Clowning around as we suffer Villa Knight-mare
It lightened the mood — but not a lot. Villa have now replaced Arsenal as our bogey team, but I did expect a point. The team looked disinterested, and without Lampard, we lacked the propensity to go forward. Drogba too was at his frustrating worst. How can a player be the best striker in the world one moment, and the next, a player who sends my blood pressure to boiling point?
But it would be unfair to lay the blame solely at his feet — it was one of those team efforts we are so famous for.
With the exception of a 15-minute bombardment, our lot looked as if they were in a training session. More worrying, the usually imperious Terry was conspicuous by the lack of vocal direction, which is most unlike him.
However, the hysteria following our loss, by some of our own fans, has been nothing short of ludicrous. Some people need to remember that this was only our 10th league defeat under Mourinho in over three seasons. All that said, to have Zat Knight score against you is pretty depressing — a player that, folklore has it, was bought for 17 tracksuits by Fulham.
I thought the referee had a good game. However, was it really wise to “high-five” Villa’s second goal scorer at the end of the match? If José grows a dodgy goatee and we all whine a lot, do you think Keith Hackett will issue us an apology for hurting our feelings?
On the subject of referees, as if giving Arsenal 10 penalties in their last 14 games isn’t helping them enough, now they’ve ensured that they play three games without the hapless Senderos! Will this bias never end?? I like to take positives from games; some games you have to look harder than others, but I think that Beletti and Alex looked the business. I had my doubts about Beletti, but he’s quite quick for an old bloke and his crosses will worry many a keeper. He is an intelligent player too — his positional play was clever and he has settled very quickly.
As for Alex, he is a monster — absolutely huge. I didn’t have high hopes for a Brazilian defender but his timing is excellent, he uses his size to his advantage and his tackling is perfect. He and Terry do need to reach more of an understanding — the kind of telepathy JT had with Gallas is probably not going to happen. But JT and Carvalho play well together and trust each other and time will ensure hopefully this develops between all our centre backs.
Hopefully the international break will allow the required healing time for Carvalho and Lampard and will also demonstrate to Mourinho why we have to play Joe Cole. He is the one real flair player we have left. With Robben gone (and injured again) we are bereft of creativity and some real pace. Although Joey can’t give us the latter, he can provide the former in spades.
Of course the Villa result and Roman subsequently leaving after the second goal has had the papers resurrect stories of a rift between the owner and José.
If (as the papers have claimed) Abramovich really does “demand” the league and Champions League while playing exciting attacking flair football, and scoring lots of goals — then he’s not only at the wrong football team, he’s on the wrong planet.
Either way, I hope the Chelsea team, fans and owner have the stomach for a fight as I think the Premiership is going to be slugged out hard this season. The “others” better make the most of it though as Chelsea’s future looks rosy indeed. We are beginning to see a couple of these youngsters already breaking into the first team, which is why it was so disappointing to see Diarra (who was being groomed for the Makelele role) sold to Arsenal. The club didn’t want him to go but the player insisted. But we did not have to sell him to one of our direct rivals. No doubt the notorious “French Connection” had its part to play in this move. That only leaves Makelele and Malouda left to be wooed away by Wenger and we’ll be a France-free zone.
— Contact Trizia on Trizia_f@hotmail.com