Quite a bit to catch up on since my last post so here goes...... following the draw v United there was the matter of Shrewsbury Town away in the league cup. Or as Eden Hazard mistakenly called them afterwards in a TV interview, 'Strawberry Town'. Haha.
This game had the makings of a cup classic. Away to a league two side, with Chelsea almost certain to rest key players, how would the millionaires of Kings road fair on a cold wet Wednesday night in Shrewsbury?
With Azpilecueta and Ivanovic suspended, a debut was handed to Andreas Christensen at right back. Starts were also given to Zouma and Nathan Ake. As I mentioned in my blog a few weeks ago, I feel it is time for Chelsea to promote some of the youngsters from their outstanding youth set up and tonight it looked a few had their chance to shine. The first half though was somewhat dull, with an aura of complacency settling in. Three minutes into the second half though and Chelsea captain for the night, the veteran Didier Drogba, continued his fine run of form with his third goal in three games to give us the lead. Schurrle and Salah (a fringe player also handed the chance to impress) combined to drop the ball in front of Drogba who clinically fired a left shot past the keeper. 1-0. Complacency though appeared to set in once again as the second half appeared to drift by with any meaningful action. Then on 77 minutes, Andy Managan, on as a substitute for Shrewsbury, turned in a flicked corner with his boot to level scores and send the Shrewsbury fans wild in celebration. At this point I was thinking 'Oh bloody hell, I can't be bothered with extra time, I just wanna watch American Horror Story'. Luckily the scores only stayed level for three minutes. Jose's response was to bring on two substitutes and one of those, Willian, sent in a fantastic cross that was unluckily turned into his own goal by Grandison. In the end, Chelsea spent the last few minutes winding down the clock, which must have delighted and encouraged Shrewsbury. So the millionaires of Kings Road can do it on a cold wednesday night .... just.
Next was a derby match against QPR, and myself and my brother went to this match. There was something of a stigma attached to this fixture now, with a few grudge matches attached to it. Mainly connected to the race row with Terry and Anton Ferdinand which managed to rumble on for as long as it did. Now you have Rio Ferdinand at QPR, although not playing today, his recent revelations in his autobiography presenting his side of the story and his less then kind words to the Chelsea captain, were sure to make this a hostile atmosphere. Well, not really that great an atmosphere, but we'll come back to that later ....
The game started well for Chelsea, in fact we were pretty dominant throughout the game, chances fell to Ivanovic, Cost and Fabregas but there was no break through until Oscar lit up Stamford Bridge with a sublime effort. Fabregas' pass found Oscar on the edge of the right hand side of the penalty area and the Brazilian used the outside of his right foot to bend the ball inside the far post beyond Greens reach. What a goal. In fact, Chelsea could have expanded on their lead, but second half chances from mainly Hazard and Filipe Luis were wasteful and then with probably their first attack of the match, typical QPR always somehow getting lucky against us, scored an equaliser. Courtois punched out a Vargas drive but Leroy Fer's cross-cum-shot found Chelsea fan Charlie Austin who back heeled the ball in. 1-1. Suddenly the QPR fans were noisy again after Oscar had silenced them. Drogba came to add attacking urgency, but it was a player we already had on the pitch who made the breakthrough again. Hazard was fouled in the area by Vargas, and the Belgian then dusted himself down, picked up the ball and with his tried and trusted albeit risque Mendieta style technique, side-footed home to put Chelsea back in front. I kept thinking 'one day that technique will come unstuck'. Little did I know I might not have to wait too long to find out how right I was ...
Anyway the game finished 2-1 and then after the match, a side note developed regarding the atmosphere. Where we were sitting, Matthew Harding Lower, the atmosphere was and seemed decent. It always seems better though around where you're sitting. The same probably can't be said for other parts of the stadium. Mourinho picked up on this in his post match interview and mentioned that he'd prefer the crowd to be louder and more lively, saying something along the lines of 'the crowd only woke up when the floodlights came on'. Now, for all the credit he deserves, this was probably a bit ill-judged from Mourinho. It rightly produced an angry reaction from the fans, many of whom spoke out about the contributing factors to this, including the ridiculous ticket prices which had priced many young fans out of the game (young fans being most likely to make noise), the fact stewards always tell fans to sit down(fans are less likely to sing sitting down), and the fact away fans take up half of the Shed end (many hardcore fans used to sit in this stand). A class act that did emerge from this though was a fan who protested these points to John Terry on Instagram, had the Chelsea skipper asking for his phone number to talk about these things further. Terry made it clear to the young fan that Mourinho had only done it to get a reaction from the fans to help the team in future matches, something I suspected personally, and made it clear that all the points made had been taken on board and would be relayed. Hopefully it will be a case of watch this space ...
The following game saw the return of Champions league action and a visit to Slovenia to face Maribor, the team Chelsea had thrashed 6-0 weeks earlier. Many including myself expected a similar result and thus I'm quite certain the game was in many a fans accumulator for the evening. Sadly, complacency was to set in and similar to the last two games, Chelsea looked like they were taking an age to wake up. The first meaningful action didn't come until the 51st minute when Ibraimi scored a fantastic curling effort with his left foot from the edge of the area past Cech to fire the home side in front. Up until that point they had looked the more livelier team. Ramires was then brought on for left back Filipe Luis (Costa and Oscar had been brought on at half time) so Chelsea were now going for it. They were extremely lucky not to go 2-0 down as Zahovic fire a low Viler cross over the bar of an open goal from just yards out. A major let off. From then on though, it was all Chelsea. Bombarding the Maribor goal like the alamo, they got their reward when Matic side footed home from close range as a John Terry header from a corner was on its way in, Matic just made absolute sure. After that it seemed to be a case of when Chelsea would score again, not if. Hazard had a one - on - one saved and Costa saw an effort tipped over. Then Viler, scorer of an own goal at Stamford Bridge, gave away a penalty and a chance for Chelsea to win it with five minutes to go. Up stepped Hazard with that tried and trusted technique, only this time the result was horrible as his tame effort was easily saved. The problem with that technique is that when it works, it looks brilliant, but when it doesn't it looks awful. So 1-1 it finished, with our destiny still in our hands.
Early on Saturday we faced Liverpool at Anfield, who themselves had rested seven key players against Real Madrid for our visit (they clearly thought we were bigger than Real Madrid!). An interesting change to the Chelsea starting line up was Ramires being added to the supporting three with Oscar and Hazard behind Costa. Azpilecueta returned to the line up following his suspension. Ramires I'll admit I am often critical of as I am not sure his likes behind back in midfield, and it showed as we fell behind on nine minutes as Ramires was found wanting in midfield, leaving all the space in the world for Can to pick up the ball 25 yards out, take his time and fire a shot that deflected off Cahill and into the net. Chelsea were not behind for long though - on 14 minutes a messy effort from a corner saw Cahill side foot a shot from close range that crossed the line before being scrambled away by Mignolet. Nothing happened then but goal line technology intervened and the referee gave the goal. Goal line technology clearly does work after all, Sepp. Anyway, Chelsea then fully took control, with Hazard twice having a shot cleared off the line and then Oscar seeing an effort saved before half time. The second half was no different, with Costa and Ramires going close before a superb cross by Azpilecueta was tipped away by Mignolet for Costa to lash home what would turn out to be the winning goal. Another important contribution from him. Chelsea got lucky near the end as Liverpool probably should have had a penalty near the end for a handball by Cahill (the second time in the game Cahill had had a handball penalty appeal against him, the first one though clearly not a penalty despite what Phil Neville's god-awful Match of the Day punditry suggested) but managed to hold on.
So top of the league, four points ahead of Southampton and six ahead of Man City who were held by QPR. Can Chelsea win the league? Many people at the moment seem so convinced that they will the question has become will they go unbeaten? Too early in the season to suggest for me, but then if you look at the six sides who made up the top seven last season with us, we have already faced four of them away - City, Liverpool, United and Everton with trips to Spurs and Arsenal still to come. Of course, anyone can beat anyone in this league but at the moment, based on form, the question of Chelsea remaining unbeaten is becoming more and more of a possibility every time one of these so called 'difficult' fixtures is out of the way. I personally don't think we will, at this day in age there are too many fixtures the more competitions you compete in. Also, the Arsenal 'invincibles' of 2004 arguably had it easier than we would have, as many of the teams they faced in that league have since perished from the league. So Chelsea doing an 'invincible' season this year would be harder but, if we were to do it, more of an achievement in my opinion.
We shall see....
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