It’s good to win. Some of the recent defeats have knocked our morale and confidence so much that any win feels good. Feels so good. After the recent defeats against Inter and Citeh, we had to beat Stoke to show that our season is not crumbling. This was a quarterfinal and this was against a team that had already despatched Arsenal and Citeh. But I wouldn’t call this a great performance or even a performance that gave me confidence. We were clearly superior and helped ourselves by finishing a couple of chances. Certainly, we displayed a sense of clarity in all parts of the pitch.

Hilario managed to strike a goal kick beyond half way line. He made a good save at the near post. His goal was not disturbed even after numerous Delap throws. He was not confidence personified but compared to his performance in the last home game, he has improved 200%. Alex was pretty good, made some crucial blocks and some smart tackles but I don’t think he was truly tested. Nobody in the Stoke team had enough pace to bother Alex. I was very very impressed with Ferreira’s performance. You can say he wasn’t tested too but I thought he was very good in defence as well as offence.

Ivanovic is a real ‘Mr.Dependable’. I’ve become such a fan of this guy that I’d get a No.2 jersey. He’s a perfect Chelsea player – determined, passionate, has great attitude and more importantly, he gives you this sense of assurance. I love him. Do we realise that he has an awesome throw, that could be second only to Delap. May be he should work on it consciously and make that a potent weapon for Chelsea. The highlight of the match was John Terry’s goal celebration. I thought that was a cracking one. If he had spotted Capello anywhere near, he could have thrown the armband on the Italian’s face. It would have been nice drama, right?

I’m struggling how to assess Anelka’s performance. On one side, he played really well – worked hard, held the ball well, created chances for himself and others but on the other side, he should have got a hattrick. He should get better. We’ve got 10 matches left in the premier league. He should get back in scoring form pretty soon. It’s been some time since Drogba’s scored some of his kind of goals. Kalou was decent. It’s just that his goalmouth awareness doesn’t seem to improve.

Malouda was at his consistent best but it appeared that Malouda did not want to score a goal. He was clearly feeding to Drogba, Anelka and Lampard but didn’t get into scoring positions himself. It was a relief to seem him in the midfield instead of defence. Our midfield of Lampard, Mikel and Malouda was very assured. Mikel was flawless and that goal line clearance (and how responsibly he got there in the first place) was very crucial. Lampard’s back on scoring form. He should have had at least one more.

The Citeh result was very painful. I wanted that result to be the positive turnaround. Before that, I wanted to know how the players felt about the result. Surely, they’re not going to talk too much about it. But here I have a comment that I was looking for, from none other than John Terry:

I thought we played well, bounced back from a disappointing result and performance last week. We needed to show the fans how much that defeat [to Manchester City] hurt.

Our FA Cup semi final would be at Wembley (not at Villa Park as I had incorrectly mentioned before – thanks!) and hopefully we’ll get past Villa in April. We play West Ham at the Bridge next weekend. Three points is what we need. The key is to not even think about the Inter match. Let’s hammer the hammers. KTBFFH!

Is this the worst game for us at Stamford Bridge considering the circumstances? Surely there was a build up to this defeat. The off-pitch problems and their effect on the pitch, the injuries, the continuous poor-team-selections, the insuficient bench, the ineffective subs and I can go on. Just 10 more matches to go. The lead is just 1 point. The morale is certainly down after the defeats against Inter and now Man City.

This is where Ancelotti comes in. This is where he earns his multi-million contract. To have Chelsea fight for the title is difficult task. Any manager can achieve that. In the next 10 matches, Ancelotti needs to prove what he is made of. I know you feel like ranting forever. Use this space. I’ll be back with my views after I’ve calmed down. Keep the faith!

We played poorly. There’s no two ways about it. We might have had the possession and the shots but still we were very lacklustre. We weren’t sharp at all. As a team we were always slower by about half a second. I don’t know why. Apart from a couple of efforts from Drogba, we did little to trouble the Inter defence and the goalie. With this kind of performance, I think a 2-1 result at the San Siro is a good result. At least you have an away goal.

Team selection was a headache as both Ashley Cole and Zhirkov were unavailable. Ferreira not having been registered for the champions league squad didn’t help. I would have played Belletti on the right back and Ivanovic as the left back. By having Malouda play as the left back, our left side of the defence was weaker and also we missed Malouda’s utility upfront. As far as I remember, Inter were always trying to play on our left side, in order to exploit Malouda’s defence. Though their goals came from the right side, they did spend a lot of their possession on our left side. Malouda, credit to him, did decently well in that position.

John Terry played a blinder the day after the news of his affair broke out. He even scored the winner at an away stadium. Ever since he was sacked as the England captain, his form has gone downhill. He was lacking in confidence. Big time. He was shaky and let that pass on to the other defenders and the goalkeeper. For the first goal, he made it easy for Milito. I don’t want to take anything away from Milito. It was a striker’s finish. It was a superb goal. But Terry made it easier for him to take the shot. Meanwhile, Ivanovic was very good. He was one of the few Chelsea players who would get anything past a 6/10 in my books.

We played our 4-3-2-1 with Anelka and Kalou playing behind Drogba. Anelka has been out of form ever since Drogba returned. Kalou is not dependable at the big stage. Even tonight, Anelka and Kalou not being up to the mark hurt us badly. You have an in-form Drogba who just begs for service while Anelka and Kalou just not living up to the expectations. It was the same story in the midfield too. You have a Mikel who was simply fantastic and you had a Lampard and Ballack who were substitute candidates by half time.

We must have certainly had a penalty closer to half time. Kalou was very clearly fouled and we were denied a 10/10 penalty. Kalou could have forced a save by then but anyway he did well enough to ‘almost’ earn a penalty. Our goal was silly one. Ivanovic made a great run but the shot from Kalou is nothing but a cutomary pop at the goalie, which adds one to the ’shots on target’ column but bothers none. Cesar should have saved it rather easily but why would not welcome an away goal! Petr Cech limping away from the pitch was a bit worrisome. I really hope that he’d return for the weekend match.

I think Ancelotti took little too much to time to get his sub in. By the hour mark, you had so many players who deserved to be subbed – Anelka, Kalou, Lampard, Ballack – but still he brought in Sturrdige only with about 10 minutes to go. I wasnt sure what he was expecting. Any Chelsea fan watching the match must have been screaming for substitution, right from the half time. We had to somehow get the ball to Drogba. We just could not do that because that’s what Inter were very good at. They did allow us to connect to Drogba that easily. With Malouda playing in defence, if Inter could switch off Drogba, they have taken much of the goal threat from Chelsea. Inter did it just well enough. TSO’s experience and knowledge was pretty evident there.

The match is evenly poised. Chelsea at Stamford Bridge is stronger than Inter at San Siro. It’s perfectly possible for Chelsea to get a 1-0 or 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge. A lot will depend on Inter’s tactics. A lot will depend on what result TSO wants in the next leg. If he doesn’t want a win or a goal, we could have a tough night. It’s not so bad, this result. We’ve got a very important away goal and it’s not often we concede at home. So chill out and gear for the weekend match against Man City! If you’re looking for good news, Adebayor just got a straight red! As for me, I’m already elated. You know why? The darling of India, my hero, Sachin Tendulkar made history by scoring a double century in an ODI! It’s been a great day ruined only by my other hero, Jose Mourinho. Anyway, as they say with any two legged matches, it’s only half time and fortunately for us, we’d play the second half at home!

That’s a near perfect weekend. For once, I saw Man Utd slip in the race and Chelsea taking advantage of the same. I love the Man Utd result thoroughly. Look at the scene – Rooney in the form of his life, Man Utd are trailing the leaders by just one point, Everton have just beaten Chelsea, Everton are missing Cahill, Arteta and Fellaini and the match is at Goodison Park. It was a cracker of a match with a fantastic result from a Chelsea point of view. Man Utd were hit not just by the result, also by their shabby performance. Their performance so poor that it must raise doubts in the minds of fans, players and the manager on their title credentials this year. But they have a group of strong individuals so I’d never take them lightly. But certainly, this is an important day of this season. Just 11 matches to go and both Man Utd and Chelsea have some high-profile encounters still left in the run.

Chelsea’s performance was just enough for the 2-0 result. With the important champions league match up mid-week, I expected Chelsea to come up only with a performance good enough to get three points. That’s exactly what they did. The scoreline doesn’t tell you how many chances Wolves had and how close they were to lead or equalise. When Petr Cech produces a man of the match performance against Wolves, we certainly haven’t had our best performance as a team. Anyway, we’ve been playing too many matches in quick succession plus we’ve been going through some bad press plus we have to play Jose’ Inter in the mid-week. These are good enough reasons to produce a not-so-flashy performance.

Why talk about performance when you have only 11 games to go? All that matters is the result, from now on. Next weekend, we are playing Man City, And, Carlos Tevez could be back by that time. Yes, Man Utd lost to Everton but that means nothing much. I see this season’s title race going down the wire. I truly mean it. Our penultimate match of the season is at Anfield. That shows much each of these 11 matches are important. Next up is Inter. You know what, I think we would get past them rather easily. Not underestimating them. I can’t, because they have a top team and a top manager. But ’something tells me’ that we’re cruising past them. Let’s hope so.

I know you’re wondering why the blog is not updated despite having two volunteers. Just found out that they are as slack as I am To write an article is much more difficult than most of you think. Until you start writing yourself, it’s hard to realise why it must be such a big deal. While a comment can even be a random observation, an article has to be more wholesome, should be more complete and relevant. It does take time unless you’re terribly pissed off which can make you write an article even in 20 minutes.

Moreover, there could a million reasons for not updating the blog – might have had a hard day’s work, might have to take my wife and kid out, might have to go to my in-laws, might have to spend some personal time, the internet may not have been working, etc. A good question would be how did I manage to update the blog so regularly before and what has changed now? Well I was doing it at the cost of something – most importantly sleep, personal time, family time etc. You see the difference because I want to balance my time across a few things – of which the blog is one. So I fully understand if Karma or Tanmay is not able to post as frequently as they thought. Easy on them, easy on us. Let’s move on.

Let’s start with a quick coverage of the mid-week champions league games. Milan vs Man Utd was a lovely game of football. That was a match Milan must have closed within 30 minutes. Man Utd shouldn’t even have had a sniff of victory in that match. Sadly, a magical rebound from Scholes upset Milan as they conceded the dreaded away goal. Rooney continued his fine form but the ease with which he scored his brace must be a sad sight for any Milan fan. Milan still had it in them to draw or even win in the final 15 minutes but couldn’t finish when mattered.

East Timor, Tonga, Micronesia, Palau, Sao Tome and Prinicipe, Marshall Islands, Kiribati – what’s common among these countries? Their GDP of last year is lower than what Real Madrid spent on transfers last summer. If you see the backdrop of this season’s finals being in Santiago Bernabeu and Real Madrid’s desperation to win the champions league at home, their away defeat to Lyon is big news. Real Madrid have more ammunition that they need to turn things around but they’re under pressure and in these situations, a stroke of bad luck can knock you out. And that would be a tragedy for them!

I must say Arsenal are the most entertaining team in Europe. I mean, come on, tell me which other team ‘entertains’ you so much, makes you laugh so much and bring tears of joy in your eyes? Arsenal continued to play unintelligent football as they were beaten by Porto. Everytime, in knockout rounds, they get the easiest of draws and still make heavy weather of it. They could have got Inter, Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid and who did they get – Porto. As Fibreglass found out only this week, they were making schoolboy errors. I’ve been seeing them do this for seasons now.

What did we say about Tom Hennings Ovrebo? What did we say? We said he is either incompetent or corrupt or both. We proved it with photo and video evidence. What were we told? We were told not to find an excuse. The whole world saw that Chelsea were robbed of a place in the champions league finals. Hardly any sympathy for us because it was Barcelona who made it to the finals at our expense. We only got further punished with bans and suspensions. To say it in the style of Godfather’s classic opening scene – “Tom Hennings Ovrebo walked free . . that . . very . . day”. UEFA drafted him back in, in the same tournament where he screwed up, again in a knock out round and unsurprisingly he’s done that again. It’s impossible to get that decision wrong. Granted he wasn’t helped by the assistant referees but if he can’t this offside from where he was, the only excuse he could give is that he is blind.

Now, Fiorentina is not the same as Milan, Inter or Juventus. But what does the Italian FA do? They question UEFA. They challenge them. They put pressure on UEFA. They object and also make their objection loud and clear about standards of UEFA referees. They stand up for a club of their association. It is the president of the Italian FA that’s questioning the refereeing standards in UEFA champions league. When Chelsea were robbed last season, what did English FA do? Nothing. While Italian FA can stand up for Fiorentina, can’t the English FA do the same for Chelsea FC? Would they have done it if it was Liverpool or Man Utd? Sacking captains for sleeping around is all right but I hope they also learn how to protect the clubs that are members of its association.

Staying with the topic of sleeping around, Ancelotti and Ron Gourlay, the chief executive of Chelsea FC, have addressed the players about the importance of protecting the image of the club. In simple terms, they must have said ‘behave yourself’. A timely intervention I’d say. Sometimes, even the obvious will have to be spoken about. Not sure if JT was part of the meeting. Anyways, JT is back for this match after a short leave to fix up things at home. We would not have Lampard, Alex, Deco and Belletti for this match. Same’s the case with medium-timers Bosingwa, Essien and Ashley Cole. That means Terry and Carvalho as centre backs, Ivanovic as the right back and Zhirkov as the left back. Mikel would play probably alongside Ballack, Joe Cole and Matic (well, this part is just wishful thinking).

Anelka has been off colour since Drogba returned. I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or there is some science behind. Anelka has been really poor to be honest but he’s trying really hard which is why I’d not go harsh on him. But on current form, if Carletto picks Sturridge instead of Anelka, I’d not be worried at all. Drogba is in top form and I’m rooting for him to beat Rooney for the golden boot.

Wolves away is by no means an easy game but that’s a game we must win. When you look at the fixtures for this weekend, you see Everton vs Man Utd, Arsenal vs Sunderland and Man City vs Liverpool. This could turn out to be a dream weekend for us with Everton, Sunderland and Liverpool winning (see how times have changed! In Rafa we trust!). Here’s hoping for a 2-0 win for Chelsea, and heavy defeats, destruction, relegation and bankruptcy for our rivals.

You saw it coming, didn’t you? A night of premier league fixtures involving Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal could have been lot different and better. What we saw a horrible night of football, with us losing while Man Utd gaining a point and Liverpool letting Arsenal win. I couldn’t watch the Chelsea match as it was not telecast live. I did see the goals though.

Until yesterday I thought that the 3-3 draw at Stamford Bridge against Everton was our worst performance of the season (worse than the 3-1 defeat to Wigan). This defeat could just surpass that especially considering the time at which this has come. While I cannot make a comment about how we played I can tell you this much that John Terry was at fault for both goals. The first one, he allowed Saha to get forward and place a powerful header. The second one was terrible. At the edge of the box, Terry mistimed a jump while Saha collected the ball and punished us. He is always a thorn, Louis Saha. He is such a quality striker when he is on his feet. I remember this goal that he scored against us at Old Trafford. That was a gem. He’s come back to help his ex-club.

So where does this leave us? We’re just one point clear of Man Utd and 6 points clear of Arsenal. Basically the luxury of points is gone and so is the game-on-hand. So from now on the result of every match counts. There is no lead in points that we can afford to drop. This league has been very unpredictable and the trend continues. Fergie must be thinking that he missed a great opportunity but well Carletto must be thinking the same.

It could have been lot better but we are where we are. One thing’s for sure. Leading the table doesn’t matter any more. The teams are so close that positions of the table can keep changing in the next 12 matches. Let’s hope that we go on winning run. That’s all I can say at this moment.

The date is 24th of April 2010. Chelsea have just won the premier league title in front of their home fans by beating Stoke City 4-0. Elsewhere, Manchester City have dismantled Arsenal at the Emigrants Stadium with a 3-1 scoreline. The Sky reporter asks the Arsenal manager, whose team is 15 points behind league winners Chelsea: “Arsene, where does this leave you now?”. Arsene responds, “Well, we need to keep the faith. We showed good spirit and mentality. We dominated the possession and we were only lacking a bit of sharpness. But we keep improving which is good. Chelsea can still drop points between now and the end of the season. So you never know”. Sky reporter finally responds, “Wake up, you stupid c***”.

For me, there’s nothing better in football than seeing Chelsea thump Arsenal. That’s right on top. That’s the summit. Any manager who does that for Chelsea and any player who guides us to do that gets my respect. People wonder why I hate Arsenal so much. I must say I find it strange when I see people who don’t despise them. They are pretenders. They are show ponies. Yet they (manager, players & fans) think that they are the Gods of football and the others are just rugby tacklers with no skill. And they sometimes very openly belittle the other teams. See what Wenger said about Aston Villa last month and every team that he couldn’t beat.

I was impressed with Ancelotti’s team selection. In fact, he had picked the very same eleven that I wanted him to pick. No place for Deco or Joe Cole in the first team. Ballack was important to break down their attacks while someone like Mikel is always pure gold against Arsenal. I was hoping that we play 4-3-3 but we played our diamond. Arshavin again played in the striker role, even after saying ‘if Arsenal want to be champions, how can they select me as the striker’. Meanwhile the once-natural striker Theo ‘Treadmill’ Walcott was in the wing. Anyway, I no longer fear Arshavin. Of late, he’s been shite. He’s lost his heart. He’s upset and feels hopeless. All this shows in his football. I was hoping that Clichy starts as I knew that’s where we’ll get our goals.

Chelsea going 2-0 up by half time was not a surprising thing for those who have been following premier league. As soon as we went ahead, I thought we’ll smash them with another couple of goals. But we didn’t. Instead we chose to let them have the ball. The key is ‘we chose’ to let them have the ball. We let them have the ball so we can exploit their fatal defensive weakness which would surely surface a few times in a span of 90 minutes. And especially after going up 2-0 against a city rival, why would play in any other way? Arsene Wenger said in his post match interview that they (Arsenal) were the better team on the pitch. That’s being either a complete idiot or a cunning politician. The fact is, Chelsea never had to get beyond their first gear while Arsenal where throwing everything at us. Chelsea didn’t have to try too hard to beat Arsenal.

The smile on John Terry’s face is back. His header to assist Drogba for the first goal was brilliant. And Drogba’s movement to get into that position was also class. And what can I say about the second goal. Arshavin lost the ball and was simply watching Lampard run with it. Frank ran for about 40 yards completely uninterrupted or unchecked. When Lampard gave it to Drogba on the right wing, I was expecting Drogba to cross it in. Such was Drogba’s confidence, against Arsenal defence in particular, he feinted and dummied his way in and blasted one to the near post to send me crazy. Did you notice that as the ball was travelling in, Almunia had closed his eyes! It’s a shame that Drogba couldn’t get his hattrick. He was a bit unfortunate with the free kick hitting the bar while Almunia had written it off with no effort. Look, if it’s not already, it is official now – Arsenal are Drogba’s bitch.

Ashley Cole was so close to scoring a goal against his ex-club. Lampard and Anelka also missed some opportunities. I thought Anelka was not sharp enough for the occasion and must have been subbed much earlier. As we always do with Arsenal, we bossed the midfield. We dictated the pace of the game and what happened on the pitch. I was particularly impressed with Lampard’s effort. Always fighting for the ball and always putting pressure on the opposition. Arsenal also had a few chances but our defence was mostly perfect and if they let anything in, Petr Cech was there like a rock. The left-handed save that he made to prevent a Bendtner shot was top class anticipation. Ivanovic did leave his zone unattended a few times but Arsenal could not really exploit that space.

The performance by John Obi Mikel today is something the no-longer-young, over-rated, over-paid chicks at Arsenal should take note of. Mikel joined us with a reputation. He had his teenager moments of his career but he has worked hard. He wasn’t thrown at the premier league and champions league just to prove a point. He was instead made to work hard for his spot in the team. His only ticket to the first team was consistent performance. In a team that had Makelele and has players like Essien, Lampard and Ballack, he knew that he had to be really really good to make it. I must I was so so pleased with his performance today. This is exactly how you ‘develop’ a player.

The spot light was on John Terry today too. This was his first match at home since the Vanessa story broke out and the first game since he was removed from England captaincy. How did he do? Bloody great! He was at his as always. Last season he had a patch were Carvalho and Alex were above him on merit. This season he is well and truly back. For me, one of the greatest sights in football is John Terry launching himself horizontally like a rocket, to make a clearance. I saw that today too.

No one can say this man is going through a personally traumatic period. A round of applause to the home crowd that supported him all through the match and nice of him to recognise that by giving his shirt. We expect Terry to be able to play as well as he has, irrespective of what’s going on with him. That’s because of what he is. We are a team of top professionals. We’ve seen Chelsea players play on top of their game like they had no personal lives, even through the tough times.

Okay, trivia question time. At the end of the match which manager said this: “I am completely happy with the performance and the spirit”. I’m sure you’ll get the wrong answer. The answer is Arsene Wenger. After the match, very predictably, Wenger said they dominated the game and all that nonsense. All I can say is he is lying. He is lying to himself and also to the Arsenal fans. Who would in their right mind say that Arsenal dominated Chelsea today? Here is Carlo Ancelotti’s ‘fantastic’ response to the comments from short-sighted Arsene Wenger.

Maybe Arsenal had more possession than us but this is not football, football is attack and defence as well as keeping possession when you need to, and results also. We deserved to win because you when you are two goals up it is important to do counter-attack and we did fantastic counter attack. It was an unbelievable second goal – fantastic movement, fantastic passing and fantastic shooting by Didier. This is football. We did fantastic defensive work because when it is 2-0 and you go to score more it is normal to have to defend. We did fantastic work together for 90 minutes and it was a very good performance. Sometimes you have to show attacking play and sometimes you have to defend.

Half a dozen ‘fantastics’ in one paragraph is a bit too much. Someone should help him with magnificent, superb, amazing, stupendous, scintillating, mind-blowing, astounding, astonishing etc. Hope he gets to use these for the rest of the season. If I were Carlo I’d have said that ‘We didn’t even have to get off our first gear. It turned out to be an easy match’. Let’s remember that Arsenal were gearing up for a reaction since they were thumped by Man Utd last week while we had to play an away game mid-week. Wenger is the worst loser in football. He loses so often but hasn’t learned how to be honest and graceful at defeat. Ignore his comments and let’s hail Carlo. He gets a 10/10 in my books for team selection, tactics, substitution and his fantastic response to Wenger.

So, we’re back on top. Only today, only now, I realise that there are only 13 games to go. I mean, we’re getting so close to the finish line, aren’t we? Out of this 13 matches, we have Everton (A), Man City (H), Aston Villa (H), Man Utd (A), Tottenham (A) and Liverpool (A). That’s six toughies plus the relegation battlers’ last round of fights. We just need to keep winning – 13 wins would do. Good news is, Man Utd have a similar run-in. With the kind of form we’re in, we’re certainly allowed to turn our hopes into expectations. For now, enjoy the win!

By the way, did you send that text message out: “yo alex, we’d been ‘battered’, just as you wanted . . .”

This could not have come at a better time. Yes I know we just dropped points against Hull, I also know Wenger’s side might muster some motivation after their ManUre mauling(although this I find highly improbable), I also know they are getting Bendtner back (again I dont know how to react at this, maybe he’ll stop another one of Fabregas’s goals).

To counter all of those Arsenal positives(ahem) we have a certain Ivorian who haunts Wenger and His School Academy the most. Oh yes Didier Drogba is back and he is back with a bang. Even though he didnt do much in the last match except for the bang, Iam sure Arsenal is definitely the team he wants to be playing against to get back his form. He hates Arsenal, He hates them more than I do, and thats saying quite a lot.

We almost have out full squad to chose from – Essien,Belleti and Bosingwa. I havent missed Bosingwa one bit as long as Ivanovic has been there. Belleti played pretty well in the hole and with Essien gone he would have been my first choice. Hey but wait Mikel is back! Upfront I want to see Drognelka again. No I dont believe that Sturridge should be starting in Anelka’s place. Atleast not against Arsenal. A 65th minute substitution would be sweet. I like BC have been harping this thing all season long that the thing that seperates us from the other teams the most is our bench strength.

We have world class reserve players for every position. Look at this Zhirkov-Ashley Cole(LB), Ivanovic-Bosingwa-Belleti(RB), Terry-Carvalho-Alex-Ivanovic(CB),Essien-Mikel-Belleti(CDM),Ballack-Lampard-Deco-Malouda-Joe Cole(R/L/CM),Drogba-Anelka-Sturridge(CF)..This too is after ignoring wonderful youngsters like Kakuta, Borini, Matic. So Basically what I mean to say is that Carlo will never like Wenger have to say that “Ze Inzuries to ze playerz cozt uz ze match..”. Even if they would I think Carlo is mature enough not to cry like Whinger..

Ok now moving on to the Gooners. Like BC even I think that the only man who we need to fear in the Arsenal line-up is Arshavin. That guy (despite having Wenger as his manager) is class. But of late even he hasnt been at his best. And with him not there I dont really fear anyone else. Fabregas? Well he’s normally been just Gas in previous encounters. Essien wonderfully shut him out of the game last time. We dont have Essien but then lets not forget Bendtner has come back for a reason. Vermaelen(ignore sp) they’re hot goalscorer would I guess be more worried about not turning Ashley’s crosses into his own net. Gallas? Ok lets keep this blog post clean.

And while Wenger has sold his poor man’s Drogba he seems to have found a poor man’s Essien in Song. He’s not worrying me much either.Actually nothing is. How can I be worried? The only proper forward Arsenal had was Van Persie and he’s injured. Eduardo has never been the same. Walcott is struggling. They depend on Arshavin for their goals and he’s not even a natural forward. Arsenal are by no means contenders for any silverware this season. Iam supremely confident that this match belongs to us. Wenger will after this match realise that he’ll be out of contention for any glory this season as well. Now please dont say he’s going to win the Champions League. And I dont think Arsenal will self destruct this season. WE will demolish them.

My Prediction 3-1 to Chelsea.

P.s- Iam not to be scathed if Arsenal fail to score that single goal as well.

Ok guys so that was my first post here. Quite obviously iam no BC. I dont think I’ll ever be able to put up an analysis like he does. But I have done what I could and yes even I do think I got it easy by having Arsenal in my first post.

**KTBFFH**

A great cheer from the Chelsea fans made me feel like it was a home game, kudos to the travelling fans!

The first 11 I was elated to see Didier back. Riccy over Alex was spot on after the latter’s sloppiness in the last match. But as much as I admire Zhirkov, I was very uncomfortable to see him for Ashley (may be Ashley’s sore ankle was nagging him), otherwise the first 11 was the best we could ever field this time!

My own little account of the observations of the match:These, in my opinion were mediocre performers:

Cech is still not decisive on leaving his goal line and his command over aerial balls needs to be improved!

Ivanovic, his defending was bit too risky and I was afraid that he would see his second yellow and wished he was substituted, but it didn’t happen and I was kept worrying. Nor did his marauding forward reap as many good crosses as we expect off him. However, he had one good shot on target!

Deco’s decision with passes was bit risky. His pass across our own D area to Riccy and a poor through ball to Drogba to name a few. Also he seemed quite lost on the ball and eventually lost possession at crucial times. His shot, at 36th minute was good, though. He was the best tackler of the night!

Ballack seemed clueless and couldn’t pick a team mate well with his passes. And his header on Ivanovic’s cross lacked angle;

Nico was surprisingly not at his best, he was worse than what he was against Burnley.

The opponent’s goal: When most of our players were trying to find their own clever self, we conceded a goal, a cheap one from the defenders’ point of view. I don’t know who is supposed to be marking Mouyokolo, but he had lots of space at his disposal. Was it Ballack or Riccy or Terry? I was really annoyed by the irksome Fagan who kept bothering Cech and ultimately forcing him into a very poor position. Neither Malouda could check Fagan properly, nor could Cech command his space well. After conceding the goal, I was expecting Chelsea to bounce back with brilliance and clever football and command the game, but we couldn’t really find the edge.

Our goal: Drogba didn’t have a good game and I should blame ACN for destroying his form. At some points he was non-existent, virtually. May be he was trying to get back to the CFC’s Drogba from being an Ivory Cost’s Drogba. ACN is a step down for anyone in the EPL! He wasted lots of chances but his goal was “a thing of beauty”, a sheer class!

The average performers:

Zhirkov played quite well but not as much as when he came from the bench, maybe he wasn’t comfortable with Ashley on the bench. Of course he had some telling crosses, but no one could finish it well;

Terry, despite being booed, had a good game and his command and communication with the team mates were at its usual best. His header on 56th minute was awesome and displayed a great neck muscle power to find the target. Terry’s chest balls are so perfect, he does it best;

Riccy had a decent game and his telepathic connection with our captain is simply priceless;

Malouda worked hard but sometimes he worked unnecessarily hard and turned the situation against himself! He turned well and took a great shot, but he could have done a lot more with the chances he got and lay assists for his team mates;

Lampsy was not his usual clever self, but he took few good shots. May be he took too little too many touches.

Drogba was the best player of the night. Despite playing far below his own par, was undoubtedly our best man on the field. His desire and determination was a good sign and it did spread positive energy around. He is also one of the best defenders during set pieces but he also denied what could have been a great Malouda goal. But I am happy that The Terminator is back with a BANG!

Substitutions:
Boss must bring in the substitutes according to the prevailing situation(s), he must inject pace from fresh legs. He seemed pretty dissatisfied with the way things were faring at the first half and even in the second half, but I think that he took bit too long to bring in Sturridge!

I had to wait till the 71st minute when he finally brings Joey on for Ballack. But what seemed like a great decision by our boss was almost futile when Joey proved equally ineffective like Ballack. Joey didn’t use his speed to good effect and he could actually have done a lot better.

Double substitution
Both were absolutely good, because Zhirkov and Nico weren’t contributing as much as they usually could. But I am definite that Sturridge should have been on earlier on. This lad works hard and bothers the opponents often; his work rate is very high. His hard work nearly paid off in the dying minutes of the game when he took a shot on a difficult ball but wastes the second chance which came immediately!
Ashley was better than Zhirkov and on 84th minute, he wasted a great opportunity, I was shouting SHOOOOOOT!

Referee:
At 41st minute, Nico is fouled but he manages to pass the ball and referee allowed advantage. Eventually Lampsy is tripped in the D area but surprisingly Mark Clattenburg, instead of awarding a penalty gives a free kick outside the D! How is this? I need a technical back up on my limited knowledge of the rules of the game. As far as I know, I think it should have been a penalty because the game was on after Nico suffered a foul. But what is the difference? For us, another great penalty by Lampsy or an awesome free kick by Drogba means the same, after all both will find the back of the net! May be Drogba’s race for the golden boot is a step nearer than Lampsy’s 20+ a season goals!

The reaction to the game and few hard lessons learnt: Nothing much magical happened in this game. I am sad that we missed a good chance to go 4 points clear off manure, but recollecting on the type of game we played (and Hull played) I am happy that we got to share the spoil of the match.

We sit at the top with 2 points and if we can repeat our feat at Fly Emirates this Sunday, things should be much easier thence! I don’t care much about opponents or our so called title challengers so long as we keep winning. If we focus on our strengths and develop on it then we are going to get dividends. But defending set pieces is one nagging weakness of ours and needs to be addressed immediately! One clear example, apart from the goal, was on minute 45+1: worryingly, our marking was very bad again. Main culprit was Ballack, he was sloppy but luckily escaped from being punished. I think we need to assure that the man one marks is marked well; Terry marked his man well during this free kick.

We must have a plan B, like Hull demanded with determined offence. Hull closed in very fast and it was to this tactic that we succumbed our own football;

We must improve on capitalising on the chances, we must finish well!

My MoTM is Drogba, it would have been Sturridge if he had more time to prove his worth!

I hope we train a lot and make sure that only the best performers will get into the first 11. I won’t be surprised to see Sturridge on for Nico against Arsenal! I am hopeful, or rather sure that we will keep these hard lessons at the back of our mind and display one lovely and fruitful game of football this Sunday.

Few points:

I wished Terry silenced the home fans like he did at Turf Moor because they were awfully wrong in booing him for nothing done to them.

Drogba’s goal celebration was so sweet, so touching. This man knows how to involve crowd and get them behind the team, he knows how to blend love with the game; he is fantastic!

Dear kindred spirits, please forgive me if i, like our Chelsea, came far below your expectations. I promise to improve and would like to make an excuse that this is my first post!

My blood is blue!

It’s gotta be John Terry right? Isn’t that why you love football! John Terry was the toast of every newspaper in the country for a couple of days. There are lot of articles and suggestions that he shouldn’t captain the England team. These are not easy times to play a football match. And to play an away match in a stadium like Turf Moor, especially you’e being booed for every touch, it’s definitely not easy. I must say I loved Terry’s response to bits. I was hoping that he scores and does that ‘finger on lips’ celebration. He did nothing of that sort. In fact, he didn’t do a proper celebration of the goal. He was visibly very angry, probably at the way things are going for him, off the pitch. He wasn’t even in the mood to smile. But he responded as emphatically as possible.

So Terry’s England captaincy is in doubt? Because he was allegedly going around with an ex-team mate’s girlfriend? No wonder England’s won zilch for 200 years. Why would his captaincy even become a point of discussion because of this? You have the whole media ganging up against him and you have people like these stupid Burnley fans booing him. Why would the media and people put so much pressure on England players and coaches and surprised to see them underperform. Probably when this section of media and general public stop being complete idiots, England would start doing better. When Tiger Woods was going through his, I had the same stance. That’s his personal life. Still he is one of the best golfers ever to play the game and let’s respect him for that. It’s not like Terry was the only man to have an extra-marital affairs in the whole of United Kingdom. There was a president who did @#$%^ in his office premises and stayed on to save the world. And John Terry can’t be the captain of England?

Now I don’t know it takes to be England captain. Does it have to be the Pope or Jesus Christ? See, he’s the best guy to captain England for this world cup. Anyone else is a compromise. I’m sure Capello knows that. John Terry is a huge personality and a superb captain and he just proved that today too. Today is the perfect day for John Terry to do what Alex did and let in a poor goal. Instead he comes in and bangs the winner in the closing stages in an away match. If Terry’s captaincy is taken away for this revelation, I’m going to be so upset that I’ll go around shooting innocent people on the road.

When Burnley equalised, I must say I had butterflies in my stomach. I started to evaluating the possible scenarios that could come up after the Arsenal vs Man Utd match. Chelsea’s response to Burnley’s goal was pretty strong. It was clear that the goal was coming. But until Terry scored the winner, I was a bit paranoid. Turf Moor was a place were both Man Utd and Arsenal had dropped points earlier this season. I thought Ancelotti made all the right moves in his substitutions. Except for the goal conceded, I don’t think Petr Cech was made to work too much. This was a tough away match and the significance of this result you’ll know tomorrow night.

I hope I’m not alone in this observation – our attacks are becoming quicker by the day. I’ve been observing this for some time but I wanted to confirm that there’s a clear trend in this direction. We seem to have a gained a yard of pace in all departments on the pitch. It is either because of the attacking intent or the tactics or even the fitness. It was more evident against Sunderland and Birmingham, it was in display even today. May be it is because we have Malouda and Joe Cole starting for us and both these players move quickly into positions and also constantly making runs. Our attacks being slow have cost us against lesser teams that pack their defence. Today we saw how a quick counterattack opened Burnley’s defence. It was a superb throw from Cech but I thought Joe Cole’s cross would be cleared. When Malouda clipped it in nicely, I knew Anelka wouldn’t miss those.

Also, since Ancelotti came in, I see a lot of both feet passing by the players. We are slowing improving our weak foot passing. Again, this is something that’s looks so obvious to me but you can confirm this for me. If you happen to see the replay of the match, just notice how many times and how well passes are being made with the weaker foot of the players. I think both the frequency and accuracy as increased. This has also contributed to the quickness and unpredictability of our attacks.

Overall, it was a great football weekend. It can certainly get better. I think I’d happily take a draw in the Arsenal vs Man Utd match tomorrow. But it’s clear that Man Utd is going to win especially when a straight-from-league-two defender faces in-form Wayne Rooney. On a serious not, I just want both Man Utd and Arsenal to lose while Rooney, Fletcher, Arshavin and Fabregas get sent off due to a classless brawl over the red cards for Vermaelen and Rio Ferdinand. I know you’re tired of me saying this, but I can’t help it. That’s truly what I want.