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!