Chelsea Thread

[Matt]

I agree. Been a fun, open season. Anyone can beat anyone, and has. Better than being 20 points clear by now. But that's the Chelski mentality I suppose

Conversely of course, if Chelsea had of won it, Smurf would be saying it's the best season ever because of the comeback.

[EJG1980]

You can spin it any way you want really. I've heard people say that Barca and Real being so far clear in Spain proves that La Liga is a poor league, then in another conversation they'll say that all the closeness at the top of the Premier League proves it has got worse

[Matt]

You can spin it any way you want really. I've heard people say that Barca and Real being so far clear in Spain proves that La Liga is a poor league, then in another conversation they'll say that all the closeness at the top of the Premier League proves it has got worse

lol very true. I do think the quality of the top teams has dropped a bit (though United are in the CL final, so maybe I'm wrong), but as a League it's got better. At least it's more interesting when results aren't a formality.

[Prototype]

Yeah the league is open. Wolves most likely have a better record against the top four than they do against the bottom half of the table. Having beaten us, City and Chelsea.

[nakamura]

With 4 CL quarter finalists and a CL finalist, there is no way the league is weaker. Teams are seemingly reaslising that they don't need to fear the big guns.

[abigsmurf]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13331943.stm

Probably remains to be seen if he'll be sacked or not. 2nd certainly flatters us, at our worst we were far far worse than Spurs, Arsenal, Man City or Man U and we had a longer string of bad performances. It's just outside of those results it was steady wins.

Yesterday was another example of him getting it wrong. Starting out guns blazing is entirely the wrong way to visit Old Trafford and he chose to start Mikel (who he for some reason thinks isn't a total donkey) over Ramieres (who has been great). We had the best defence in the league and on paper we still should have. Why then have we never looked safe at all this season, no matter who's attacking?

We need to start replacing aging players. We need a good wide player, especially if we're to take advantage of Torres. We need another strong, attack minded midfielder, Mikel needs to go.

I'm not sure I trust Ancelotti to build the foundations of a squad that will see us into the next 4 or so seasons.

[Flabio]

I think there's a decent chance that Chelsea could have an Arsenal style 'transition season' next time around. Too many players close to the end of their best, it'll need the fans to be patient through an 'average' season or two before they pick it up again.

[Leon Retro]

Chelsea were playing great up until the new year - then everything went drastically downhill. I guess we lost 15-20 points because of that bad patch. It was like a car running out of fuel, then it took a while to refuel, but it was too late to win the race. The most surprising thing for me, was the fact that we came back strongly over the past couple of months. It always seemed like too much to expect to win the league though.

I think Ancelotti has made some bad decisions. He's a good manager, but is he tough and decisive enough? ... I wish Hiddink were 55 and up for the job, but that's not the case. My expectations for Chelsea are a bit lower now, but I still think we're a strong club that can once again win the league at some point.

Looking at the rumours, it looks like Marco van Basten might get the job, as Hiddink has supposedly recommended him.

[abigsmurf]

It was a combination of things I think, a crippled defence, Lampard having a big injury and Drogba getting Malaria coupled with Ray Wilkins suddenly leaving. I don't the shock of him leaving affected the players so much as his replacement being poor.

Ancelotti's weaknesses are two fold: he's slow to react. A half time substitution from him is rare, even when it's very clearly needed.

The other weakness is that he doesn't seem to be a good motivator, he just stands there in matches when other managers would be having frenzied conversations with the coach or shouting instructions to the players. I think this has been reflected in our constant poor starts, most obviously against Man U but also against lower table teams you wouldn't expect to come out attacking (although Ramieres' poor first 10 or so games for Chelsea and Mikel's general rubbishness hurt our midfield).

[abigsmurf]

A few rumours floating around.

Kaka's mother apparently tweeted they're moving to London. Although another midfield option is good... He's 29 and injury prone. I'd rather someone we could reasonably expect to get 5 seasons of fitness out of.

Another is that Zola is going to be signed on as 1st team coach. Could be good, I'd imagine he'd be perfect at understanding how to play Torres.

[hudson]

I'm convinced Abramovich plays loads of PES Master League and then brings his PS2 Memory Card into work and says "Dish iz whooze I wants".

It started with Schevchenko, a classic PES player, but by the time Chelsea bought him, he was so PES 2 (2002). Torres is so PES 2008, but here he's just 2000-and-late.

Kaka is so PES 6

[Prototype]

Chelsea were playing great up until the new year - then everything went drastically downhill. I guess we lost 15-20 points because of that bad patch. It was like a car running out of fuel, then it took a while to refuel, but it was too late to win the race. The most surprising thing for me, was the fact that we came back strongly over the past couple of months. It always seemed like too much to expect to win the league though.

I think Ancelotti has made some bad decisions. He's a good manager, but is he tough and decisive enough? ... I wish Hiddink were 55 and up for the job, but that's not the case. My expectations for Chelsea are a bit lower now, but I still think we're a strong club that can once again win the league at some point.

Looking at the rumours, it looks like Marco van Basten might get the job, as Hiddink has supposedly recommended him.

Chelsea were not playing great until the new year. They actually collapsed after their first defeat which was against Man City. They had their easy run like Fergie said at the start of the season. Only really after the Man Utd game at the bridge, they looked like going back to their old selves, apart from the champions league games.

And Van Basten? Didn't he do a terrible job at Ajax? And that was his only club job.

[abigsmurf]

Most of our worst dropped points have been against 'easy' teams, it wasn't that we were found out against big teams. We had to deal with Lampard, Benayoun, Drogba , Alex, Ivanovich all being injured or unfit for a very long stretch of this season. That's the core of the team gone, Wilkins going compounded this and we got into a slump we never really recovered from.

Anyhow, this game, great strong start, nice goal, Newcastle equalise from their first chance from an incredibly lucky deflection. People will moan about the Spurs game but Chelsea haven't been the luckiest this season.

[Kongster]

What a grand stand finish that was!

[abigsmurf]

Oh FFS. Newcastle offered nothing the second half and were timewasting from 70 minutes and they get an undeserved last minute equaliser from Chelsea falling asleep in defence. People going on about how exciting the league has been this year, how is that kind of thing exciting except from the "LOL Chelsea!!!111" point of view? Do we want that kind of negative football to become part and parcel of this league?

How many times have Chelsea completely turned off in defence this season at the start/end of a game or after a goal? Sorry, once, that's down to the players, when it keeps happening, it's down to the manager. If we fail to get second after if being handed to us on a silver platter, Ancelotti has got to go. Players have no idea when to give the ball to Torres and when they try, they pass it to an empty space about 6m from him, again, that's something that should be sorted out by the manager.