Chelsea
Chelsea Going Nowhere Slowly
Aguero Scores
By Gary Watton
August 17 2015
It's been a truly awful week for Chelsea, following a totally underwhelming summer of pre-season mediocrity on the field and an absence of quality squad additions off the field. Then of course, the apparently special one, but not very clever one, shoots his mouth off about the naivety of the medical staff as if they were somehow to blame for Chelsea's average performance against Swansea. The tactic of distracting away from the team backfired spectacularly because all week the media just wanted to join Jose and focus on his medical staff, and his apparent treatment of the good Doctor Eva Carneiro.
Fittingly, at the end of the week, the nonsense spilled over onto the football field as a red-hot Manchester Mercenaries gave the champions the runaround. I wasn't the least bit surprised at this. Manchester Wannabes looked sharp against West Brom on Monday past, and they have clearly taken a leaf out of our book by hitting the ground running, as we did last August, and hoping to build momentum from an impressive start. The Jose is a Messiah brigade will all be stating keep calm, don't panic, in Jose we trust, et cetera et cetera. The truth is that the writing has been on the wall since about February. Chelsea had all but wrapped up the Premiership in the new year, as none of our challengers were landing a punch on us, but a series of low-scoring, mundane performances afflicted Chelsea until almost the end of last season's campaign. We failed to win at home to Burnley or Southampton, we stuttered past Hull, we failed to win at home to Liverpoo, or even score at Arsenil, and we only beat Crystal Palace after Hazard scored from the rebound of his missed penalty. There was much evidence that Chelsea's creativity was drying up, that we were over-reliant on Hazard, that Costa was becoming increasingly injury-prone.
No doubt Mourinho, the not so clever one, in his desperation, will make an inflated bid for Stones (is there a Plan B if Evercrap continue to defy us?). However, although five goals conceded in two matches is scarcely compelling evidence of a solid defence, we also need to boss midfield again, which did not happen in Manchester. We need another flying winger or creative outlet. We have three international strikers, so we don't need to reinforce there, although the dubious quality of Falcao has yet to be refuted by any glowing performance.
Mourinho refuses to sell Mikel and Ramires, who are yesterday's men, but is happy to offload Ake to Watford. It is noticeable that ManUre have also opened a comfortable five-point cushion over us. Their matchwinner from the other night was the young prodigy, Adnan Januzaj. Would the Belgian have had such an opportunity at Chelsea? No, he would have been shoved off to Arnhem by an ageist manager who has no faith in the credentials of any player under twenty-two years of age. I'm afraid that Chelsea are reaping what they sow at present.They are not competing with the evil twins of Manchester in the transfer market and it is becoming increasingly obvious that they consequently won't be able to compete on the football field either.
At the moment, Chelsea's best bet this season is to 'do an Arsenil' and excel in the cups, because the two leagues in England and Europe don't look there for the taking.
Manchester City 3 CHELSEA 0; half time: 1-0.
CHELSEA team: Begovic; Ivanovic; Azpilicueta; Cahill; Terry; Matic; Fabregas; Ramires; Costa; Hazard; Willian. Used substitutes: Zouma; Cuadrado; Falcao.
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17/08/2015 12:01
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