. Now this season, he’s playing in London for the champions of England. This is not easy at all. The best thing for him would be to play a dozen matches with Essien and Lampard around him. He hasn’t got that luxury. He’s into the deep end already. He’s expected to take the larger responsibility at the Chelsea midfield, much earlier than he would have wanted. I would pity him before judging him. And I wouldn’t judge him so soon. He wouldn’t have thought of playing such a crucial important role in the Chelsea midfield ahead of Lampard, Essien and Mikel.

If you look at the new midfield combination of Ramires, Mikel and Zhirkov it’s clear that it’s not the same as Mikel, Lampard and Essien. The abilities are different, the experience levels are different and the levels of understanding of each other is also different. There’s no point in expecting Ramires to do an Essien or Zhirkov to do a Lampard. They are what they are. And this is where Carlo should come in. Knowing the difference between these two midfield combinations, we should have adjusted our tactics and style. Carlo could have done that but that’s not so visible on the pitch. If we play with the same style and tactic as we would play when the combination of Lampard, Essien and Mikel was around, we are going to find ourselves vulnerable and that’s what is happening.

As you know, I do belong to the JM school of football tactics. When our team is depleted, the first focus should be on defence and the midfield should support the defence more than the attack. We anyway had Drogba, Malouda and Anelka upfront. Solid defence and decent counterattacking would have helped. I didn’t see this approach from Chelsea. The midfield discipline was poor and we didn’t help each other enough. When you don’t have your best players, the first thing you do is, start being content with a win. 1-0 is not a bad thing, after all it’s better than a 0-3 mauling at home. Basically, play a bit defensive so the new players and the combination gathers some confidence while we manage to win with wondergoals, individual efforts and counterattacks. You know what, our current situation is perfectly suited for us to try out a four man midfield with 4-4-2 diamond. I hear you saying ‘what? four man midfield when we have a mini-crisis in the midfield?’. Fair, we seem to be too 4-3-3 oriented these days. We don’t have the versatility in our squad to be able to switch to a 4-4-2. Too many flank players and too few players who can play in the centre midfield or centre attacking midfield.

How do we then address this issue? I think, Carlo should not hesitate to experiment his options, albeit cautiously. ‘Cautious experimentation’ may sound like an oxymoron but that’s a very practical approach that would help in the long run. We all believe Josh McEachran could be more effective in midfield than Zhirkov but unless Josh starts ahead of the Russian, we’d never be able to confirm that belief. Carlo needs to allow Josh to get more playing time with a proper role in the midfield. I would stick with Ramires in midfield. I would like to see Mikel, Ramires and Josh forming the Chelsea midfield. When Essien is available, I’d use more of Josh than Ramires in the key premier league matches while Ramires should get the nod in the European matches.

In the same lines, it’s better to play Patrick van Aanholt or Bruma in centre back than having a more experienced but less specialist Paulo Ferreira play in the centre back. I always believe in playing the specialists than the makeshifts. Remember Michael Essien playing so well for us as a right back but at key moments his instincts didn’t help him because he is not a natural defender. Zhirkov is not a player suited for a three-man midfield. He is either a side midfielder in a 4-4-2 or the winger in 4-3-3. If he is a midfielder in our 4-3-3, we are weakening ourselves defensively. Which is why I support playing Josh over Zhirkov in the midfield. The more we play specialists, the more compact we are and tougher to play against.

To summarise, I want to see us play with more caution and conservatism with an intention to win and not rake in goals. Once we are get our best players in best shape, we can get back to our flamboyant best. And I really hope Carlo to use his available options very carefully and sensibly. We need some good, solid performances resulting in wins in the next few matches. We should retain our winning mentality but that shouldn’t mean we throw everyone forward. This team does know how to play and win by not taking too much risks. Carlo has certainly changed the identity of this Chelsea team but it would help him to bring back some good old fashioned efficiency back into our game.

Let me start on a good note because I have lesser of it and please be ready, the floodgates of blames and personal attacks are on its way.

Cech is the only good thing of the night, and it is to his credit that we lost it at 0:3, it could easily have been 0:7/8! Kudos to Cech, you are simply the best! One more thing good is that Mikel is passing well.

Now the worst part is on its way and if you are not ready for rowdy langugae and raw emotion, please don’t read further!

To start with it is the ‘face-only-your-mom-will-love’ Ramires! He is awfully awful and a disgusting sight! He can never keep a ball or pass it, but we are not new to this. He loses balls and then concedes freekicks with his risky tackles. Even when he is alone to receive the ball, he chooses to head it out of play. I am just so disgusted with this wanker. Reminds me of a certain deco. Was even wondering if it is deco with too much tan and weight loss! We have seen him doing it week in week out, and I am amazed by his consistency in being so uselessly pathetic! Only thing he can do is run, run like a headless chicken. He deserved to play only the first 20 minutes, but I really don’t know what Carlo found in him that he got 70 minutes. He was taken off only after the damage was done!

Zhirkov was okay, just okay but things would really have been different had he converted that easy chance. He created well but failed to make it count. He could easily have hit the target or square it for Drogba who was really free.

And then Drogba had his quieter day. His freekicks were bad and his corners awry. I am sure the heavy weight of that priceless armband took all his concentration. He was more concerned being a captain than playing his football. Now he will know what Terry had been doing and doing it brilliantly.

Nico tried his best, but when most of your team mates are not willing to help, the laziness can easily get hold of you. He wasn’t better than his sun-attacked baldness!

Malouda too tried his best but more often his decisions were wrong. One fine example is that he copuld have easily pulled back for Ramires and Nico instead of trying to find Drogba amongst 3 red and white stripped shirts. And then he didn’t do us anything good when he walked off the ground. This guy seems to think that he is bigger than the club/team.

Ashley did well and yes I am considering even his lovely assist!

Ivanovic gave all he can but with a headless partner in the centre, the burden to keep the Sunderland’s attack away fell havier on him and he succumbed to it! He was lucky to be on the pitch but Chri Foy might have remembered Turner’s foul on him. Fair play!

Ferreira had been so modest and quiet and never-complaining. But if one’s performance is of this type then there is nothing really to complain about. Yes, he played in an unfamiliar centreback position but he cannot really be this bad. We are playing at home and it is Sunderland, not 11 Messis! The best for Paolo is to warm the bench and come on at around 80th minutes! Bruma could have done better!

Bosingwa surely marauded forward but he couldn’t find a single cross. He rather perfected hitting at his opponent and being happy with a throw in. His going forward proved to be futile but he played his part well in the first two goals!

All in all, this is one of the worst performances I have seen for last 8 years. The front men didn’t do well and created nothing but the worst is that our defence made it look like 4 Koscielnys playing against 4 Messis! Even Onuoha played like Messi, not that he really can but because he was assisted by our defneders. But kudos to onuoha, I love his goal! Kudos to Sunderland, they showed what it means to play with a passion.

We started very slow and we never changed a gear, I am sure we have forgotten our gears at Cobham! I am wondering if ‘the 9 consecutive clean sheets at home’ and the desire to make it 10 had any impact on Sunday. We seemed to paly slow and never showed any derire to score a single goal. But if we wanted to extend our home clean sheets, then the display of our defence was totally to make another record: concede the highest goals at home. This is not a defence who wanted a clean sheet. And after Onuoha’s LOVELY goal I was really expecting Chelsea to come back strong – for now the record had broken – but surprisingly we resumed our second half exactly from where we have left. Why? Because ramires was still there with his bags of flaws dangling. And it is not until the 2nd goal that we tried to show some passion, passion? Yeah, an iota!

Carlo fielded wrong 11 and to worsen it, his substitutions were wrong. McEachran should have come on at HT for ramires and Malouda should stayed longer. It should have been Kakuta for Zhirkov and Kalou for Anelka because Drogba and Kalou seem to click at times.

I am sure Carlo learnt his hard lesson and that he wouldn’t really trust as much in Ramires. Yes, he had a depleted squad to choose from, but he had many far better than ramires. Anyway we are still at the top. Aston Villa and Birmingham City are the consolations. Everton was spanked! As I said in my last poast I was sure that knowing the result (of your rivals) before you play your game would help us, and it was a good result for us to take advantage on but everything that I siad in my earlier post got totally the opposite. I predicted a 3:0 win for us!

Now we have to travel to formidable Birmingham City and I do not expect much from this ground. But I am sure Tottenham can hold Arsenal and do us a favour while manure seems sure of three points at home from a toothless Wigan. I fear the gap will close in on us this weekend and we have a needless International break midweek.

But we still can afford a smile because we are still at the top!