Chelsea look a shadow of their former selves…a poor show against Fulham….What next for the Blues?
Torres yet to score for Chelsea
William Hill make Torres 6/1 to fail to score in each of Chelsea’s next five games. Hills offer 5/4 that he breaks his Chelsea duck away to FC Copenhagen away in the Champions League; 15/8 that he gets his first at home to Birmingham; 5/1 home v Man U; 6/1 away v Blackpool; 8/1 home v FC Copenhagen. ‘The longer the goalless run goes the more pressure will be heaped on both Torres and Ancelotti’ said Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe.
And Hills now offer Evens that Ancelotti will be gone by the first Prem game of next season – 8/11 that he’ll still be there. ‘Ancelotti did not look best pleased after the game and Chelsea’s shakey form is a real problem for his future’ added Sharpe.
Chelsea’s title defence had already felt fraught; now it merely appears forlorn. The champions limped from this local derby perplexed as to how their monopoly of possession had not yielded any reward but even more baffled that they should be left feeling relief at having claimed even a point. These are uncomfortable times indeed.
Petr Cech’s fine penalty save in the final minute of stoppage time at the end, the goalkeeper diving full length to his right to push away Clint Dempsey’s attempt, salvaged a draw, though it has not resurrected a championship challenge.
Too much about this team suddenly feels awkward and ungainly, with Fernando Torres’s integration into both form and formation still painful to behold. The leaders, Manchester United, are a distant 12 points away. More urgent is the champions’ need to reclaim a position in the top four. Carlo Ancelotti insisted he was pleased with his team’s performance, if not the result, in the aftermath though the manager’s backing was unconvincing. Mid-season is a tricky time to re-jig an approach, and each outing feels experimental at present.
Torres had been included ahead of Didier Drogba here as part of a concerted effort to dominate midfield. That much was achieved, with Chelsea enjoying the ball at will, but there was little bite and shape to their attacking play. The possession counted for little.
Then there was Torres himself. The £50m Spaniard showed only vague flashes of belief and his display was summed up by a heavy touch after collecting David Luiz’s wonderful long pass just before the interval, the ball dribbling obligingly to an onrushing Mark Schwarzer. The forward was hauled from the fray some 19 minutes from the end to allow Drogba an opportunity to ruffle tiring if admirably resolute opponents. Torres retreated with a sigh and to a hug, delivered almost apologetically, from the striker who replaced him.
“Every striker wants to score but I don’t think Fernando’s frustrated,” said Ancelotti. “He just needs time to play with us. He played well, using his ability to move, and had some opportunities. His performance was better than against Liverpool.” How long Drogba will put up with life as second fiddle remains to be seen, but Torres must be this forward line’s focal point.
At present, Ancelotti is still attempting to accommodate this country’s record transfer. Privately Torres will be craving a goal to choke the permanent and predictable chorus from opposing supporters. There were four chances here either side of half-time, though his radar remains skew-whiff. None really troubled Schwarzer. The manager’s dilemma is compounded by the reality that Drogba has hardly been setting the Premier League alight either this term. Indeed, this club’s only in-form forward is currently on loan at Bolton Wanderers. Suddenly, Daniel Sturridge feels sorely missed.
Chelsea created plenty of half-chances, Michael Essien flicking a header wide and Frank Lampard and David Luiz sending efforts high where they might normally have scored. Yet they could have ended with nothing. The game had been drifting, with Chelsea apparently spent of ideas, when Dempsey wriggled into space on the counterattack and drew David Luiz’s only notable error on his full debut. The Brazilian’s lunge conceded a penalty. “Maybe he was tired,” said Ancelotti. The mistake should not deflect entirely from a hugely impressive performance. At least one of the champions’ big money signings appears to have settled in with ease.
Dempsey took the spot-kick himself with Danny Murphy having been replaced, only for Cech to muster the game’s most significant save. The referee, Mike Dean, chose not to order a retake despite Drogba clearly encroaching. “For the title, a point is too little,” said Cech. “It is not over but the others are winning while we have dropped another two points.”
Behind the scenes, the focus must be switching to a return to the top four and their ongoing Champions League campaign, which resumes in Copenhagen next week. Torres qualifies for that competition, though not for the FA Cup on Saturday. Ancelotti’s attempts to conjure a formula for his forward line go on.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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London pride may be all Chelsea can salvage
Chelsea Play Fulham at Craven Cottage but is the season already over for Chelsea?
Football Betting…...Premier League betting….
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A great Article in the Guardian….
A few seasons ago in the José Mourinho era, waiting for a Chelsea game to start, a couple of visiting Japanese journalists broke off watching the live early kick-off on the press-room TV to ask for information about one of the participants.
“Where exactly is Fulham?” was the question. To which the answer was, naturally, right here. “You’re in Fulham now, mate,” came the breezy reply, which just left the travellers looking even more puzzled. As well they might, given the propensity of English football clubs for misrepresenting matters geographical. It is fairly well known that Everton were around before Liverpool, that Arsenal have not always been in north London, that Manchester United is practically in Salford and that none of the Potteries’ six towns is called Port Vale.
Chelsea actually being in Fulham is no more of a curiosity than Tottenham wanting to relocate to Stratford, though the real historical oddity about Stamford Bridge’s origins is that an old athletics venue was redeveloped as a football stadium – by Archibald Leitch, no less – before a tenant club had been found. It seems to have been originally assumed that Fulham would move in but, when they declined in 1905, a new club had to be hurriedly formed. A new name was also required, since Fulham was taken, so after some deliberation it was decided to play as the borough next door. One of the names rejected, possibly short‑sightedly, was London FC. Thinking big had not done Liverpool any harm 13 years earlier and, though Anfield spectators like to taunt Chelsea with the charge of having no history, the origins of the two clubs are remarkably similar. Liverpool, too, had to form a team from scratch, after Everton left Anfield over a rent increase, and managed to do so only by buying players wholesale from Scotland.
One imagines if Chelsea were ever obliged to rename themselves in the future they would go for London like a shot. This is not an attempt to be controversial but, when foreigners think of London football, they tend to think of Chelsea. Not just because of Mourinho, and Didier Drogba, Petr Cech and the rest, but because of John Terry, Frank Lampard and the English core that Arsenal do not have. Tottenham are only just starting out in the Champions League while Arsenal are viewed as a wonderful side but not necessarily as an English one.
Outside this country to think London is increasingly to think Chelsea, which may partly explain Fernando Torres’s rather hurtful comments about leaving Liverpool to join a big club. Does anyone imagine he would have spoken about Arsenal in quite the same way? One would not wish to exculpate Torres completely – he certainly appeared to be trying to twist the knife – though it is possible he viewed his new destination as a conflation of big Champions League name and big city.
In which case he had better do his best to prevent his side being upstaged by the lesser-known neighbours on Monday, the ones who managed to reach a European final as recently as last year. Fulham and Mark Hughes seem to have survived an early-season wobble and put together a decent run of results since the turn of the year. In six games since losing to Spurs on New Year’s Day they have lost only once, and that was by a single goal at Liverpool when they were unlucky. They also lost by only a single goal at Stamford Bridge in November, allowing Chelsea a win between defeats by Liverpool and Sunderland that would be their last for another six league matches. Chelsea appeared to have recovered their poise in impressive wins at Bolton and Sunderland but then came the Torres business and a far from convincing display last week.
Torres may have been bought with an eye on this season’s Champions League but, unless he can gel quickly and effectively with Drogba in the domestic fixtures, there is still a possibility of Chelsea’s eight-year residency in the top four being interrupted.
Latest indications are that Carlo Ancelotti’s side may not be storming back to the top of the table after all and the best Chelsea may be able to hope for is securing a top-four finish at the expense of Manchester City or Tottenham. Their worst fear would be Liverpool coming up on the rails to claim a Champions League place of their own, throwing just about everyone’s plans into disarray. While that may be a fanciful scenario, it could happen. Liverpool have already done their bit, beating the defending champions home and away, but Chelsea’s season is still going to be defined, as Ancelotti has been saying all along, by the two games against Manchester United.
If by then there is any prospect of Chelsea dropping out of the top four and Liverpool sneaking in, or perhaps just Torres and his new team dropping out, United can expect to pick up an unprecedented degree of support from Merseyside.
Shefki Kuqi wins lucky dip after crazy musical chairs
Shefki Kuqi’s first impressions were correct. The well-travelled Finn thought it was a joke when he heard Newcastle wanted to sign him, and though jokes are traditionally supposed to be funny, the one about Andy Carroll going to Liverpool, Mike Ashley making £35m and Alan Pardew being forced to scour the list of free agents following Shola Ameobi’s injury is hard to present in any other light.
No disrespect to Kuqi is intended, and nor could Newcastle’s owner seriously have been expected to turn down an unrefusable and quite possibly unrepeatable offer for his centre-forward. Yet, just because the process became inevitable once Chelsea brought brinkmanship of their own to bear on Liverpool does not mean it is a satisfactory way to do business. Games of musical chairs have taken place with more thought and planning.
Newcastle were quids in when the music stopped but in this party game it takes four months to start up again. For fans worried that Ashley may no longer be in the party mood once the next window opens there is now Kuqi – somewhere between a dip in the bran tub and a booby prize.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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