Chelsea 2014-15
So three games into the new season and so far - things look good. Top of the table clash on Saturday sees Chelsea welcome Swansea who occupy a surprisingly comfortable second place (theres always one team that gets off to a great start against all the odds). Chelsea have had 3 wins from 3 - can't ask anymore than that. But the new signings that Jose made over the summer all look like they're set to make a big impact season, although Luis and Zouma have yet to shine in a competitive match this season. But Costa and Fabregas have got off to a great start, while the returning Courtois has so far justified Jose's decision to uproot fan favourite Cech as the Chelsea number one. Personally I think that was the correct decision and reminds me of the similar dilemma Jose had exactly 10 years when he had the old-but-favoured number one Carlo Cudicini and the one for the future, a younger Petr Cech. He went with Cech then - he had to really. And now he's gone with the younger one again - an Courtois has been impressive. So has Costa - blimey! What a beast! Four goals in three games! A fantastic start! In fact looking at Chelsea's front line this season, Jose has definitely upgraded - from Ba, Torres and Eto' to Costa, Remy and the returning legend Drogba. Torres of course went on loan to Milan paving the way for Remy to join, the spaniard leaving Chelsea with a record of a goal every 4 games. Pretty poor to say the least. Considering Jose's constant bemoaning at our 'lack of a striker' last season, his intention to rectify this has definitely been reflected in the upgraded strike force. Lets also not forget Fabregas, some Chelsea fans were unsure about signing a former Arsenal and Barcelona legend, but in the first games Fabregas has provided 4 assists and is looking like the final piece of the puzzle. Somebody whose through balls and creativity can unlock defences in tight games, like the ones that cost us points last season. Overall, I'd say Chelsea did the best business in the transfer window, filling all the holes that were so gaping last year and basically only buying what they needed. Unlike Man Utd who neglected their creaky defence to sign seemingly every attacker under the sun. Or Arsenal who instead of signing a defender and defensive, went and signed the highly OVERRATED Danny Welbeck .... tut tut!
Our first game against Burnley live on Monday night football against promoted burnley could have been a banana skin, but turned out to be an efficient performance that caught everyones attention. We went 1-0 down early on but came storming back before the 35th minute without reply. Costa getting off the mark with a close range finish hardly any time after Arfield had scored for Burnley, and then a sublime goal by Schurrle, brilliantly assisted by Fabregas. The former Barca deftly sidefooting a cleverly disguised pass through the baffled Burnley defence putting the german through to score. Then a Fabregas corner set up Ivanovic to score. The second half filtered out as you'd expect under Mourinho as Chelsea took their foot off the gas. A home game against Leicester, a game Chelsea were expected to win at a canter, proved more difficult possibly out of complacency. From this game I only remember a fantastic one on one save by Courtois from Nugent with the score deadlocked at 0-0, followed by two late goals from Costa and Hazard. The next game though was..... seriously something else.
Everton 3 Chelsea 6. Absolutely ridiculous. Mourinho once said of a 5-4 win by Arsenal over Spurs was 'not a football result, but a hockey score'. He must have felt the same about this game. Entertaining enough but not good for my heart, really don't want too many games like this, would much rather boring 3-0 or 4-0 wins haha. 2-0 up after 3 minutes, Fabregas setting up Costa and (a slightly offside, oops) Invanovic set Chelsea on their way. Howard should have been given a red card for handling outside the area and, annoyingly, the media went way to soft on the incident. Had it been the other way round, they would have replayed the incident and been talking about it for ages. Then once Mirallas scored on half time it was 'game on' and the Howard handball was long forgotten. I had an annoying feeling we'd concede on half time for some reason, just like last seasons corresponding fixture. Don't know why I think things like that. Anyway, the game seemed to waiting to explode in the first 20 minutes of the second half and then all of a sudden, it did. A fine run and dribble by Hazard produced an own goal by Coleman, which produced a little dig from Costa (as they'd earlier had a run in), which then produced an angry reaction from Howard (forgetting he shouldn't have been on the pitch at all). Game a safe I thought. No - a couple of minutes later Naismith pulled one back. Game on again. Five minutes later, a fine shot by Matic in off the post gave Chelsea that comfortable two goal cushion again. Good game I thought. But two minutes later I literally screamed as Eto' glanced home a header just a few minutes after coming on as a sub. I knew Eto' would score against us, or rather against Mourinho following his 'old man' remark last year, but at this point I was just aghast at the crazy game before me - 4-3 now. Ridiculous. Even more ridiculous as Ramires (who admittedly I'd been criticising all game) scored a minute later - I screamed again but more delightfully this time. What the hell was going on?? It should have even been 5-4 as Courtois made a fine fingertip save onto the post from Mirallas. Unbelievable drama (and torture for my heart) came to an end as Costa, who opened the scoring int he first minute, finished the scoring in the final minute after a brilliant back - heel assist by Obi Mikel like a rabbit out of the hat, and a debut blunder by Besic who had only been on for Everton a few minutes. Lukaku, once of Chelsea's books had a quiet game. Through the world cup to this season he seems to justify Mourinho not rating him every time he has a quiet game.
This season I will try and do more frequent and fruitful blogs. In fact I will try and do one after the Swansea game, where the player of the month for August (Costa) take son the manager of the month, in Swansea's Gary Monk. Should be good!
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