It’s been a good weekend so far. Arsenal have dropped points and Man Utd have dropped one more central defender from their list. The momentum is certainly with us. If we beat Man City tomorrow, the belief would certainly be back. This is one of the most unpredictable seasons in premier league. I’d even say that the champions of this season would be the most underwhelming of all the premier league champions.
When Jose Mourinho won the league title in our centenary year 04-05, he won it by an incredible 12 points. Of course he also set the English football history by amassing 95 points. In 05-06, he won it again and this time by a still-massive 8 points. In 06-07, Fergie won it by a healthy 6 points. In 07-08, Fergie won it again but this time only by 2 points. In 08-09, Fergie made a hattrick and was clear by 4 points. In 09-10, Carlo won it by 1 point. You see how the gap is being bridged and how the competition is catching up on us. This season, if we need to win it, it’s gotta be again by a single point or based on goal difference. But it’s possible.
No team, including Chelsea, is playing in a way that’s worthy of the ‘champions’ tag. And that’s something to take confidence from. We saw Arsenal drop points today with yet another comedy of errors. We saw Man Utd, leaving it so late and only capitalising on a goalkeeper gaffe to secure three very crucial points. We’ve said it a million times now – all that we need to do is to keep winning our matches and see what happens around us.
As it is with the matches at this stage of the season for teams doing catch-up, if we don’t win tomorrow, we might have to settle for a second or third place unless we can churn 9Ws. And we might have to turn a little pragmatic in terms of using our resources for champions league and premier league. As I called it earlier, the customary capitulation of Arsenal has begun already. If we too drop points tomorrow, Man Utd will end up winning the title with a match or two to spare.
Man City, on the other hand, might retain the title belief if they can beat us tomorrow. They have always given me butterflies ever since Carlos Tevez joined them. I don’t think we’ve beaten them to my satisfaction. In fact, we have lost the last three premier league meetings against Man City! So it’s 3-0 for Mancini over Carlo! A good win over Man City is long overdue. Some do think that our poor form was all started by the Man City defeat. Even though we beat Arsenal after this match, it was in the Man City match the cracks started appearing.
Both teams will have a near full-squad to choose from. That means Carlos Tevez and Mario Balotelli will be available. Will be curious to see what formation Mancini plays tomorrow. I guess he will play Tevez as the lone striker and bring Mario late on. Talking about Mario, you must watch this video. Hilarious.
In the last match, Drogba and Anelka just showed how two strikers should play in tandem. It was a very good demonstration of how a strike partnership should work. Carlo could even be tempted to leave Torres on the bench but that would be such a blunder given that he’s slowly getting himself under pressure. If we are playing a two striker formation, I’d go for Torres and Anelka, and would get Drogba for Anelka in the second half and leave Torres until final whistle.
Staying on the topic of strikers, Fabio Borini scored a brace today on is Swansea debut. I had the privilege to watch the second half of the match. The boy is quality. His movement is very clever and sharp. He is neither like Drogba nor like Anelka. Probably, he’s in the Torres mould. Or in his own words, he models himself after Inzaghi and it shows. In the 30 or 35 minutes I saw, he was always hugging the defensive line, always trying to stay onside while leaving his nose offside. He was unlucky not to get his hattrick when he found the side netting after a smart move.
What impressed me the most was this – Picture this. 19-year old Chelsea striker on loan to Swansea. Playing his debut and has got a brace. 4 minutes of stoppage time and it is the 4th minute. In the dying moments, at a time when you might hear the final whistle anytime, he’s got the sight of the goal inside the box. As the keeper advances, he could have gone for his hattrick. But the boy laid it off to Scott Sinclair who was in a better position to score. Scott Sinclair wasted the opportunity. But Fabio Borini’s mindset and composure was truly unselfish and impressive. I’ve started liking him. It’s a pity though that he could be on his way to Parma. If we can’t hold on to a Borini with an Italian manager, it will be sad. Irrelevant but interesting, Bojan Krkic, who’s six months older than Borini, has now had 100 appearances in a club like Barcelona. Enough said.
Coming back to the Man City match, I strongly feel that Torres will score his debut goal for Chelsea. If you’re with me on Twitter or Facebook, you might be aware. The big secret why Torres has not scored yet for us is, he is waiting to score his debut goal on his birthday. And am I not proud to say that I share my birthday with Fernando Torres! Now, go figure!




Tevez scares me.
I expect City to batten down the hatches. That seems to be their style, especially on the road.
Here’s a question on the test they give young American football players who aspire to a professional career.
What’s the answer?
:-)
“In printing an article of 48,000 words, a printer decides to use two sizes of type. Using the larger type, a printed page contains 1,800 words. Using smaller type, a page contains 2,400 words. The article is allotted 21 full pages in a magazine. How many pages must be in smaller type?”
i hope we win tomorrow! we need this win and i’m sure torres and drogba will score for us
WXWAX,
are we to attempt ur question :
1. mentally without even pencil and paper ?
2. with the assistance of above or more sophisticated means like a calculator ?
3. question the of the logic of the exercise by stating : “what’s this gotta do with football ?”
4. call the American football coaches sanity into question ?
WXWAX,
21?
I will not raise my hope too high, It will be perfect if we can secure 3 points and Torres score but the fact remains that only a point is sure. And Drogba needs to start and play better for us to have any chance of winning, I will also like Kalou to replace Zirkov as he can go pass defender easily and that will give us more free kick.
Go Blues!!!
I wish you a Happy Birthday BC, hope your wish of Torres scoring comes true.
Won for WXWAX and Josh McEachran against Man Utd
Won for BC and Fernando Torres against Man City
Great win.
Happy Birthday to BC and Fernando Torres ! Nice present !
KTBFFH !!
Finally we beat them,But it seems Man City is nothing without Tevez. Torres played well,He will score when none of us will expect it!!!!!!!
4 pages of small print, and 17 pages of big print. What do I win?
My big gift of the day was the 2 nil victory. I thought Sideshow Bob was enormous, Lamps is off form, Nando is very “trying” ( in all senses), and its a real advantage to have several options, with the guys accepting to start on the bench.
Its the key to modern football: with the intensity of the modern game IMHO if a player wants to last more than 5 years at the top he shouldn’t play more than 30 games a season ( plus internationals).