Good morning to you.
It’s a pity that irony doesn’t pay the bills. Early last year I tried to run a ‘Let’s Kick John Terry Out Of Football’ tee shirt and ‘Let’s Kick Racism…’ threatened legal action so it was shelved. Now black players are threatening to boycott a campaign that means nothing, achieves nothing.
The cad Terry won’t be playing tomorrow but all eyes will be on the away fans. They’ve more form than Framkel when it comes to racism. Hissing, coin throwing, you name it. No one likes a grass, but if you’re there and spot someone behaving like this, tell a steward.
The side kinda picks itself to a large extent. Hugo had a solid international performance against Spain during the week, stopping a Cesc Fabregas penalty here and making a double save here. After that he would be the right choice to bring into a big game like this.
A back four that makes the fewest number of mistakes as possible is the way forward and reluctantly I’m picking Walker ahead of Naughton. Walker increasingly terrifies me defensively and I’m becoming rapidly depressed being told how good he is going forward. This is like telling a woman who’s lost the heel of her shoe that the colour goes perfectly with her outfit.
He doesn’t appear up to the job as a defender. He’s athletic and he does make some useful passes I’m not denying that, simply asking, at what cost? Unless something dramatically positive happens tomorrow we need Naughton.
Jan, Cauler & Billy look as sound as we have been in decades. This seems extravagant praise, but if you think about it that’s how long we’ve been mending and making do.
Sandro & Dembélé have been actually formed a formidable partnership with their highly efficient contrasting styles. An excellent article by Matt Swan is essential reading here.
Opta sats on Sandro only serve to underline what we might have suspected. His Own Half passing accuracy rate is consistently excellent. Against Norwich City, Manchester United and Aston Villa it was 100%. Overall this season in his own half his passing accuracy was 93%.When he goes over the halfway line things go a little downhill. His Attacking Half passing accuracy rate drops to 79%. In the final third it takes a small hit and becomes 77%. So the key is obviously for him to keep it simple and concentrate on utterly owning the zone he can control.
Dembélé missed the Newcastle and West Brom games so it’s important to look at the direction the stats take you in. Also this is Moussa’s first season with us. Factoring all this in, Moussa’s numbers are better than encouraging, to put it mildly.
Overall this season in his Own Half his passing accuracy has been 90% his is Attacking Half passing accuracy rate has been 87% which in the final third he maintained that 87%.
Bale, Dempsey, Azza and Ade. The only question mark in my mind here was should we swap Dempsey for Siggy or the Midget Gem for Adebayor. The answer I believe is more a question of who would I want coming off the bench. This is a game where it’s highly likely the subs will be deployed so we need to ensure that they make an obvious difference.
My prediction? This, like the Manchester United game and indeed every tough test is about being able to play for 95 minutes. We ought to win and I think by two goals.
There will be much made about this match in relation to Villa-Boas facing his previous employers for the first time since getting the tin tack. If we draw or worse, it’s important to focus on the manner the game pans out. How we played and how well we’ve done so far this season.
Your predictions? Ha. Here they are!
Like the team picked.It makes most sense.
The one idea I would offer is to play Naughton at right back leave Azza off and play Walker from right mid to Right wing.with Sandro moving to the centre just in front of the CB’s. Gives us good cover on the right side and also centre.
In any case I think it will be a tough battle.Can we compete? If Chelsea are firing on all cylinders it will be tough.
Billy scares me if he is marking Torres. Forget the high line,Torres will find the hole.
God I hope we win.
Why would you drop Lennon? He’s been our best winger so far. Keep things simple and go with players who have featured regularly this season or played well, preferrably both. Lennon falls into both catergories whilst Naughton and Walker haven’t even played in the positions you’re suggesting.
Sandro and Dembele will surely be all too aware of the problems Mata/Hazard/Oscar can cause and I think you’re right that Sandro should be given most of the responsibility in covering the pesky area between centre back and midfield that those kind of players love so much. They might have to rotate a little though if Sandro picks himself up an early booking.
It would be difficult to take off Azza as he has been one of our best and most consistant players this season. But I am thinking for this to up the power.We have Bale and Walker is good running forward.I think in this one we need to try and sneak one and win the midfield battle because that is really where it will be won or lost.
Their midfielders will be a handful and we have to get at them physically and not let them create
Prediction? Bloody Battle.
I think the 12.45 kick off time might scupper that prediction- hope i’m wrong, though.
Looking back over past years I don’t think sneaking one goal would ever be enough. The ball doesn’t usually even need to cross the line for Chelsea to be awarded with a goal. I guess we’ll have to wait and see but I think we’re best playing to our strengths and for me, Lennon is one of those strengths.
Do you think Treadstone HQ is in Fenchurch Street station?
Treadstone? Im in Malaysia with amnesia
Or alternately 5-1 to us with one of the goals not crossing the line….or not.
Nice, like the line up above. Having Jan on the left (albiet temporarily) does give me confidence when Bale drifts in so would like to see Bale given that central role…see how it goes. Would love nothing more then to start with Ade & Lloris but I have a sick feeling that we will be deploying Brad and Defoe. I have nothing against either players, they are both bang on form its just Lloris is, well, BETTER and Defoe is pretty useless with this formation. Yes he might nick a goal but this formations strength is for an Ade type player to hold the ball and bring evryone else into the game to attack…Defoe cannot do that. I know were on a run but im still not convienced, we’ve laboured to wins in most of our games now. If we play the formation and staff as above, I really think we will have a good chance of not only winning this game but dominating most.
COYS
And my prediction for this fight…….
PAIN!
oh and 3-2 Spurs (Verts to score an 89th minute winner)
I see that Lazio have been fined £32,500 for their racist chanting at the Lane last month.
This follows on from fines of £24,735 to Manchester City (for being one minute late back onto the pitch after half-time against Porto) and £80,000 to Nicklas Bendtner (for revealing a sponsor’s logo on his underpants during Euro 2012).
The FA should grow a pair and withdraw from UEFA. If we took the lead I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Dutch follow suit and others could follow after that. We could then set up our own breakaway group leaving UEFA with the likes of Serbia and Ukraine.
Either way we cannot tolerate this nonsense from UEFA any more.
My opinion is that UEFA and FIFA need the PL far more than the PL need them? After the underhand and patently biased treatment shown by those bodies toward English football-It needs immediate direct action by the PL to show the rest of the footballing world that we mean business.
The FA despite having the best product, were laughed out of court when bidding for the WC-Yet the two winning bids were ‘dodgy’ to say the least and as for the 2022 bid????-what did the FA do?-FA,to be precise-direct action-not appeasement,enough’s enough!
Hear hear!
Puts their priorities pretty fucking clearly.
More silly statistics. We don’t really need statistics to prove that Sandro is not really an attacking player, but even still this one is pretty useless. Simply because there are more often a higher proportion of your own players and concurrently a lesser proportion of opposition players in your own half. Meaning it is much easier for anyone to find a pass to a team mate in their own half. Dembele’s stats here may be impressive, but some of that would be because he operates in general further up the pitch and also receives / touches the ball less often than Sandro.
Also, can’t agree that Gallas, Caulker and Jan is as good as we’ve ever had it. Jan at left back is exactly mending and making do, and he is really a liability in that position. Ironically this is for the exact reasons you criticize Walker: he is great going forward from LB but defensively he is a disaster waiting to happen there. A feature of our games with Jan at LB have been the opposition exploiting this as a weak area and seeing him get skinned, lose possession, allowing crosses and all sorts. Move him into CB with Caulker or Gallas where he is as good as anyone in the league and play Naughton LB.