Chelsea
Chelsea's Collapse Continues
Saints Triumph
By Gary Watton
October 4 2015
For the second successive match, Chelsea were drawing 1-1 at the interval, after Willian had scored direct from a free kick (his third time this week), and for the second consecutive time the Blues went on to lose. League tables don't lie, and while Chelsea were deserved winners of the Premiership last May, they are currently deserving of their sixteenth position in the chart. In fact, eight points from eight matches is relegation form, and were it not for the wretched early season 'form' of Newcastle, Sunderland, and Villa, then the champions would be even lower. To make a crisis worse, the mad manager is more deluded than ever.
Jose is great entertainment value, and yes he is totally correct when he states that he is Chelsea's most successful manager. However, he can not trade off former glory forever. In fact, the special one (especially special at post-match nonsense) is still in charge, by the skin of his teeth. He had to fend off serious and justifiable scrutiny from his bosses after the Southampton debacle. Mourinho is nothing if not belligerent, and his all guns blazing can be quite commendable, but it depends who he turns his gunfire on. On Saturday evening, Jose chose to impersonate his adversary Monsieur Wenger by deflecting focus off his team's abundant failings and instead direct his wrath at the referee, surprise surprise. It is true that Chelsea have suffered on at least half a dozen occasions, and maybe as much as a dozen, over the last fourteen months from referees who, according to the gaffer, are too "afraid" to award his team a blatant penalty. However, Saturday past was not a choice occasion to highlight the dubious decisions of the match officals. For one thing, Falcao being brought down by their goalkeeper is not a cut and dried foul. Yes as the pundits would say "I've seen them given." However, the visitors had two even better penalty shouts in the first half when clumsy Ramires tripped an opponent in the penalty area, while the beleaguered Ivanovic practically suffocated an opponent whilst waiting for a free kick to be delivered. Anywhere else on the field and that is a free kick, but yes the referee bottled it and refused to notice either foul.
Besides, for all these missing penalties that Jose keeps bleating on about, there is no guarantee that we would score all of them. It was only recently that we were granted two penalties against Maccabi Tel Aviv, and even then Hazard blasted the first one onto the Kings Road. Mourinho would have us all mistakenly believe that a penalty in the second half would have transformed the match. Sorry JM, but we were all at sea, and I fully expect that the Saints would still have won, even if we had converted a spot kick. Mourinho seems to view penalty awards as the answer to everything: world peace will arrive, pestilence and disease will flee, the sun will come out, our economy will improve forever, and Chelsea will 'deservedly' win each match. Seriously Jose, these penalty rants are getting tedious and they don't distract from our awful football displays. Ultimately, as I have argued in the distant past, a team that relies on assistance from the referee and his assistants is clearly not doing anywhere near enough to win a match. If you can score two or three goals from open play and defend properly, then you take the decision-making of the match officials completely out of the equation. It is nothing short of desperation, hoping that a referee will give you "a break" as Mourinho is pining for. If we play more emphatically, penalty awards (or the lack of them) will become a supreme irrelevance.
Meanwhile back on planet earth, the blame is being constantly directed at Ivanovic and the defence. I feel that it is insufficient to scapegoat one or two individuals - as our problems are all over the pitch. We are clueless going forward and are no longer bossing midfield. Southampton played like they were the home team. It was pitiful. Fabregas is being highlighted. However, he appears to be under instruction to stay behind the ball and he commendably makes himself available as an option when we move forward. If Oscar or Hazard or Willian get surrounded by enemy troops, Fabregas comes to the rescue. He is being harshly targeted. True, his performances are nothing to write home about, but unless he is given the number ten role, then his brief appears to be to sit deep and enable team mates to pass the ball back to him if nothing is happening further forward. We would all dearly like to see Cesc emulate Super Frank and run right up to and into the penalty area and get on the end of chances, but he simply does not play that way, or his cautious boss is not allowing that scenario to evolve.
As for dear old Ramires, we have learnt on consecutive Saturdays that while he may be a brilliant impact substitute, he is a far less effective midfield general. Ramires is valuable at making driving runs in the final third. He even could play as a speedy winger. However, on Saturday past he completed more fouls than accurate passes. The Brazilian is simply not equipped to spread the ball around. He cannot pass to anyone who is more than about twenty yards away. He must never be played in central midfield again. Play him in the number ten role, or as a winger, or better still as a substitute!
Falcao cannot be blamed too much either. He had to feed off scraps. There were occasions when we played route one crosses up to him and he did actually manage to head a few down to a colleague, but it was all unconvincing stuff. Why Mourinho insisted on choosing the misfiring Falcao ahead of the prolific Charlie Austin beggars belief, but we are where we are because of our boss's bizarre transfer policy. This is the same genius who allowed Mata to leave, didn't rate Lukaku enough, didn't rate De Bruyne enough, and feels that Chalobah is inferior to Mikel. He threatens to play the youth, but clearly treats this option as the absolute last resort. Hopefully in the Saturday evening superpower summit, his employers told him to radically reshuffle his team, and get Kenedy and Loftus-Cheek and Rahman into the team. Or am I being delusional now as well?
Elsewhere, Oscar tried and had a few half-baked attempts at goal, but he is way over-rated. Matic was substituted, I think correctly, because we were two goals in arrears and he was not the type of midfielder who was going to create goals that would bridge the gap. Remy was brought on, but he and Falcao, like Demba Ba before them, get dropped if they fail to score in a match, which is harsh. If Ivanovic was to be dropped every time that he made a mistake, he would have to find a new vocation. Falcao and Remy are clearly not tailored to play as a lone striker. Personally I find this lone striker strategy to be a non-starter. Even the tigerish Costa struggles up front when marshalled by two centre halves. No wonder he gets so damn hostile. We need two strikers playing off each other, and our midfield four can either be a diamond when we go forward or a bank of four when we defend. It's not rocket science. Our ploy of Hazard down one flank and Willian down the other is as predictable as Mourinho's absurd post-match rants.
It's fairly obvious that the manager is one more Premiership or Champions League defeat away from being sacked. It would be horrible for all concerned if such a successful manager leaves with a giant compensation cheque for severance of his contract while someone has to be drafted in at short notice to clear up a mess that he must take some responsibility for. This is not how we want such an iconic figure to end his second stint at Chelsea, but it is looking like a very real prospect.
CHELSEA 1 Southampton 3; half time: 1-1
Chelsea scorer: Willian
CHELSEA team: Begovic; Ivanovic; Azpilicueta; Terry; Cahill; Oscar; Fabregas; Ramires; Falcao; Willian; Hazard. Used substitutes: Matic; Pedro; Remy.
CHELSEA LEADING SCORERS:
Willian four goals
Costa two goals
Oscar two goals
Pedro two goals
Ramires two goals
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04/10/2015 18:03
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