Chelsea in need of route and branch reform
Luiz Felipe Scolari’s €6.5m-a-year salary presumably allows him to forego the dubious pleasures of the tube, but the gist of the message would still have struck home. Scolari might have added a dash of Latin swagger to a previously staid side, but his own lack of alternatives is in danger of making Chelsea predictable.
Teams are arriving at Chelsea believing they can snaffle a point, and with just cause. If Chelsea’s full-backs can be penned into their own half, and if space can be squeezed in midfield so the artful crafts of Deco and Frank Lampard are annulled, then Chelsea look bereft of ideas. There is, to put it more simply, no Plan B.
The effects of this trend should not be overstated. Chelsea are still peering down on the rest of the Premier League but their struggles at Stamford Bridge — where they have now dropped nine points this season — mean they are having to maintain their perfect away record just to keep pace with Liverpool.
“I hope it won’t become a habit at Stamford Bridge, but we have to keep on working,” Florent Malouda, the winger, said. “Of course we can’t keep dropping points here if we want to win the championship — we need to find a solution.’’
If Chelsea are in need of a pick-me-up, their fixture list should provide it. Scolari’s side visit Bordeaux in the Champions League on Wednesday, with the French side unlikely to pose much threat to their exemplary away record.
The next Premier League team to visit here, meanwhile, are Arsenal on Sunday. The north Londoners don’t do conservative, and the wide open spaces they leave behind should have Chelsea smacking their lips.
“Arsenal is a different game,” Scolari said. “They don’t play to draw, they play only to win. It’s not easy, but they offer for us something different than clubs like Newcastle. They don’t put 10 players at the back.”
If that sounded ungracious, it was misleading. Scolari was fulsome in his praise for Newcastle’s discipline and efficiency and it was telling that, while Chelsea dominated possession to an almost embarrassing degree, Shay Given was only forced into one fine save, an acrobatic stop from Frank Lampard’s eighth-minute header.
Other than that, Joe Cole had an effort ruled out for offside after the interval, while Given came perilously close to carrying a Lampard free-kick over the line, but this was another hugely satisfying afternoon for the much maligned Joe Kinnear.
Newcastle’s interim manager has had his rolling contract extended until the end of December, with owner Mike Ashley no closer to finalising the club’s sale, despite holding talks with an American consortium. On this evidence, Kinnear might stay in charge regardless. “When I wasn’t getting work, most of the time it was because I’d had a heart attack,” he said. “It was always the first question at an interview so I had to prove that I am still able to control a football club. I’d like to think I’m doing okay.”
REFEREE: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire) 6: Fussy although but there was more flow in the second period.
MATCH RATING: ** Nothing to warm the cockles on a freezing afternoon. Newcastle were craven but doughty; Chelsea’s home form is becoming a genuine concern.
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