Just doesn’t look good. It just doesn’t. See I can take defeats. Especially in away grounds such defeats do happen every now and then. The game today was just reminiscent of Carlo’s bad days. Players not caring enough, making silly errors, being too casual with their approach and not having that killer instinct and mentality to hit back. You can blame the players all you want but the buck stops with the manager. He is the man who said that he’s happy with the squad, he’s the one who chose to buy only a central defender in January and he’s the one who sends in the starting line-up and makes substitutions. More than everything, more often than not, the performance and attitude of the players reflects that of the manager or his abilities.

Make no mistake. AVB is now under tremendous pressure. Two more defeats and the showdown conversation could just be happening. I’m not going to talk too much about the game now. I’m too tired, mentally and physically, to write up an article with my match reactions. Our performance was lacklustre, disappointing and bordering on insulting for the Chelsea fans who turned up and tuned up to watch. We’re now on fourth position level on points and goal difference with the other team from London. I’m not sure if things are going to really improve. Our squad looks too thin despite being big. Just like Carlo, AVB is making the mistake of not getting the best from this squad. Sending Josh on loan, not buying attacking players but letting Anelka go and Kalou dumped and not using the likes of Bertrand, Lukaku and sending some more youngsters out on loan to Hamburg – AVB is not getting the best from this squad. Even the ones that are picked don’t seem to be too bothered. Click Here To Read The Full Article

Damn. Damn. Damn. This shouldn’t have ended this way. At 3-0 up, they had their tails behind their back and had no chance of coming back at the Bridge. No matter how much the media wants to call it a comeback, I wouldn’t call it so. It was not a ‘come-back’ by Man Utd, it was a ‘brought-back’ by Howard Webb. There’s no way Man Utd could have got anything in this match without the mercy of Howard Webb. As it always happens, they got lucky to the point of being scandalous. Back in Old Trafford, we dominated the game only to see two offside goals give them a big home lead. Now here, two non-penalties giving them the draw. They always get the loooooong rope from the referees. Actually, like with Barca, I’m tired of how they win with referee’s help. Same old.

Chelsea started with an attacking line-up. It showed that we were going to take the game to Man Utd and would be looking for nothing less than a win. I must say the quality of the game was disappointing. To call this a premier league classic only undermines premier league. Neither teams were able to make any meaningful attacks. Possession was lost very very cheaply. Not many clear cut chances. Horrible refereeing. The best moments of the game were Sturridge’s trickery for the first goal, Torres’ cross and Mata’s finish for the second goal, brilliant tackles by Ivanovic and Cahill and a very smart header from Hernandez.

Yet another game where Torres creates a beautiful goal rather than scoring one. He got one good chance which he fluffed by taking too many touches before losing the ball. His current confidence level is such that he needs to be 100% clear that his shot will make it, like he’s taking a penalty. He’s not in a frame of mind to take risks which one would do while in form. At least, his cross was one of the best we’ve seen from a Chelsea player this season. And Mata’s finish was sweet. Should be up there as one of the best Chelsea goals this season. Click Here To Read The Full Article

Summary – Draw. Points dropped. Couldn’t even score. On a weekend when the Manchester clubs play the North London clubs, the last thing you want to do is to drop points and we did just that. As pundits say whether it’s a point won or two points lost will be known on Sunday. Well, if you’re looking to win the title, any draw is points lost. Since we have lowered our sights to the likes for Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool, we could even draw a positive out of a draw with Norwich. Even if we see Manchester beating North London on Sunday, it still means we missed out on an opportunity to extend the gap.

This game also had a unique record of no fouls committed by either teams in the whole of first half. Not even one foul. That’s like FIFA 12. While this can be seen as a positive thing by some, I’d rather have some fouls committed by Chelsea and play in a way that would have the opposition commit some fouls. The way I see it, fouls are a result of an intent. If you make a number of successful tackles and commit no fouls, that I’m happy about. Lack of intent towards closing down and tackles can also result in fewer number of fouls. What’s special about this first half is that there were a number of successful tackles but either teams and still there were no fouls. Good show.

What went wrong? Same old probing with half decent efforts and bad finishing. Can’t help but think we should be creating lot more chances than we are managing to do now. We started with a 4-3-3 with Sturridge and Mata on either sides of Torres. I’m still of the opinion that we should play 4-2-3-1 and keep Sturridge on the bench and bring him on in the second half. 4-2-3-1 will allow Mata to move to the centre and have more of the ball. I know Sturridge deserves to start but he does tilt the balance of the starting eleven and hence we don’t get the best out of our starting eleven. Click Here To Read The Full Article

We still have a 100% win record in 2012. How cool is that? Three wins in three matches – Wolves, Portsmouth and now Sunderland – two of them in premier league. In just this short period, we saw teams like Spurs, Liverpool, Man City drop points. Only when we keep winning, we see how beatable other teams are and how often they could drop points. This month is a good one for us. Luckily, we have been blessed with some winnable match-ups. But that doesn’t mean we are winning any of this as easily as we should.

It’s only fair to say that we’ve been . . . lucky! Yup, luck had deserted us for a few months. In exactly those months, we chose to defend in methods unfamiliar and the result was a nervous hovering in the fourth spot. Looks like we have made some tweaks in our defending methods as we are dropping slightly deeper with the fullbacks not operating as full time wingers. And now, luck seems to be back. All these three wins this month could have ended in draws and we wouldn’t have been able to complain (yes, including the ‘massive’ 4-0 win).

See I’m quite convinced that 4-2-3-1 is the way to go. Let’s admit this – we don’t have one orthodox winger in our whole squad, not even one. And we should get Mata to get involved more and for that he should be playing in the middle behind Torres. This is one reason why I’m not quite missing Sturridge. With Sturridge in the team, we are forced to play a two striker formation or three-man forward, considering that Torres should start every match. So actually I’m quite pleased that Sturridge didn’t start

It’s no surprise that the goal was created by Mata and Torres – two of our four best players in recent times (Ramires & Sturridge being the other two). No one in Chelsea delivers dangerous crosses like Mata and crossing is not supposed to be Mata’s strong point. You’ll be surprised to know the proportion of Chelsea opportunities are created by Torres. We’d love to see him at the end of these opportunities and taking advantage of them but at least he’s been the creator for many of them.

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What a day! Chelsea win and Arsenal lose. Chelsea claw back to the fourth place. Can the Manchester teams lose again on the same matchday? If Gerrard-inspired Liverpool can beat Man City and Newcastle beat Man Utd at St. James’ Park, we could be just 8 points behind. We would be playing Man Utd in January and Man City would play Spurs this month. You know where I’m getting at right?

I liked the starting line-up today. We played a 4-2-3-1 with Torres as the lone striker with Ramires (right), Lampard (left) and Mata (centre) behind him. Meireles and Romeu were protecting the defence. I thought this is probably our best formation to get the best from Torres. With Mata moving to centre you could see him getting involved in more attacks than usual. Mata has been our best player this season and he needs get more of the ball and be the hub of all of our attacks. That’s best achieved when he plays in the centre.

The first half was probably more lively than the first halves from recent memory. We were opening up Wolves’ defence pretty regularly. Torres was very busy in the first and last 30 minutes of the match. It was in the middle 30 minutes he went a bit invisible. I must say that Torres’ contribution to the team was superb. His movement was always a problem for Wolves and he also occupies spaces with ease and makes himself available to receive passes. He created atleast 3-4 clear cut opportunities and also aided the goal.

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Didn’t this game have 1-1 written all over? I mean even before the game kicked off, there was a 1-1 looming all over West London. We are not a great December team. All season we fight to offset a bad December. We get some winnable matches and mostly home games but still struggle to take full points. Playing Fulham at home on Boxing Day, it had to be a 1-1. I even remember telling my mates the day before that this is gonna be a 1-1.

Either it’s our famous lack of urgency or poor balance in the team or bad finishing or just simply this being the month of December. Have we ever had a good December since our title winning seasons under Mourinho? We have always dropped silly points this month to make things difficult for ourselves. Why did I think that this could be a 1-1?

Lack of Urgency: This is big. I mean, this is BIG. This is also slowly becoming a bad habit. Football is a 90-minute game. For Chelsea, it’s a 30-min game that starts at the 60th minute. It’s just no good enough. You can’t go through your motions for an hour and throw everything in the last half hour and expect to come away with three points, at least not everytime. Fulham enjoyed too much possession, too much freedom and too less pressure – all thanks to Chelsea. Last week, this very Fulham team were demolished 5-0 at Craven Cottage. And here we are, at the Stmaford Bridge, treating them like they’ve just won the champions leauge.

If anything, this was the type of game where Chelsea could have played like they did in August and September. This was the game were we should have played a high line, pressured them into mistakes and choked them to a big defeat. We could have shown all the swagger and style along the way. That was always AVB’s plan A, wasn’t it? For this game though, we chose to revert to plan B – deeper defence, low pressure, allowing possession and wait for opportunities. Very wrong. This was the game where we should have gone and created our own opportunties from the word go. This was the game to remind the league how ruthless we are and how versatile our playing style can be. We chose the plan B and boy, didn’t Fulham take advantage of it?

Poor balance: When the team sheet was announced, I was quite pleased. I was happy that Torres was starting. I was also happy that Romeu is picked ahead of Mikel. It was a very good starting line-up. I was wrong. Lampard’s unfortunate ineffectiveness in the middle kind of ruined the whole balance. With Romeu being a holding midfielder, you don’t expect him to provide the killer balls through the middle. Meireles was not known for it either. And that’s where we want Lampard to come alive. See, Lampard’s role has changed over the seasons. He’s no longer expected to be the goal scoring midfielder that arrives late in the box. He’s now expected to run the midfield and create opportunities – to be a playmaker. Some might argue that he’d never be one. But then, that also shows how much more of him we can see here at Chelsea.

When Malouda came in for Lampard, it changed the game for better. The problem then was you had Malouda left flank and Sturridge on the right flank, Torres and Mata in the middle – all of them expecting distribution from Romeu and Meireles from the centre. They can’t do that while Ashley Cole and David Luiz are on attacking duty. But I must admit, the Malouda substitution was a good one indeed. He brought in a much needed steel and pace – things that this Chelsea team needs very badly. It’s just that we started suddenly throwing everything at Fulham instead of trying to break them down with smart moves. The smart moves are not going to be possible without the right balance in the team.

Couple of special mentions. I did miss Ramires. We needed his pace and doggedness. His absence was really felt. When you replace a pacy Ramires with a slow Lampard, it’s going to show up in the pace of our attacks and it bloody did. Torres had a good game despite again not having great service. He did brilliantly well to create a great chance but couldn’t score. But his assist under pressure was smart work. Also I thought David Luiz had a great game. I don’t think his style has changed one bit. He’s just become more focussed and a bit lucky probably. His defending was a treat to watch. His anticipation was top notch and I love when a Chelsea player dismisses his opponent with his physical play.

Our crosses aren’t great. We do score from crosses but we are scoring only half of how many we should be. With the quality of crosses, more often than not I hope that we work the ball through the middle and then ask myself ‘who’s gonna do that?’. Can Mata be that attacking midfielder in the middle who can give that much needed balance for the team. Think of this midfield – Romeu, Ramires and Mata. You’ll have Mata right behind Torres and also in front of the D for some decent long shots at the goal. So who’ll be on the left wing? Don’t know. That’s why we have the January transfer window. We can nick an orthodox left winger.

I was hoping for two wins out of two this week. Not to be. AVB has felt the heat already. You heard him say that Chelsea are out of the title race after this draw. He didn’t say what’s the revised target for the season. I’m sure we’d all take a top four finish quite happily. Come tomorrow we could drop out of the top four. For the first time in I don’t know how many seasons, we could finish outside of top four at the end of a calendar year. Not a great situation to be in. Very reminiscent of our ‘bad moment’ same time last year. Luckily for AVB, the press has been very kind to him. For the kind of form Chelsea are in, you would expect the press to start the rumour mongering about how dressing room troubles, the mutiny by senior players, the options for new managers, Roman’s secret meeting and what not. None of that is on the papers. Probably, if Man City weren’t this good this season, we’d have got some bad press. There’s two sides every damn thing.

One thing I’ll give AVB is that, he’s been trying a number of things – not everything has got him the success he wanted. But he’s not a ‘let me try the same thing and see if something different happens’ kind of manager. He’s prepared to make changes, he’s prepared to shake things a bit and he’s ready to gamble. I’m sure this Chelsea job has been a great experience for him. It’s here AVB will mature into a top league manager. Like I’ve always said, he’s made some really great decisions already. To name a few: (a) Buying Mata (b) Buying Romeu (c) Buying Meireles (d) Using Sturridge as a regular starter (e) Dropping Lampard to the bench (f) Dropping Malouda to the bench (g) Transfer listing Anelka. There are a few decisions that I did not personally like – (a) Not buying orthodox wingers (b) Not using Torres well enough (c) Not using Josh McE at all (d) Not developing alternatives for Ashley Cole and John Terry (e) Tactical disagreements – aggressive where he should conservative and vice versa. But he’s trying.

We have another game to get through this year. Home game against Aston Villa. Looks like a 0-0 written all over it. Please Chelsea, prove me wrong. Not with a 4-4 or something, with something like a 3-0. And then, we will see how the January transfer window can rejuvenate Chelsea. Hope we end the year on a high. KTBFFH!