Half time at the premier league. After exactly 19 games into the league, we are 4 points off the leaders who have a game on hand. They say things in football can change pretty quickly. Well, we’ve seen how it changed for Chelsea. After a great start to the season, two defeats – Liverpool and Sunderland – changed it for us. And now, a win against Bolton while Man Utd and Arsenal drew, looks to bring some positive change. Suddenly, just in a matter of couple of days, especially couple of days after the disappointing defeat at the ‘Emigrants’, I feel we’re right back in the mix.

Some would say that Chelsea were never out of the race. Honestly, the performance more than the results, did worry me quite a lot. I was fearing for our position in the table, leave alone being champions and all that. Even in the match against Bolton, by half time, I was wondering where our goal was going to come from. I was hoping for a win, no matter how ugly or undeserving it was. We had to turn this around. Once we got the goal, the confidence and the consequent fluency were back. We were knocking the ball around with so much ease. The players started moving into attacking positions so naturally and suddenly we were looking dangerous with every attack of ours. Bolton also had their moments after we took the lead but I must say that we were nervous and anxious and that showed in our defence.

So it’s no longer ‘a good time to play Chelsea’. Instead, it’s the perfect time to play Aston Villa. They are just one point above the drop zone and they have the worst goal difference in the league. Carlo is able to play his first choice team except Alex and Ivanovic. Anyway, Ivanovic in central defence has been a bit suspect. You can never doubt his commitment and conviction but he doesn’t play like a natural central defender. Terry doesn’t seem to have the same chemistry with Ivanovic as he does with Alex, which in itself was a notch down from the Terry-Carvalho pair. Ivanovic’s five-yellow suspension means Paulo Ferreira might get to play in central defence. I don’t see Carlo putting Essien in defence and playing a midfield of Mikel, Ramires and Lampard. Carlo is too conservative with team selection to do such a thing. Bruma can get a start but then again, will Carlo take such a gamble in such an important match?

Ramires deserves a start ahead of Mikel for two reasons – Ramires is very improved and Mikel is not on song. I know it’s very harsh on Mikel. He has been nothing short of brilliant for us. When the whole team was attacking and playing free flowing football, Mikel did a fantastic job in keeping the opposition in check. When the team is short of confidence, Mikel, occupying the central midfield appears to be slowing down the attack and being less useful. I think Mikel has been playing the same way all the time. It’s the form of the players around him that seem to generate different feelings about how much Mikel contributes to Chelsea.

Ramires is more attacking minded while the only thing on Mikel’s mind is defence. When Chelsea is winning home and away with 6-0 scores, you need a player like Mikel to sit back while the whole team is gone attacking in the other half. When Chelsea is struggling to create chances and badly wants to score goals and win matches, undoubtedly Ramires would be of better value. In his initial few weeks, Ramires was losing possession easily and was putting pressure on our defence. Sadly, Mikel is no different now.

The role of the defensive midfielder is unique because they tend to have so many touches and time on the ball in dangerous areas, they can’t afford to be error prone. They might be attacked anywhere, from any of the 360 degrees. In comparison to Mikel who is a little bit suspect now, Ramires seems to be settling down with the premier league style. Now he seems to use his body better to shield the ball and he seems to have learnt what works in this league to keep the ball. If you notice him now, you’ll see that he’s learnt the two phase method of keeping the ball (just like Essien) – (a) shield it using the body, first priority is to negotiate this oncoming opponent (b) dribble the ball to safety and kick on from there. Only that Ramires seems to dribble and pass better than Essien. I’m impressed with Ramires’ range of passing. And he’s got pace. He’s very ideal for the side midfielder role in Chelsea. Hoping that he gets a start.

I think we should see Lampard in full flow against Aston Villa. Coming back from a very long break, he’s done well without really getting to top gear. He showed his class quite a few times by making some brilliant passes. He passing is unpredictable and with this quality he can surprise the opposition. I’m very confident that he will have a great game on Sunday and he will just show all of us how to find Drogba. In just a few matches, you’ll see Drogba and Malouda scoring goals and finding themselves in fine form. It’s easy to not to notice that Lampard plays a big role in the performance of our forwards, but he is our midfield maestro.

Anelka will be back after his one match absence. He was sorely missed especially because he was replaced by Kalou. Anelka has that technique and also pace that allows him to play both the hold up play or the swift counterattack. Kalou lacking in both, is still unsure of his position and strength, after so much time at Chelsea. He’s lacks precision to be a striker, he lacks pace to be a winger, he lacks the intelligence to be an attacking midfielder and he lacks passing accuracy and range to be a midfielder. So what’s he? Probably, he could be a decent support striker behind Drogba. But we’ve been playing him in the wing which helps neither us nor him. Anyway, I’d welcome Anelka back into the playing eleven. Even Anelka is no winger but at least his physical and technical abilities come to his rescue.

Team selection wise, we should have no worries. It’s December and that means we need to be playing more matches than usual. Arsenal ‘rested’ their ‘young buns’ and paid the price. If players in their early 20s earning more than 50k per week can’t play 3 matches in a week, I don’t know what to say. I don’t think Chelsea would ever do that. We take the league much more seriously and our players demand more from themselves to win for the club. Try telling Drogba, Lampard, Essien, Ashley Cole etc that they are rested for the next match and watch their reaction. Rotating players to maintain their focus and energy is one thing but to make wholesale resting programmes is another. Happy that Chelsea won’t do such a thing.

Once again this season, the fixture list and arrangements come to our rescue. Happy that we’re not playing Man Utd at this stage and equally happy that we’re playing Aston Villa this weekend followed by Wolves, Blackburn and Bolton again. This January is the perfect period to resume normal service. It’s absolutely possible to notch 12 out 12 from these four matches. During this very period, Man Utd play West Brom, Stoke city, Tottenham, Birmingham and Blackpool. For some reason, I don’t see Man Utd getting 15 out of this 15. And Arsenal play Birmingham, Man City, West Ham and Wigan. While we gather 12 points in January, I’m looking for two favourable non-Chelsea results – Man City to beat Arsenal and Tottenham to beat Man Utd.

Much has been said about Chelsea’s confidence or the lack of it. Our morale is back – that’s what goals and wins can do for you. But I don’t think that our confidence levels are sky high yet. Don’t worry though, we don’t need a psychologist. We need a hypnotist. And what this hypnotist will do, is to hypnotise these Chelsea players at kick off to make them believe that it’s half time and that they are trailing by a goal. And then, you’d see the best first half performance by Chelsea in about 2 months. That would be one way to go for a big win. Worth trying I’d say :)

It’s a new year starting tomorrow. This can’t come at a better time for Chelsea. This indeed should signify a new beginning for Chelsea. 2010 was a great year but it could ended in a better way. But you know what we ended 2010 with a very important win. Let’s start the new year with a bang. The worst is over. Hope this year brings us a lot of trophies, successes, very good players, developed young players on the pitch and stability and sanity off the pitch. Wish you all a happy, peaceful, prosperous, exciting and fantastic year ahead! Cheers!

It was ugly. It was tense.

And it was three points.

After a month and a half, Chelsea’s winless streak is finally over. In a tough match against a gritty Bolton Wanderers, Chelsea found 15 minutes of magic, 15 minutes that might save their entire season.

Because as Chelsea gained three points, Arsenal dropped two to Wigan and Manchester United let two slip to Birmingham City. And suddenly the gap to the top is just 4 points (albeit ManU have a game in hand.)

There was nothing in the first half to suggest that Chelsea were capable of changing their fortunes. It was grim. The errant passing continued. A lot of the attack came down the left side but Ashley Cole and Florent Malouda, best friends forever two months ago, looked like complete strangers. They couldn’t read each other or make the vital connection to break through. Essien, playing centrally, struggled to distribute. Drogba’s touch was as off as it’s been since his malaria attack.

Bolton’s big front men, Davies and Elmander, gave Ivanovic and Terry fits. Bolton looked by far the likelier team to score.

But there were promising signs. Lampard still can’t run the game. But he, at least, could find the open man and do so quickly. The much-maligned Ramires, freed from his defensive role, showed pace and penetration and awareness. There’s something there for the future.

The first half was discouraging. But a different team came out of that tunnel for the second half. For 15 magical minutes Chelsea found their game. The passing was quicker and more penetrating. They attacked Bolton’s high line with sharp forward passes and strong runs.

First Lampard made a visionary diagonal pass to tear apart Bolton’s defense and free Drogba, who hit the post.

Moments later Bosingwa battled for the ball, got it to Essien who fought off two fouls in a forward surge before knocking it on for a sprinting Drogba, who slid a lovely pass across the box to the wide-open Malouda. Offside? Maybe. Maybe not. But a goal. A badly needed goal.

The fluency didn’t last much longer. The game turned ugly again. But Chelsea’s defence held firm. And in fits and starts, with lovely touches again from Lampard and strong runs by Ashley Cole and Ramires, there was a suggestion of the future form Chelsea need to find to in order have a successful second half.

They’re not there. Not yet. But they’re a lot closer than they were, both in points and in style.

Here’s how much Chelsea’s world has changed since they last won a Premier League match.

Their five point lead has turned into a 7 point deficit. They’re in fifth place, behind Spurs.

And with a win Wednesday’s opponent, Bolton, would leap over Chelsea in the standings.

Bolton!

A loss would put Chelsea sixth in the table. Luiz Felipe Scolari got the sack when a Champion’s League place was in danger.

So now that it’s in danger again, it makes sense to think that Ancelotti might get canned.

But there’s a difference. Scolari had a good squad that was under-performing. Important players were disgruntled. He wasn’t getting the best out of the players. And he never won anything.

Ancelotti has won the double. The players still seem to be playing for him. It’s hard to say that he’s playing the wrong tactics, given his previous success in the Premier League.

It seems obvious that the problem is a thin squad that suddenly, before our very eyes, got too old to keep up. And Carlo apparently has next to no control over who’s on the squad. The board does.

So there are significant differences between Ancelotti and fired managers Scolari, Ranieri and Avram Grant.

Roman Abramovich has a quick trigger finger. But if the problem isn’t the manager, and he surely knows that, will he sack the man? It wouldn’t surprise me to see him keep Ancelotti around for a while longer.

The good news for Wednesday is that Bolton, already a small squad, are further weakened by injury, compassion leave and the Asian Cup. They’ll reportedly fail to fill their bench.

For the Blues, Anelka will miss a second consecutive match with a knee injury. (A lot of our commenters here thought Ancelotti dropped him for Kalou against Arsenal, but actually it was an injury issue.) And one wonders whether Lampard will have the fitness to play a second match in three days.

I don’t think anyone looked a the fixture list in August and saw Bolton at Chelsea as a big match. But it certainly has become one, hasn’t it?

We heard it a million times – this is the best time to play Chelsea. The champions are totally out of sorts, out of confidence and are in a form that could even see them being out of manager. This is the time to play Chelsea, absolutely. We are in the worst form of the decade and we don’t look to improve anytime soon. Before this season, teams used to fear playing a defeated Chelsea because of the backlash. Chelsea used to come back like a wounded animal and make the next opponent pay for their past opponent. Nobody wanted to mess with us when we were in a bad mood. Sadly this season, there’s not been a backlash or a reaction for many weeks now. Looks like we have gone out to choose bad fate and have also surrendered to it.
 
In the match yesterday, Chelsea chose to turn up just for the last 30 mins but even then they didn’t have many ideas of how to find the net. The whole of the first half was criminally wasted. We were void of ideas when it came to attacks. We always knew how to play Arsenal. Their strengths and weaknesses haven’t changed for many many seasons now. It is our strengths and weaknesses that have changed and that means a different result than the usual ones. We didn’t press them enough, we didn’t close them down enough, we weren’t decisive enough on the ball, we weren’t committed at all to win this match.
 
You can hardly fault the team selection. Okay, Kalou offers better as a sub than as a starter. Replacing Anelka with Kalou slowed down our attacks. Anyway, this team was stronger than the Arsenal team and should have beaten them. Arsenal are error prone in defence and in midfield and in attack. All that we had to do was to hassle them in such a way that they do their regulation blunders and we capitalise on them. It’s simple as hell. This time though, our lack of confidence almost looked like too much respect for Arsenal. We didn’t force them to commit mistakes. Instead, even our midfield sat back and allowed them to have the ball. Granted, that’s always part of our tactics against Arsenal to let them have the ball while we score the goals but ur midfield always caused them problems. This time though, our midfield wasn’t really controlling the game. Mikel wasn’t special. Essien was invisible. Lampard marked his players well and tracked back as well.
 
Our attack was totally ineffective. There was no purpose or decisiveness in offence at all. I hardly saw FlappyHandski and I don’t think he had to make a save. It’s a shame that we didn’t even bother a shite keeper like Flappy. The Chelsea I know would have totally exploited this weakness and bombarded him. But I hardly saw him. I don’t remember us making a decent attacking move. Lampard made some intelligent moves and passes but neither Kalou nor Malouda were able to get the best out of those. The big questions are: (a) who’s at fault (b) what happens now (c) how do we get out of this.
 
Not sure whose fault it is but I wouldn’t put it on Wilkins’ sack. It is a great coincidence but to put Chelsea’s worst form in the decade to Wilkins’ removal is truly flattering him and his contribution. Look, when Jose Mourinho got the sack, we didn’t do this badly. When Steve Clarke moved on, we didn’t play this poor. So, was Ray Wilkins offering more than what JM and SC did? As I said, it could have been one of the reasons or just a pure coincidence that we should have this run of form after he left – it’s between this or that.
 
The point we should remember is, we have a world class squad with a world class manager and we’re the defending champions and we have no unsettled player in the squad. So there can’t be any excuses outside of this squad or the management.  I’ve always maintained that the buck always stops with the manager. Carlo’s job is to exactly make this world class players into champions again. What comes between these players and becoming champions again is the bad form, poor tactics etc. So, this is a challenge for none other than Carlo Ancelotti. There are times when we play well but still lose or draw. You can empathise with the manager and the team in those instances. These days though, we are very poor. It felt terrible to watch this match – no ideas in attack, shackled in midfield and nervous in defence – this is not the Chelsea we want to see given the quality of the squad.
 
Carlo should turn this around. If he doesn’t win against Bolton, I won’t be surprised if he gets the sack. I may not welcome it but I won’t be surprised. Let’s be honest, this run of form would get him sacked even if he was managing a lesser team. When Sam Allardyce can be sacked by Blackburn, Carlo should better watch his back. He is in ripe sackable form unless he miraculously turns things around.

If I were him, I’d have Chelsea go gung-ho on Bolton. Risk and return go together. We’ve not been taking any risks at all and that’s a key reason why the goals have stopped coming. Let’s step on the pitch with an strong desire to devastate Bolton. This is a risky approach but what have we exactly got with the conservative approach in the last few weeks? I say we attack them from the word ‘go’. Let’s just lose the fear of losing. Let’s forget about the result. Let’s think only about scoring goals. The results will follow. If we score a couple of goals in the first half, see how this midfield and defence will play like true champions. It’s just a matter of confidence and we need goals, and loads of them, to get our confidence back.

Right now, we are a sorry fifth in the table which is light years away the early season claims that Chelsea would run away with the title. Yes, we are fifth in the table after the results today. Consider this: If Bolton beat us tomorrow, they would be ahead of Chelsea in the league table! Absolutely no excuses boys! Just go and destroy the wanderers. The Chelsea winning streak should start tomorrow night!

I’m still struggling to understand how Chelsea lost 40 million pounds last year.

Because in that perplexing financial report lie the seeds to Monday’s failure against the Arsenal. And perhaps the seeds to a slump that could last for several seasons.

It’s the lack of money that made the so-so Ramires Ancelotti’s top sub. It’s the lack of money that made 19 year-old Gael Kakuta his second sub. It’s the lack of money that made a still-slow Bosingwa, who hasn’t recovered his pace since a serious knee injury, his third ineffective sub.

In fact, it’s the general aging of the squad and an alarming lack of pace that dictated the one-sided score-line at the Emirates.

Sleepy play on defense by Essien, Cole and Malouda contributed mightily, of course. But even without those gifted goals, Arsenal always looked like the more dangerous team. It’s not that they dominated possession. You expect that. It’s that Chelsea’s breakaway game never seemed to have teeth. They couldn’t capitalize on the space you can count on having against Arsenal.

I hate to harp on it, but the slow players vastly outnumbered the swift ones in Chelsea’s lineup. Only Kalou, in for the injured Anelka, and Ashley Cole have true pace. Malouda’s lost a step and so has Drogba.

And so Chelsea now lie in fourth place, 6 points behind Manchester United and just a single point ahead of Spurs for the final Champions League spot. Worse, United’s 6 point lead is likely to be a 9 point lead after their postponed trip to Blackpool. You can’t blame people for saying that in losing to Arsenal, Chelsea have also lost their EPL season.

So where do we look for anything positive out of this dismal result?

Well, it’s a topy-turvy Premier League that’s down on talent. There’s no reason why Arsenal or Manchester United couldn’t have a bad patch themselves. Lampard wasn’t bad and can be expected to get better. I remain convinced that malaria is weakening Drogba and that he has better games left in him.

So it may be too early to write-off Chelsea’s campaign. With half a season left to play, there’s plenty of drama left. We hope. But then I look at that 40 million pound deficit, incurred without the expense of a big name transfer (just 18 million for Zhirkov) and I worry that UEFA’s Fair Play means the money’s no longer there to fix this squad.

At least we only have a day to wait for Wednesday’s home game to Bolton. Maybe then we can finally savour three points, the first since the 10th of November.