Chelsea F.C [2008-2009]

[pede54]

Well, you said it Zak. Hypocrites and fools. They will always be around and they will always scream the loudest.

It shows actually how far this forum has evolved and progressed regarding other fans. Not one fan of another club on these forums has even attempted to overblow the issue, or post a provocotive thread that simply snipes at Chelsea over all this.

The rival fans on these forums have shown that they are not only more level headed than most, but there has developed in general, a better respect for fellow fans around here than there used to be.

Of course every now and again the standard may drop a little, as we discuss some point of controversy during a game, but that's just a difference of opinion, and we are all entitled to that.

We no longer see very much the nasty "schoolboy" baiting and insults being thrown around that you can witness on other forums either.

Fans on here, are in general the more sensible and thoughtful type of fan now. Most think before they talk, and that helps a lot, and perhaps is something that those "fans" at soccernet should attempt to emulate.

Thats why I don't even go there. Trying to get a moron to think with a level head and with reason is an impossibility over there. They don't debate anything. They simply argue all the time. It's not for me.

C'MON YOU BLUES

 

[Zakov]

great showing against the Baggies, great goal from the Jose "the Boss" Bosingwa, and two very tidy goals from Nic. He continues this kind of form, I don't see how big Phil can drop him to the subs bench even if the Drog is back to full fitness.
3 points thats all that matters, all of our rivals for the title won their games comfortably, and we keep that healthy goal difference.
Bad news is that JT probably has a foot injury. Hopefully its not that dreadful metatarsal injury again.
It was nice to see Ballack back.

 

[pede54]

Yeah it was a good game. I thought West Brom played well, especially for the first 30 minutes of the first half. They play some nice football and have some useful players. All they need is a striker who is a target man and who can tuck them away, because their approach play was pretty threatening at times today, but everything came to a halt when the ball reached our end.

Yeah, a wonder shot from the Boss, what a beaut. It made me jump off the couch. I wasn't expecting him to shoot from there.

Two really class finishes from Anelka today. This fella hasn't stopped scoring since I gave him a bollocking on here the other week.

I think that Anelka should just goal hang you know. He doesn't do much when he gets involved in the build ups, I feel he's wasted doing that, but when he's fed the ball to run at the goalie, he really comes to life as we saw today.

It's obvious that his confidence is back, and its great to see him smiling and joking with the guys during the game. He's feeling a lot more settled that much is clear.

Scolari said after the game that Nic is first choice striker while he is in form. He has no intention of dropping him for Drog. Anyway Drog will be missing a few games once the FA have finished with him, so that gives Anelka even more games to up his tally.

He won the Golden Boot yesterday for being the first player in the EPL to score 10 goals this season. Congrats to him for that too.

So 3 more points. Back to the top. No goals conceeded again, and thats our 10th away game on the trot that we have won. One more away win and we will hold the record for consecutive away victories. Our away form has been amazing so far this season.

 

[Deisler]

Great game lads. Chelsea is really impressive so far. I am really surprised with the way Big Phil has been handling business at Chelsea. I never thought the transition would be so smooth. And when Drogba and Ballack went down with injuries i thought you guys would stumble. Well other than that Liverpool game anyways. If you guys continue to perform this way i am pretty sure the league and possibly the CL as well will be donning royal blue.

 

[Zakov]

Gawd, how are we going to deal with teams parking the bus against us. They clearly came for nothing more than a draw, but I fully understand their intentions of getting a point.
I honestly think that in games like these even the best teams would struggle to find openings. Newcastle had 10 men facing us in their own half for a good 86 minutes or so.
We can't fault any of our players, I thought we tried very hard. I know some of the fans are frustrated but they need to understand the situation.

If only Lamps scored in the opening stages, it would've been much different.
We looked more of a threat when Ballack came on.

But on the plus side, all our rivals(except Arsenal) drew blank.

 

[pede54]

I hope so Deisler.

Frustrating game today. The Toon worked hard to disrupt our game, but we still managed to pretty much dominate, without managing to get through to goal.

More parking of the bus from Newcastle, but to be honest I can't blame them at all. They need all the points they can get.

It's fortunate for us that United and 'pool drew today, so the top of the league is unchanged tonight.

Joe Kinnear deserves the Toon managers job permanantly. People are only now beginning to remember what he achieved in football, before his heart attack cut his managerial career short.

I'll always remember his "crazy gang" and what they achieved. Good luck to him at Newcastle.

 

[newbie original]

Surreal to say the least.....All 4 CL teams were shut out.

 

[Mandieta6]

Aye, I think that's the first time that's ever happened. No goals from the top 4. Last time was before there was even a top 4.

I really liked the way we played, it's a shame we couldn't score a goal, we clearly deserve it. I can't wait for Drogba to start playing consecutive games and get into form, without bans and injuries. Anelka is a good player, but and maybe this was just today but I noticed it more, he moves around a lot to receive the ball, so we rely on the wingers to run into the box a lot.

Still, great game, not good result. Can't fault a single player, really.

 

[Zakov]

Disappointing result, got the goal we wanted, but cheap defending allowed Bordeaux back when they were hardly a threat to us. Lamps got sent off, I feel the ref was a complete card knob, lacked common sense.

He was simply booking players in succession rather than look at the extent of the tackle.Some of the Bordeaux players were absolute pussies, going down and rolling over 720 degrees, when they were the ones with the more physical approach, they couldn't take it themselves.

Now we've got to get the job done against Cluj without Lamps. Not much of worry, but its still a more of a difficult position than we would've wanted.

 

[Deisler]

You are exactly where you wanted to be mate. First place with only the Cluj game at home still to be played. Not to underestimate the Romanians but the difference on the pitch should be more than evident. I mean yeah they beat Roma in Rome but than again every horrible side in the Serie A has been able to beat Roma lately. I think you guys already secured the first spot.

 

[Zakov]

well, even so, I'm still worried about it.
But then again, its just a feeling that we fans get when there's a possibility things don't go our way, like last season when we played against Fenerbahce and Liverpool at home in the CL.

But moving on to Le Arse, its been a great pleasure slagging off my Arsenal m8s concerning the whole Gallas fiasco, hopefully I don't end up eating my words and Gallas ends up scoring the winner. Thats hard to swallow.

We've got a chance to bury Arsenal and gain 3 points to push Liverpool further, our home form recently hasn't been as good as we would like but we're still top with a healthy goal difference, if that continues, then bollocks to everything else. I'm happy to settle with that.

C'MON CHELS!!

 

[Filipower]

Man, that's gotta hurt.

 

[Mandieta6]

It does.

 

[Gunnersgoal22]

Maybe some of you Chelsea fans should worry about your own manager before criticizing ours.

 

[pede54]

Two good results in a season does not make a good manager mate. Apart from that, this win for your lot had very little to do with Wenger. We fu<ked up twice in 3 minutes and paid the price. Apart from the goals, Arsenal were woeful mate.

Until Ricci, Joe and Drog comes back, and until Deco finds his form, I fear that we will need to get used to results like today's result. We play great and dominate, but just cannot bury the ball. We have many good players to fill in for the missing players, but there's nothing better than to have the first choice eleven. Our injuries so far this season has really taken it's toll.

Arsenal played their usual game so there was no parking the bus from them, and we still couldn't score enough goals. Not impressed with that at all.

I loved the way that Malouda was given offside twice when he wasn't though, and Van Persie was offside for his first goal, but not penalised for it. More inconsistant refereeing.

Thats twice so far this season that we have played a team that is struggling and lost to them. Arsenal and Roma.

This has got to improve Filipe ol' mate.

 

[Gunnersgoal22]

Yes maybe we were fortunate to win, but I can honestly say we've played much better than that and lost many times so its about time we were the lucky ones.

As for Scolari all I'll say is that when its mattered so far this season, you've lost, and true its still early, but in the big games Chelsea have lacked character.

 

[Zakov]

Once I saw Mike Dean, I had a bad feeling about the game. Loved how he confidently or rather arrogantly pointed to Bosingwa(indicating that he was the last defender) after Van Persie's 1st goal.

But I have to say our response after the 1st goal was pathetic. We just lost it.
We dominated Arsenal for 62 minutes or so, but we just lost it.
Ivanovic looked more dodgy as the game went by.
We missed Joe and Riccy today, and mostly the Drog.

Bad result, but we have to carry on. Come December, I hope we'll be seeing everyone back at full fitness, Essien is one I can't wait to have back. Deco was woeful, I'd have Essien over him any day if he was playing like that.

As for Le Arse, lets look forward to next week shall we.

 

[Mus]

deco started the season on fire... what happened?

 

[mnj2x]

To be honest. i myself thought chelsea were gonna steamroll arsenal. They were cruising up until that van persie offside goal. Good result for the neutrals, scousers and united.

 

[pede54]

By his own admission, Deco is playing crap, and so is Ballack, but they have both been hit by damaging injuries recently, and they are obviously finding it hard to regain the form they had at the begginning of the season prior to those injuries.

With two very inportant midfield positions being manned by two very below par players, this is gonna cost us.

In an ideal situation we would have plenty of players in reserve, but this season the treatment room is full, and we are really down to the bare bones. Scolari had no choice yesterday to bring on Stoch. Although he is a good player and definately one for the future, we are at the stage where we have no choice but to look to the reserve team players to fill in the gaps.

This would not be a problem if all the first 11 were porforming well as we know they can, but they are not.

It's not just the injury list that is hampering us, it's the form that the returning players are showing that is worrying. I dare say in a perfect situation, Ballack and possibly Deco would not even be picked to start games just yet, but Scolari has very little choice at the moment.

Ricci is injured. Alex is injured. That leaves us only with Ivanovich, who showed yesterday that he has his weaknesses. Which is probably the reason that until this injury curse hit us, he never got a look in before. So we are playing with a 3rd choice central defender.

Ballack and Deco are playing badly, and only games under the belt will cure that. So our midfield at the moment is a weakened one. Not so much defensively because as we saw yesterday, we can still dominate the midfield.

The main problem is that our two main playmakers are under-performing resulting in our attacking movement coming to nothing, all because of something as annoying as too many bad passes or too many bad first touches. Ball control and passing. These are the basics of football, and if a player cant do either of those for some reason, then we at this moment in time are gonna feel it.

Saying all that, it does not help us if the linesman or the referee between them, does not know what an offside is.

Malouda when used as a striker plays off the shoulder of the defender, so he will get caught offside as often as not, thats the way it is with a striker who plays that way. That's fine and it's acceptable.

What you don't need though, is that when the run is timed to perfection, that either of the officials take it for granted that the player must have been offside because of his advantageous position.

Now Malouda was onside twice yesterday with two definate goalscoring opportunities, and Kalou was one on one with the GK when he was also given offside when he was not.

One mistake here or there is to be expected, but so many crucial errors from one official in one match is not to be expected and is certainly not acceptable. That stinks of incompetence, or perhaps it is something more than that.

Scolari was right when he said that for a ref to make a wrong decision is to be expected sometimes, but he has to make sure that if he penalises an attacking player with an offside call, ( I actually thought Fifa said the benefit of doubt should go to the attacking side), then the same criteria should be applied for both teams.

That never happened yesterday. The officials although they were crap, could of at least been consistant in their decision making, but those two made it up as they went along yesterday. Total incompetance.

As a last thought.....Our team or our players have never lacked character. That is one thing that you can say about Chelsea through the years. No, what we lack at the moment are our best players, who perform better as a team, than the ever changing weekly lineup that we are seeing lately. That is why the bigger teams, (not counting Arsenal), have been a problem to us this season. We can seamlessly play good footie against the lesser teams, but it's against the big teams that your weaker team will get found out. I thought that was obvious gg22.

There can never be consistancy with the situation as it is. Which is quite simply why we appear to be inconsistant. If you make 3 changes for every game, then the team will suffer as the players adapt to each other, and the team will struggle. That has been obvious in our CL campaign this season, and it's been obvious in the league too.

All in all, considering the task that has been handed to Scolari that is relevant to our missing players, I think we are still doing remarkably well.

If Deco and Ballack can wake themselves up and start performing, I think we can still manage very well. We cannot afford to be playing below par individuals, but at this moment in time, we have no choice at all.

Anyway like I've always said, If we don't win something in particular this season, then there's always next season. Thats what's so great about footie, every season you get another go at it.

I'm not in any desperate panic to win everything in sight every season. A few setbacks here and there will not dampen my enjoyment of watching my team.