Chelsea Thread

[abigsmurf]

Pretty funny but for all the money and riches, that Chelsea side is pretty poor.

and yet (allowing for the game in hand) we're top of the league

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Buying a mediocre London based club £140M
Title winning 2004/5 squad £210M
STILL not winning the Champions League? PRICELESS

[merf]

I thought it was an interesting game as in effect Inter 'out-chelseaed' Chelsea, they did to them what they always do to Arsenal and just suffocated the life out of them.

Ironic that what they lacked last night was a bit of Arsenal fancy-dan ponceyness to break down such organised and determined opponents.

Don't think Chelsea can complain as other than a few mins at the end of the 1st half Inter were far the better team.

Hope Arsenal can avoid them in the draw

[abigsmurf]

It showed up our current weaknesses in the squad really.

Zhirkov isn't even half the player Ashley Cole is. If we had him playing and making runs down the left rather than forcing the ball right everytime, I think we would've made more chances.

Joe Cole is not good enough since he came back. He did zilch when he came on. Ballack isn't putting the work in.

I think we've no choice but to sign a couple of big players next season our squad is aging and we've players not pulling their weight. Hopefully next year will see Kakuta strong enough for regular first team football, he looks something special)

[merf]

it really did show weaknesses I agree, that high energy closing pressure game isn't really suited to a squad that's been described as ageing for a while now.

when you look at AC who were succesful with older players they didn't try to play that way all the time.

last night showed the lack of guile or trickery in the current line up, its still good enough to power past most prem teams but at the highest level as it has before, it always come up a little short.

be interesting to see how it goes as I was reading in 4-4-2 how Ancelloti has bought over the famous Milan lab doctors in an effort to extend the careers of the older players, can't see Roman having the patience for that though, we'll see if he has the liquid cash available for a splurge in summer but he's up against people with deeper pockets now at City.

[vanpeebles]

and yet (allowing for the game in hand) we're top of the league

True but the Premier League for all its entertainment and news is fairly poor outside of say the top 8 to 10.

[abigsmurf]

I think the manager got the tactics horribly wrong.

We were standing off a bit and not chasing loose balls. We played balls to players with three people surrounding them all too often. When you have a team marking that tightly you spread your own players out more so they're the ones doing all the running around.

We were playing so close together our own players were getting in each other's way.

That said, Ashley Cole and Essien being out has a biiiiiig impact on our squad as it changes the shape of our team.

For all the criticism we get about splashing the cash around, we haven't bought any quality first team players for something like 3 years now whereas Man U have been steadily buying doing big or important signings as required and Arsenal are constantly refreshing their squad.

Kakuta and Sturridge are really exciting prospects but they're both forwards.

We need cover for Ashley Cole and replacements for Ballack and Joe Cole (unless he really gets his act together).

[Malavon]

For all the criticism we get about splashing the cash around, we haven't bought any quality first team players for something like 3 years now whereas Man U have been steadily buying doing big or important signings as required and Arsenal are constantly refreshing their squad.

Don't get carried away, Arsenal's finances are very good. Arshavin and Vermaelen both cost less than what Toure and Adebayor sold for and if you look at the 2008 summer, Nasri was brought in for ?11m and Ramsey for ?5m, but Hleb was sold for ?12m. If Chamakh joins it will be for free. Granted, there were a couple of younger players bought recently aswell (can't think of the names and figures at the moment, but they certainly weren't over ?5 million each).

Grouping Arsenal with United, Chelsea and Man City is a bit of a stretch.

[abigsmurf]

Regardless of how much it cost and if there was a profit made, Arsenal still have refreshed their squad much more than Chelsea have. Aside from Anelka , we haven't really bought any players who are anything more than cover for existing players in the last few seasons.

On a side note, it's amusing/bemusing reading and hearing all these pundits talk about how wonderful Jose is. When he was managing Chelsea they took every chance they could to slag him off. His negative press was likely one of the reasons he got sacked. Just another example of how two faced our press is.

[Kongster]

Mourinho is quite character and not everyone's cup of tea but I've always had respect for him. The Premiership isn't quite the same without him.

[abigsmurf]

Because our week isn't bad enough!

Terry accidentally hit a security guard last night after his car was mobbed by paparazzi it seems. More stuff for the tabloids to latch onto.

This thing seems to be surprisingly common nowadays but it always seems to be the security guards who get hurt, not the scum that are paparazzi.

*edit*

Seems the guard only had minor bruising rather than a broken leg as it was first reported. Not a major story.

[Flabio]

The club are reporting it as brusing, the guard in question is a Chelsea employee. The police statement still says a broken leg.

Still, pretty much a non-story. It's not like Terry was road raging or anything, he was just pulling out of the place at about 1mph.

[nakamura]

Yeah lets hope the papers report it as nothing more than the accident it is.

[Flabio]

Yeah lets hope the papers report it as nothing more than the accident it is.

Hahahahahahahaaaa..

[abigsmurf]

Looked well in command first half. Hopefully Diouf hasn't given ivanovich a long injury.

1-0 is too narrow a lead though. With our luck we need to give ourselves some breathing room