Chelsea Undone!!!!

At the start of the Premier League season of 2010-2011 there was no doubt that Chelsea were going to just waltz away with the title again due to the way they pummeled opponents into submission. But just like the previous year Chelsea's Christmas period is always a time to forget. Last year after the loss to Manchester City they dropped points at Birmingham, Everton before finally recovering against Fulham. But this season the situation has become worse. During the summer Chelsea sold experienced stalwarts like Ballack, Belletti, Deco,Carvalho and Joe Cole to make way for youngsters Kakuta, Borini, Bruma and McEachran. It initially seemed that the club was going great guns despite the loss of such influential players. The month of November changed that fact. The trip to Anfield started the win drought. A 2-0 loss thanks to a Torres brace followed by a hard fought win over Fulham that was overshadowed by the controversial sacking of Ray Wilkins, a 3-0 hammering to Sunderland at the Bridge,a loss to Birmingham, a draw against Newcastle and Everton and finally a beating at the hands of Arsenal has put Carlo Ancellotti's squad depth in the limelight. The absence of key members Terry, Lampard and Essien along with the dipping form of goal machine Drogba has resulted in Chelsea surrendering their lead at the top of the table to Manchester United and dropping to 4th, a position that has been alien to them for quite some time. The Chelsea players, once feared, are now the ones under fear of losing. There was quite some speculation that Ancellotti would sacked just like Scolari, but Abramovich has come out to say that Carlo's position is safe and also assured transfer funds to strengthen the depleted squad.

But a few points have come out that may be the reason for Chelsea's dip in form of late. Firstly the reluctance of Ancellotti to use the youth players he has at his disposal. Agreed they need experience to handle such pressure situations, but in order to gain that experience they need game time and not time on the bench. During the loss to Sunderland Paulo Ferreira played as a makeshift centre back and Sunderland tore them to shreds while Carlo had a specialist centre half in Jeffrey Bruma on the bench. It is clearly seen that Ferreira has grown old and does not possess the pace and awareness that he had when he joined Chelsea 6 years ago. Ancellotti's policy of playing him at right back and bringing on Bosingwa during the second half has not only lessened Chelsea's threat posed by their full backs but also results in a waste of a substitution which could otherwise been used for more creative purposes.
Secondly the use of players like Kalou and Ramires in the first team has not proved fruitful. Ramires is clearly struggling to get to grips with the physical demands of the Premier League and Kalou has not developed the awareness and positional sense that a striker needs. In the game against Zilina Chelsea's youth showed why they deserved a starting place with some very neat and fast football, something that has been missing with the Chelsea XI lately.When you have someone like McEachran whose creative play and vision gave Chelsea so many chances in the Zilina game, why not play him on a regular basis.
Chelsea need to spend and spend smartly on the January transfer window. It is visible that age has caught up with Drogba and they need fresher legs for the wings and the forward line and also a top centre half to cover up for the absence of Terry or Alex. Chelsea can thank their lucky stars that they drew Copenhagen in the round of 16 in the Champions League.
But as many people say...Anything can happen in football

The Special One Outdone

It was being labelled the game of the season by many a pundit....Buildup started a week back and everybody billed it as another day where Jose Mourinho would get the better of Barcelona.. How wrong they were as Barcelona put up a display that would've just mesmerized any football fan. It was like watching the Spanish national side against Real Madrid as 9 of the Barcelona starting 11 were from the national team. More than 600 completed passes..Astonishing while Real struggled to get to grips with the passing machine that was Barcelona. With a lineup boasting of Mesut Ozil, Angel di Maria, and Cristiano Ronaldo they were expected to pose a stiff challenge to the World Cup winning defence of Pique and Puyol. The only stiff challenge Madrid won was when Sergio Ramos lost his head and pushed his national team mate Puyol in the face. Add to that Cristiano Ronaldo's disgusting push on Pep Guardiola which should directly rule him out of contention for the Ballan 'd' Or. Despite Ronaldo's feeble attempts to win sympathy with the referree and some atrocious challenges by Ramos Barcelona stuck to their ancient philosophy of keeping the ball which always works. Xavi, the architect of so many of Barcelona's and Spain's goals got on the scoresheet and how much does he deserve it. Supplementing Xavi's laser guided passes were his alter ego Andres Iniesta and the Flea Lionel Messi. The experienced Madrid defence of Carvalho and Pepe were torn to shreds by just these 3 and made sure that Barcelona were on top everytime. Iker Cassillas was the only one that saved Real from losing by more that 5 goals. His awareness and positioning was what kept Real in the game atleast momentarily. Madrid got so many things wrong. Firstly starting Karim Benzema when there was a perfectly clicking combo of Ronaldo, Higuain and di Maria. Benzema did nothing to trouble Puyol and Pique except run into them. Mourinho's standard 'park the bus' policy totally backfired as Khedira and Alonso had no idea how the ball just zipped past them everytime. The game ended on a very ugly note as Sergio Ramos just showed young footballers how they shouldn't behave in a football match of this intensity. Kicking at David Villa and pushing Puyol. Disgusting. He needs a ban to just show him the magnitude of his actions. Barcelona's win against Madrid proved many things. First, they issued a statement of intent to the whole world just who the best club is, second they proved that Jose Mourinho's human too and his defence can be breached, third and lastly it showed the world how football has to be played. As a team.