Arsenal v Chelsea and Chelsea v Swansea

                                                 Arsenal v Chelsea and Chelsea v Swansea

Merry Christmas first and foremost! Now, here's a question. If your team have a very difficult fixture, like say an away game against the team that are currently top and/or your team are not playing particularly well, most will say "I'll take a draw" right? Well, does that viewpoint that a draw would be a good result still stand even your team goes 2-0 up and are pegged back to 2-2? Or if your team are 1-0 up and concede a last minute equaliser? Or if your team dominate the game, create loads of chances, miss them all and you draw 0-0? Teeny bit of a conundrum in terms of how you reflect isn't it?

Well that's how I felt on monday. OK, we didn't have LOADS of chances, but I felt we were by far the better team, which I was not expecting. I expected Arsenal to dominate us with possession and I expected our defensive frailties of late to rear their ugly head. Couldn't have been further from the truth.  Firstly, Jose's tactics appeared to be the Jose tactics of old. Cech, Ivanovic, Terry, Cahill, Dave (at left back again instead of Cole, presumably punished by Jose for turning up at the enemies xmas party the other week), Mikel, Lampard, Ramires, Willian, Hazard and Torres. Is that 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 I thought? Wouldn't surprise me if it was 4-3-3 with Ramires alongside Mikel and Lampard instead of supporting Torres. I suspected Jose might surprise everyone with a tactical change. Still no Mata though, 4 goals in 4 starts v Arsenal? Come on Jose..... Anyway, as the game started, it did look like 4-3-3 with Chelsea over-running the midfield, and over - run they did. It was all Chelsea. Not many chances mind, but Chelsea seemed the most likely to score. However, that has been our problem lately, being punished for being wasteful with our chances so I was still worried.

Ramires floats a head over the top after half an hour, then a few minutes later, undoubtedly the best chance of the game - Lampard smashes a volley against the crossbar. Great effort but it goes down as a missed chance for me as he was close enough to score. But it's the closest to a goal in the opening 35 minutes of what (from a neutral point of view at least, because it's rarely boring watching your own team) is shaping up to be a very boring game. Then the Library crowd of Arsenal liven up when Walcott goes down in the penalty area under a 'strikers challenge' by Willian. Is it a penalty or not? Well firstly, and I'm not being biased because if I think we have got lucky with a decision I will always say, I am not sure if it is. I'm not saying it wasn't, I'm saying I'm not sure. Walcott for me, went down very very very theatrically (and they say english players don't dive or go down theatrically) and the touch was very minimal. But I have seen them given, I've also seen them not give so I have no idea. (Sidenote: Not a fan of the pointless arguing between Neville and Carragher at half time on Monday night football, spent the whole half time review looking over and over again at the penalty shout and the John Obi Mikel tackle which wasn't a red card for me, leaving no time for analysis on the game itself. Poor.)

Right on half time, Willian had a chance that forced Szczsney into a comfortable save, but one could argue that Willan should have done better. The second half was more of the same, Chelsea creating half openings if you can call them that but no end product. A moment of comedy-ish livened the game up half way through the half when Ramires was down injured, Arsenal in possession, obviously it's down to the ref to stop the game, but Ramsey decided to boot the ball out of play much to the annoyance of his own fans and players, including Giroud who ran up to him to remonstrate. I couldn't help but laugh, even Lampard ran up to him to high five him while Mikel appluaded. But receiving abuse from your own fans for kicking the ball out while a player is injured? And people say we lack class ...

Arsenals best chance came 15 minutes from time when Giroud slicked a shot wide when put through (Cech may have had it covered anyway), and it then occurred to me that Arsenal had no shots on target up to that point! Would we get credit for that? Probably not. But they did have chance on target 5 minutes from time when Cech turned a Giroud shot over the bar. But overall, we were comfortable and it was refreshing to see. I think we should have won, we were just wasteful again and we playing for a point at the end, with Luiz coming on for Torres, bit negative that.

Anyway, onto boxing day, a permanent fixture in the football calendar. While over countries shut down over Christmas, the Premier league football Christmas fixture list os something of a tradition for fans. Especially the games on Boxing day. I though, have never seen us win on Boxing day I soon figured out after acquiring tickets for me and my brother to see Chelsea v Swansea. Boxing day 1995, we lost 2-1 at home to Wimbledon and Boxing day 1997 we were at home to Wimbledon again, drawing 1-1 and I got surprising and disgusted looks for using some very naughty language in the Family stand that day. Boxing 2006, 2-2 draw v Reading, notable for the comical Essien own goal at the end that day. Boxing day 2007, the epic 4-4 draw with Aston Villa, one of the craziest games I've been to. Boxing day 2011, 1-1 v Fulham, notable that day for me and my nephew's epic walk home from Stamford Bridge to our house due to TFL's ridiculous decision to close the tubes. Only took us an hour :-)

So if we didn't win today, I wouldn't go again to a Boxing day game, but records are there to be broken anyway I thought. We had decent seats, Shed lower 3rd row from the front. Several changes were made from the Arsenal game, Luiz, Cole, Eto', Mata and Oscar came in for Dave, Cahill, Torres, Willian and Lampard. We started well and put Swansea under some real pressure, thought Jordi Amat had a header that almost found the net for Swansea before a good 10 minute period followed where Chelsea could have scored 3 or 4. Hazard fired wide through on goal, he should have scored, then followed a series of successive corners that produced chances, a half volley by Terry that was tipped over and a head from the big man himself that was cleared off the line amongst the stand out chances. Then the break through on 31 minutes, Hazard, on fire (not literally) cut inside from the left and unleashed a right foot strike that flew under the keeper and into the net. He celebrated right in f ont of us, signalling to his missus probably, as me and my brother were sat not too far in front of that area where the players wives and families sit.

Swansea's best chances came after that when Jonjo Shelvey had a close range shot that was tipped over  by Cech, that didn't threaten much after that to be fair. The second half just illustrated why Chelsea need a striker badly, Eto' should have had a hat trick but wasted three good chances, the best was seconds into the second half when he fired a cross point blank at the keeper when it was easier to score. But synonymous with our season, we failed to find the second goal to kill the game off and the last 20 minutes, Swansea tried to punish with countless possession in and around our final third, but no chances created. I was expecting them to score to punish us, but it never came. We deserved the three points I thought, but our poor finishing is still evident for everyone to see. Liverpool on Sunday and I felt that gave a really good account of themselves at City later that evening when they should have at least got a draw - at least. I don't trust our defence against the buck-toothed rascal so I expect as to score a few to stand a chance, but we are not too confident there either...

One last thing - Ramires picking up a yellow card against Arsenal means he is suspended tomorrow. Lack of options then? Simple - just play Luiz in midfield. It will solve and clarify a lot of problems Jose ...

Chelsea v Crystal Palace and Sunderland v Chelsea league cup

                                  Chelsea v Crystal Palace and Sunderland v Chelsea league cup

Where to start with two stuttering performances? Well, obviously I'll start with the Palace game as that was first. A game against the bottom of the table Eagles was a good game to build up our goal difference, as with Liverpool and the buck toothed rascal banging them in, City scoring goals for fun (they hit six against Arsenal earlier that day), I thought this was a good chance to build that up. But then I looked at the team sheet and saw Torres was starting - my heart dropped....

Granted Chelsea are short on strikers that can score, but Ba has looked the better player, yet Jose doesn't seem to rate him. Saw Fernando starts again. There were also starts for Willian and Luiz. The game got off to a good start, with Willian and Torres combining to give us the lead. Willians shot cannoned back off the post and Torres rolled in the rebound. He showed great striker instinct at being the first to react (something a 50 million pound striker should always do to be fair but oh well). The lead didn't last though - there ever erratic David Luiz did one of his trademark charges from defence to get the ball, didn't get it, and Palace worked the ball to the left for Ward to cross for Chamakh (who would have been marked by Luiz had he been there) to sweep the ball home. Grrr. Anyway, Chelsea soon went back in front thanks to a fantastic strike from Ramires on the edge of the area - great goal.

Sadly, that was about as good as it got for Chelsea - the second half was very poor and even more worryingly, it is becoming a familiar sight. Palace missed attempt after attempt, the worst one Stuart O'Keefe had two close range attempts blocked in quick succession. Chelsea themselves had chances to wrap the game late, with Schurrle missing a one on one and Ramieres messing up when through on goal - my opinion of him is waning as he like Luiz, is becoming very erratic. Still second in the league though...

The Sunderland game, I cared about but also I don't. It's the league cup and we've got bigger fish to fry so a defeat wouldn't have bothered me too much. Obviously you want to see your team win every game though don't you? Several changes were made, the most notable was a return for Samuel Eto' up front. The game started exactly as I expected....boring. I was watching clips of the Ray Winstone film The War Zone on youtube it was that boring. The game livened up though when GOAL LINE TECHNOLOGY was used, to confirm Lampards close range side-footed effort had gone over the line. That really, should have been that. Chelsea were in control, created chances which was a more positive sign, just one problem though..... taking chances. For a striker who has done everything in the game as Samuel Eto' has done, there is one thing he seems to fail to do ....SHOOT. The number of times he got the ball and instead of shooting, just dilly dallied with it or passed.....lets just say I wasn't following him on Twitter by the end of the night.

One minute to go and of course, Chelsea were made to pay for their chances as ex-player Borini side footed home after a hideous goal mouth scramble. The hideous Chelsea defence rears its ugly head in time to mess the night up for Jose. I very much doubt he wanted extra time, although the same could be said for Poyet and Sunderland, they are fighting a relegation battle after all. Extra time was the opposite of the 90 minutes, Sunderland were all over us and fully got their reward with Ki scoring a deserved winner with minutes of extra time left.

So Chelsea are out, and the first trophy we won under Mourinho in is first spell will not be won this time, not this season anyway. Chelsea seem to be stuttering in his return, lack of fruitful signings in the summer, and surprising tactics and team selection - Twitter was awash with criticism from fans. Personally, I don't think you become a bad manager all of a sudden, so I trust in Jose (one could argue we are starting to feel a little bit of what it feels like to be an Arsenal fan, Wenger in, Wenger out lol). Are we even really doing that bad under Jose? Three points behind top, won our Champions league group finishing top and we go joint top if we win (cough cough) at Arsenal on Monday...

We aren't playing, yet still very much in the mix, imagine how well we'd be doing if we DID click all of a sudden?

Well, my next blog after THAT particular will tell you if I still feel that way .... haha.

Chelsea v Steaua Bucharest

                                                    Chelsea v Steaua Bucharest

The final group stage game for the Blues was a home game against bottom of the table Romanian out Steaua Bucharest. Having already qualified, the game was effectively a chance for Chelsea to win the group and nothing more; which following the two disappointing performances against Basle int he group stage this season (the home game of which I had the displeasure of going to) would have been a big achievement. Nowadays, I usually go to home games mainly with my brother, not really anyone else I know who shares the enthusiasm of going to games regularly. Although to be fair, it is a lot more expensive now than it other was (like most things). Gone are the days of getting tickets for £12, now you're lucky to get a ticket for £25, usually the price for some cup games, while champions league games mainly go for about £35, or at least in the champions league group stage they do (the latter stages go for much higher).

I was supposed to meet my brother in the Prince of Wales in West Brompton at about 6:30 pm but transport issues saw him arrive late. The Prince of Wales is a decent watering hole, not really where you for pre-game atmosphere. For that, you're best off in Brogans or The Bell amongst other pubs. It used to be The Shed bar before they turned that into a restaurant prompting outcries of "WHY???" from Chelsea fans everywhere (including me), most likely a result of the corporate family friendly image the hierarchy at Chelsea re trying to build. The So bar was the other big Fulham bar for pre-game atmosphere but that was probably closed down by the police as a result of the number of 'naughty' people misbehaving in there....anyway, my brother is late. So we make for lost time by downing a fair few pints. As you do. Closer to kick off, we have to make our way to the ground and the number of pints consumed seems to have caused us to take a wrong turn and we end up in front of an electrified gate next to Fulham Broadway station - which would have resulted in us having to go BACK if a couple who must lived in the nearby flats hadn't opened the gate for us.

Anyways - we still missed the opening (and in the end only) goal of the game..... :-( To be fair though, regardless of spending too much time in the pub beforehand, getting into Stamford Bridge nowadays is a nightmare, they used to have ticket checkers on the gates and nowadays they have machines, which just slows the whole process down and takes about 10 minutes longer to get in. I find this infuriating to be honest, a case of trying to make things simpler but actually making it harder to get in in time for kick off. So anyway, we finally get to the game 12 minutes in, and Ba is starting. Good. He deserves a start. He has actually bagged the goal as well, scrambling home a knocked down corner from close range I see on the big screen replay at half time.

With qualification in the bag already, the game is a game of few chances, with one good chance for Steaua after 15 minutes when Iancu fires wide when through on goal - but that is really all they threaten in the whole game. Chelsea are more lucklasture than anything, spending most of the time trying to keep possession  and thread the eye of the needle and look for the 'perfect pass', but failing to do so. In fact, most of the action seems to come from the fans in the Matthew Harding Lower, always the best place to sit for songs and atmosphere. Dan Petrescu is the half time player shown around the pitch at half time, a former nineties hero and hero of mine - I remember when he scored the winning game vrs Newcastle in 1995 when they were top of the league and deciding he was then my favourite player, along with the fact he looked like Mulder from The X Files haha. 'Super Dan Petrescu' is sung around the ground and it's a nice, nostalgic moment. Back to them game again and a recent trend, especially on european nights, is the psychological abuse the goalkeepers to endure from the lovely folk positioned behind him, every time a goal kick is taken, what follows is just an endless sea of manic psychotic screams from everyone in the stand behind, tormenting the poor keeper for several minutes afterwards. Such great comedy value if a little bit naughty haha.

The game itself fizzles out and the job is done, but a number of chelsea fans appear to grow discontented at the performance by the end of the game and it got me thinking - is that harsh? We've won, and topped the group and are through, complete contrast to a year when we won our final group game 6-1 but went out. However, the performance is not quite the best - should some fans be jeering?(and a small number were) Should we expect beautiful free flowing high scoring attacking football all the time? Personally I'm happy with a win, it's all we would have asked for 20 years ago after all, even if some of the standard of football is a little bit mechanical at times. But anyways - onwards and upwards! 

Stoke v Chelsea

                                              Stoke v Chelsea

This is going to be a short post I'm afraid, mainly because I didn't watch the game or the highlights extensively after learning the result. Saturday afternoon took me to the cinema to watch The Hunger Games: Catching fire (see my film blog for that), and as the showing started at 3:30pm, I checked my phone one final time before switching it off to see Schurrle had put us 1-0 up. good I thought. No disrespect to Stoke, but I thought they were a team that shouldn't be bothering us too much and without being too arrogant even quietly to myself, I thought we would win comfortably. However (and I swear this is what I thought to myself) if I turn my phone on after the film and find we've lost 3-2 or something stupid like that, I will be very annoyed...... well guess what happened?

I did end up watching the highlights, but didn't want to dwell too much out of annoyance and despondence. Good goal by Schurrle and then some truly shocking defending (from a corner AGAIN) that led to Crouch (Chelsea fan) scoring a close range goal. No one wanted to clear the ball it looked. 5 mins into the second half and my favourite non Chelsea materialist footballer, Ireland, scores a decent looking goal to put Stoke 2-1 up. Great. However Schurrle looks like he's dug us out of a hole with another very good long range strike on his left foot with 18 mins left. 2-2. All I know after that is that after what looked like a bit of  counter attack (I only saw brief highlights) Assaidi scored some ridiculous long range goal from the edge of the penalty area worthy of winning any match - fair play. I take my invisible hat off to you sir. But seriously - we lost to Stoke??

Why? Well, I have no idea, but I now realise our defence is playing a big part in our shortcomings this season. Firstly, it seems like our failure to sign a defender in the summer, as well as a decent holding midfielder is going to cost us. Mourinho clearly doesn't rate Bertrand (can't think) so keeps playing Dave (Azpillerquato-hingey) at left back when he's a right back in Coles absence. Ivanovic is a centre back playing at right back (he can put in a good shift there though) and Terry's best days are past him. Luiz is unreliable and while Cahil is ok, he seemed to be the one positive thing about our defence. Holding midfield, when Josh McEachran broke though, I thought he was the next Terry aka Chelsea hero in the making. Always put in a decent shift, but regrettably seems to have lost his way, and I'm not sure I blame subsequent Chelsea managers beyond Ancelotti for not rating him, I'm starting to feel like he wont make it at Chelsea. Going out with that Corrie bird is distracting him, and he doesn't seem on the ball (excuse the pun) as much anymore. So that leaves Mikel, who I personally don't rate (too erratic) and anyone else that gets played there i.e Ramires or Lampard is not holding midfield material. 

Well we need to sort it at the back or I fear this season will be something of an anti-climax in the midst of the special ones return (and I did fear this amongst the euphoria). But who better to sort the situation than the master himself?

In Jose we trust :-)

Sunderland v Chelsea

             

                           Sunderland v Chelsea 4/12/13

Finally found a site to watch the game on - only took me best part of half an hour. Score was 1-1 as I came into it, didn't sound like I'd missed much. Altidore had given Sunderland the lead after 14 mins, after a turn and shot in the penalty area. Could Chelsea have defended better? Probably, but the turn and shot was so quick I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Lampard equalised three minutes later with a close ranger header from Hazards cross, and then thats when I started watching it. Regarding the team selection, there wasn't too much I was disappointed with although I thought after his performance in the second half against Southampton, Ba warranted a start. But its the same old story isn't it? No matter how well the other strikers perform, the Chelsea manager (whoever it may be at the time) will still be under pressure to play Torres so Roman can claw back some of what he paid, depending on whether Torres will score - which will only happen if he gets more game time. So Torres starts again. Still unsure (at this point) about square pegs in round holes at the back ..... and didn't know how I'd feel about that at the end of the week. Anyway, back to this match. Lampard and Torres exchanged wayward shots either side of a Cech save from Altidore before something happened that really got me interested - a fine goal by Eden Hazard, who I'm sure just gets better all the time (he still young after all). After controlling a header by Torres, Hazard cut inside from the left and fired a low right foot shot from the edge of the penalty area left hand corner - good goal and with that Chelsea had a half time lead.

I pretty much expected us to kick on in the second half against a poor Sunderland team, managed of course by our former hero Gus Poyet. My memories of him are fond (if you ignore that 'celebration' when he got subbed against us playing for Spurs in a certain 5-1 league cup defeat!) and one particular memory of him came against Sunderland in fact - one of the best goals I've ever seen in a chelsea shirt by anyone, a fantastic scissor kick volley from a chipped Zola pass in a 4-0 opening day romp in the 1999-00 season. My family and I were watching that in a bar on holiday in Malta, which was a pleasant  surprise as we were not expecting to be able to watch the game with it being a 3pm Saturday kick off in England, then low and behold the bar across the road from the hotel were showing the game. So the second half (back to tonights game) kicks off and 5 mins in, signs to come of a poor defence start showing as John O'Shea, once of Man Utd, scores a soft equaliser. A low corner is failed to be cleared by a number of Chelsea players and O'Shea sweeps home a right foot shot - 2-2. But Chelsea push to go back in front, and spurn a great chance. I'll be honest, I could have killed Torres at this point. Ramires dispossessed Colbeck, and set up the on-fire Hazard for a shot, but is denied by the keeper who parries it straight to Torres. Eight yards out, keeper on the floor, easy to score right? Wrong. Torres blazes over, and well wide, not just a little bit over the bar. It is truly high and wide. Words fail me (again with him).

I didn't have to wait long thought for chelsea to re-claim the lead, and it was Hazard, having one of his best games for us, who fired us ahead again. After a skilful one-two with Lampard on the left hand side of the penalty area, who back heeled the ball to the belgian, Hazard whizzed past a couple of defenders to get in a shooting position and fired past Mannone - booked for taking off his shirt in celebration though (I hate that bloody rule).

Seemed like the game was going to fizzle out after that, Ba had a good chance with 10 mins left after he came on for Torres, firing wide when it looked like he might have had a penalty in the process for being clipped as he shot, not given though. Then with 5 mins left, the game was wrapped up (supposedly). A break away led to Ba supplying a low cross from the right that was turned into his own goal by Bardsley. 4-2 and a good game. But the drama was not over - Bardsley then turned from villain to almost hero, as he pulled one back for the Black cats (such an odd nickname) as he fired home from a corner after some more poor defending, making a hash of clearing a corner that should have been simple. Thatw as with 4 mins left - what followed was a frantic finale when Sunderland threatened an equaliser and I threatened to eat the neck-line of my pyjamas. But Chelsea held on to win 4-3, a game that was ridiculously more difficult than it should have been, and if my memory serves me correctly (I'll need to research this more thoroughly) our first 4-3 premier league win since 1998-99 season when we won an epic game 4-3 at our then-bogey team Blackburn.

Good drama but my goodness, should have been far less difficult in the end!