The Soccer Blog: MotM Poll: Newcastle 1-1 Chelsea

Tuesday 30 November 2010

MotM Poll: Newcastle 1-1 Chelsea

By: Jack | November 28th, 2010

Where has it all gone wrong?

Four points out of a possible 15 in the month of November. Says it all, really.

Sluggish. Wasteful. No longer top of the Premier League. More importantly – most importantly – where was the desire? There was a distinct lack of it for the better part of today’s match. Shocking.

Sure, we were probably good for three points. And, yes, Newcastle were camped in their own half for large portions of the second half. But the fact that our attack, featuring a handful of first-team players, could not bag at least two goals against a pair of second-choice central defenders, each making their first league start of the season, is inexcusable. We lack more than a cutting edge. No pace in play. No directness.

Something is wrong and, by God, King Carlo better unearth a fix soon because, while I’m not calling for his head, no way, the suits won’t hesitate.

Match recap coming later today. KTBFFH

Some Related Chelsea Posts:MotM Poll: Blackburn 1-2 ChelseaMotM Poll: Chelsea 3-4 NewcastleMotM Poll: Birmingham 1-0 ChelseaMotM Poll: Chelsea 2-0 ArsenalMotM Poll: Aston Villa 0-0 Chelsea

Category: Chelsea Team News, Fixtures, Man of the Match, Premiership

Tags: Alex, Ashley Cole, Branislav Ivanovic, Chelsea Team News, Didier Drogba, Fixtures, Man of the Match, Newcastle, Nicolas Anelka, Petr Cech, Premier League, Premiership, Ramires
« Rant Box: Newcastle v. Chelsea | Home | PL Recap: Newcastle 1-1 Chelsea »arn00bThe great thing about the transfer market is that it's a market - transparent and spares no feelings. How many clubs are interested in Mikel? Mancs and saying "we're glad you stole him." He has more assists against Chelsea than for. He took responsibility for the Apoel draw, but has so many others. Nigerians are saying that Mourinho ruined him as an attacking midfielder, others say that he's ruined as a player. How many teams are interested in him?

It's not his fault, though, as I said. He is an okay defensive midfielder. Don't expect him to score goals or assists and he won't disappoint in that aspect. Chelsea became too predictable, attacking from both wings with the fullbacks and wingers and that's it.

The midfield is weak. People concentrate on the defensive crisis and the strikers not scoring but they fail to see Occam's razor. If there were midfielders to share the burden of defending and attacking, especially ball-distributors and play-makers, this wouldn't be happening.

Do you want to pit this midfield of Ramires, Mikel, Essien, Yuri Zhirkov + an injured Lampard against the Barcelona that 5-0-ed Madrid yesterday?

I just don't understand what's going with the management. Who makes decisions with transfers? Ramires was not cheap, nor a great find, nor did anyone else want him, nor the only option when VDV was on the market...

Think about these two questions. Is the Chelsea team now better than last years? If Inter beat a nearly perfect Chelsea, how does anyone really expect Chelsea to fare against Madrid and Barcelona? If Chelsea lost to Sunderland 0-3, good luck at Camp Nou.
arn00bBlame doesn't work so easily. It's not who's there, it's who isn't. It's not names, but positions - you field a team without an attacking or creative midfielder and this is what happens. You need someone to create the assists for the strikers or to score goals when the striking force isn't clicking. There's just no one in that Deco-Ballack-Joe Cole-Lampard position, and too much reliance on the flanks.
You can't field a team of just attacking defenders and attackers and hope it clicks.

Bosingwa, defender.
Cole, defender.
Ivanovic, defender.
Alex, defender.
Drogba, Anelka, Kalou, Malouda - attackers.

Who connects these two in the midfield? Who creates assists from midfield? Who scores when the strikers can't? Obi Mikel and Ramires. Seriously? Two defensive players? Of course, Mikel started out as an attacking midfielder once upon a time, but how many goals or assists does he have? Exactly.

And Ramires? 5 goals in 43 appearances in Benfica. Not exactly a goal-scorer. More of a Lucas Leiva than anything.

A successful team slowly replaces aging players with players a little younger. You can't replace Ballack with McEachran, Terry with Van Aanholt, Drogba with Borini and expect to win the league and CL.

A lazy/demotivated player with skill can improve if he stops being lazy. We saw that with Berbatov last weekend. Someone who's just not good can put all the effort and motivation on the pitch (Kalou, Mikel, Ferreira) but it would result in almost nothing, except a booking or a red card in Mikel's case. Give them a good salary and take away competition for positions and you'll have total complacency.

JackSome of what you say is true, but to call Mikel a poor player is blasphemy. Sure, he was subpar on Sunday, but he's been our finest player this season overall. It comes to down to being far too reliant on a small set of players, which falls squarely on the club.mattsmashAnd the rot continues. It's becoming slightly concerning, if we don't win against Everton our chances of winning the league are pretty much gone. The one positive this season so far is the number of kids we're bringing through, if we were Arsenal people would be crowing from the rooftops about how we're the future of football. but instead we're in crisis and need to sign 17 new players in January. F**k it, lets just focus on the Champions league this year, 'bout time we won it!!Max EdwardsCompletely wrong dude, if we lose to Everton that does in no way diminish our chance of winning the league. It's not even January yet, and you're already writing us off? We don't need 17 new players in January, we need at most 2-3, probably just 2. We need one more centerback and one more creative player like Lampard.JackAgreed, but I'm not quite sure we'll see reinforcements. I still think we'll finish in the top two, but it's not going to be pretty.Apartments NerjaGotta agree with Zach, Kalou ain't cutting the mustard!Zachkalou is the worst finisher in front of goal to EVER wear a chelsea shirt. and in that statement im including all the 6 year old kids across the world wearing chelsea shirts while kicking balls around in their backyards...chelsea4evaessien is the biggest loss among them i feel..coz without lamps also we were winning..and bane and alex are decent centre backs...Ajwith essien back as well as terry and lamps, i can see them going top again and eventually winning leaguePreposterousHypothesis I keep on telling myself that's the reason, however I'm concerned it may be something deeper than that...blog comments powered by Disqus