Giles Smith: Standing to reason

A lot can happen in the space of 10 days, so it’s worth briefly recapping the events that occurred following December 6th – which, you will no doubt recall, was that extraordinary, unprecedented and, in some quarters, even dumbfounding day in the 2014/15 season when Chelsea finally got round to losing a Premier League match.

The ensuing Wednesday, with the shockwaves still being felt around the country after our defeat by the odd goal in three away at Newcastle, and with some observers rather eagerly wondering whether this would be the point at which it would ‘all unravel’, we returned to Stamford Bridge to beat Sporting Lisbon 3-1 in a match with nothing riding on it from our point of view (and everything riding on it from the point of view of our opponent’s), merely confirming our qualification for the knock-out stages of the Champions League as group winners, yet confirming it rather emphatically, none the less.

Then, the following Saturday, we played Hull at home and, without breaking very much in the way of sweat other than to jump out of the way of various scything tackles which might otherwise have done certain members of our squad lasting mischief, won 2-0 to maintain our three-point lead at the top of the table.

And then, on Tuesday, we went to Derby where, in the tipping rain, we scored a pair of goals (Eden Hazard’s slapshot, Filipe Luis’s free-kick in the form of a 24-gun salute) which have probably already burned their way onto the showreel for Chelsea TV’s Goal of the Season contest. In the process, we beat the recent Championship leaders 3-1, and advanced in an admirably unflustered manner into the semi-finals of the Capital One Cup.

Accordingly, our record so far this season, accounting for all competitions, reads as follows: Played 25, Lost 1, Drawn 5, Won 19.

Okay, so you could argue that it’s not the form of Real Madrid, whose unblemished run of victories currently stands at 21. But then, unlike Real, we’re not playing in Spain and a high proportion of our matches have brought us up against opponents who are actually quite good. So I would suggest the achievement easily stands comparison, and is possibly even superior in terms of durability, consistency under pressure and… well, winning when it’s really quite hard to do so.

And the loss to Newcastle? Well, it doesn’t seemed to have altered the team’s course very much, by the look of the intervening fortnight. Defeat, you will hear people say, is the furnace in which character is forged - which always sounds grand, although it has never seemed to me a particularly strong argument against avoiding defeat wherever possible and simply deciding to take the hit, character-wise.

Nevertheless, on those inevitable occasions when defeat simply can’t be avoided (up at St James’ Park, for instance, when, convincingly pressing for an equaliser, you’ve just hit the post, only for the opposition to go scampering up the other end, capitalise on a once-in-a-lifetime error by your centre-back and double their lead), the art, clearly, then lies in bouncing back in such a way as to minimise the defeat’s effects.

And three successive victories in three elaborately different sets of circumstance, does go a long way towards reducing it and perhaps even covering its traces over completely. In fact, correct me if I’m wrong, but, a fortnight on, it’s almost like Newcastle never happened.

The two teams we ‘didn’t want’, according to all the analysts, were Juventus and Paris St-Germain. And, when the draw was made, we didn’t get Juventus. But we did get PSG. So, to summarise, we didn’t get what we wanted.

Really? There was a false logic in operation there, surely. Being the two biggest sides that we could possibly have been matched with at this stage of the tournament, and representing measurably the two biggest threats to our continuing presence in Europe, Juventus and PSG were, I would suggest, EXACTLY the kind of sides that we would have hoped to be drawn against. And therefore, like lucky children at Christmas, we did get what we wished for, after all (although, arguably, Juventus would have represented the stiffer challenge, so Santa could have been even kinder).

It stands to reason, doesn’t it? Why be in the Champions League in the first place if, as soon as the competition gets serious, you’re going to cringe and hide and hope to get lucky? After all, there’s plenty of opportunity to cringe and hide and hope to get lucky every year in the Capital One Cup and the FA Cup. We certainly don’t need the Champions League for that. On the contrary, in that context the only sensible post-Christmas attitude is ‘bring on the big guns’.

There’s a time and a place for playing BATE Borisov, in my opinion, and it’s October in the Europa League. Come February, on the other hand, and the knock-out stages of Europe’s elite-level cup competition, you instinctively want it large. You want a big, glossy name on your ticket and the prospect of a big, glossy night ahead of you. Otherwise, what’s the point of it all?

Remember, too, that we didn’t win the Champions League by getting soft draws against Monaco. We won it by taking down a then formidable Napoli side (who brought a 3-1 lead into the second leg), seeing off the legendary and storied Benfica, barging aside an ultra-sophisticated Barcelona and vanquishing the mighty Bayern Munich who (and this should never be under-emphasised) were actually at home in the final, which is about as soft as a draw gets at that stage.

There was immense and eternal pride to be found in that – as, I would suggest, there might not have been (or not to quite the same extent) if our path to permanent glory had gone via Trabzonspor, Dnipro, Red Bull Salzburg and Arsenal at the Emirates.

Similarly the sympathy one has heard being voiced for Manchester City, who have hopped from a frying-pan group-stage into the fire of a two-legged tie against Barca, is entirely misplaced. In the absence of a frying pan, the fire is exactly where anyone who buys into the competition’s true spirit wants to be, so that’s a proper draw, right there. True, it may also be the end of City’s Champions League campaign. But there’s a nobility to be found even in that, because you might as well go down dizzy and in flames trying to contain Lionel Messi as go out on goal difference to Shakhtar Donetsk (no disrespect).

Anyway, may it be the same story for us this time as it was in 2012, or a very similar one: big guns blazing (and preferably getting blazed), all the way. That, after all, is what it’s for. And for everything else, there’s the Capital One.

On the topic of which, congratulations to Liverpool on that shock victory at Bournemouth last night. That was a result which nobody saw coming, and all credit to Brendan Rodgers’s men for having the self-belief, even when under siege in the second half, to ignore the doubters and produce it. 

Note, too, that not everyone has written off Liverpool at this point. Indeed, it’s a mark of the respect Bournemouth were still able to show the struggling Premier League side that, on the night, they put out a side which was only a few players short of full strength.

After that came the draw for the semi-finals, performed, with the traditional sense of balance and objectivity for which televised football is increasingly famous, by two ex-Liverpool players. It was Graeme Souness and Jamie Redknapp who withdrew the balls of destiny from what seemed to be a black motorcycle helmet, possibly requisitioned from a passing pizza delivery man. (You use what you can get your hands on, I guess.) And accordingly, it’s those two who were responsible for getting their former club a tie against a big team in the next round – namely us. But it promises to be quite exciting for us, too, and I'm sure we'll get up for it as best we can.

Giles Smith is a columnist for the official Chelsea FC website and his weekly piece is published every Thursday throughout the season.

Falling Into Place

I suggested last week that losing to Newcastle away was not all doom and gloom as it could be the beginning of better things and last week the team showed that it was ready to begin another winning streak.

Right now it stands at P 2 W 2 D 0 L 2

4 nil and 2 nil wins at home is hardly big news compared to some of our best performances this season but these kind of results is what breeds the kind of confidence needed to start another run.

It looks like everything is falling into place for us just at the right time. We have deliberately lost to lift the unneeded pressure of the boys and whether by coincidence or some twist of faith, we've managed to let 3 of our most influential players to serve their time for suspensions to get them available for the most busy and exciting period of the season.

Diego Costa was first then Matic against Newcastle. Our midfield maestro and assist leader  in the BPL Cesc Fabregas was also suspended for the Hull City game. Now all of them will be available for the festive games which comes almost every 2 days till mid - January next year.

With the team now officially participating in 4 competitions after the FA cup draw it was lovely to see the manager mix up the team and for us to witness a debut for Rueben Loftus-Cheek. But more importantly, it was great to see them produce the kind of performance they did on Wednesday in the CL.

Schurlle for instance had been hitting low keys for the team this season since he came back from the World Cup but he looked himself on Wednesday and capped a fine performance with a goal. All the players are staying sharp and ready to compete for the team and that can only be to the benefit of the team.

When Chelsea eliminated PSG from the Champions league last season their official twitter handle wrote that they shall be back and lo and behold, here they are. Right in the middle of the road blocking our path to CL glory. But I bet they didn't put into consideration the fact that they will be meeting a much improved and super high on confidence Chelsea.

They really put up a fight the last time beating us 3-1 in Paris and we could only go through on goal difference putting our vastly superior experience in the competition to use. But things are different now. We play at a different stage of the competition with a better team and against David Luiz whom we will love to beat. So if PSG tells us they are back our answer is simple.

Bring it on.

Giles Smith - The Truth Is Out There

It wasn’t only a sprightly performance that caught columnist and season ticket holder Giles Smith’s eye as he watched last night’s win…

Remember losing? I’d almost completely forgotten about it. And not surprisingly really. I’m pretty sure that the last time it happened, milk still came in glass bottles.

But that was before last Saturday, of course, and that slightly surprising result at Newcastle, the pointless aftermath of which, inevitably, brought back a few distant memories, not all of them entirely pleasant. That said, once the initial gloom had begun to lift,

I personally was quite relieved to have got a defeat on the board at long last. The talk of a possible ‘invincible’ season (none of it ever coming from Chelsea fans, incidentally) had started up, ridiculously, as early as October, and was just beginning to get irksome. Given a little longer, it clearly had the potential to become a major distraction, possibly even a ruinous one from the point of view of our greater aims.

Going through a league season undefeated, quietly leaving aside defeats in cup competitions, and then awarding yourself the label ‘invincible’ – correct me if I’m wrong, but this was never part of the gameplan for 2014/15, which set its sights on more dignified things, such as trying to win all the available competitions, rather than on a nerdy, fact-checker’s interest in unblemished records. It would have been entirely unrealistic in any case.

I realise that Arsenal did it in 2003/04, but the Premier League was a less complicated place in those days, bearing no resemblance to the collection of variously terrifying banana skins which constitute the top flight of English football today.

Indeed, back then, the Premiership was only just beginning to emerge from a period in which a drawn-out two-club stranglehold (Arsenal and Manchester United) had drawn unfavourable and even mocking comparisons with the situation in Scottish football.

In any case, let’s face it, never losing leads only to stagnation and complacency. Better, surely, to enjoy the rejuvenating effect of the occasional (preferably extremely occasional) defeat and convert it, say, into a spritely, born-again 3-1 victory over Sporting Lisbon in the following match (impressively spritely, given that the match was, from our players' point of view, a dead rubber) and, for preference, something similar at home to Hull on Saturday.

Remember bouncing back? It follows logically that that, too, is a distant memory round these parts. But I don’t think any of us would mind being reminded.

For a very long time now this column has been interested in discovering what those additional UEFA goal-line officials actually do of an evening. I suppose, in a way, it’s become a bit of an obsession – a life’s work, you could almost say.

But it’s just a feeling we have that, if we ever did find out what officials number five and six are up to out there, standing quite near the goals on these European evenings, and if we wrote those findings up in words right here, it would give us the satisfaction of feeling that this column handmade a contribution, however modest, to the sum of human knowledge.

Because nobody else seems to know what those people are for either. This is clearly a new frontier for scientific understanding and whoever gets there first is going to be acclaimed for all time as a pioneer and ground-breaker – the person who first cracked the code and explained to the world the point of the goal line official.

Unfortunately, despite having devoted many hours of close scrutiny to those extra assistants, and having thought extremely hard about their potential function at every moment available, the most plausible explanation we have been able to find for them up to now is: ‘somewhere to hang your coat.’

Which isn’t bad, at this stage of the investigation as early conclusions go. It may well be part of the truth. But my instincts as an experimental scientist tell me it’s not the whole truth, which is what we’re really after.

You’ll understand how excited we became last night, then, during the second half, when – in a development which we believe was unprecedented, certainly in our own experience – the goal line official at the Shed End actively summoned the referee over to him in order to have some kind of consultation.

This was rare: you very rarely see those extra people make a meaningful move or communicate with anyone else connected with the match in any way at all. This has led in some quarters to the theory that the goal line officials are, in fact, cyborgs, sent from another planet. (For the record, we don’t entirely dismiss this theory. But we’d need to see quite a lot more proof before we completely signed up to it.)

Yet, just before Sporting could take the corner kick which had been awarded to them, the extra assistant distinctly appeared to call the referee to him, causing the game to be held up while the two of them put their heads together on the goal line and clearly had some kind of conversation.

At that point, those of us watching seemed potentially to be on the verge of an important breakthrough – witnessing some sort of decisive intervention on the goalline official’s part which might explain their purpose more generally and why UEFA goes to the trouble of flying them all the way from Norway (in last night’s case), putting them in a hotel, feeding them, issuing them with uniforms, etc.

Alas, what happened next was… well, nothing.

The conversation went on for quite a long time. The players stood and waited. At the end of the conversation, the referee trotted back to his position on the edge of the penalty area. He then waved for the delayed corner to be taken. He didn’t talk to anyone; he didn’t noticeably address anything that the goalline official might have drawn to his attention. It was if the exchange had never happened.

No wiser, then. No closer to solving the mystery. Still entirely in the dark, in fact. For all we know (and for all the difference it made), the goalline official called the referee over because he had just remembered the punchline to a joke that he had started to tell in the courtesy car on the way to the ground.

But that’s not to say that we’re giving up now. Far from it. We scientists don’t do that. We know the truth may be hard to arrive at. But we push on towards it anyway.

Giles Smith is a columnist for the official Chelsea FC website and his weekly piece is published every Thursday throughout the season.

Stronger and Tougher

I was at a friend's wedding on Saturday when the match was being played so I could only check updates via various social media and on livescore.com.

The debate and the discussions at the wedding grounds after the match made me realise that almost all of the oppositions never really liked the idea of us going unbeaten. The most obvious reason being that its Chelsea. Anything good about Chelsea leaves a bad taste in the mouths of all non - Chelsea fans and going unbeaten in a season will be the worst taste.

The second being that with Arsenal almost trophy-handicapped and mostly  4th best in the league over a long period of time it was only humane to let them cling on the last modicum of superiority that they have or had depending on which part of the century you are from.

It wasn’t the best result for me, or the team, on a rather delightful day for me but come to think of it, it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the team.

We lost to a Newcastle team that has been on up for some time now at one of our most difficult grounds to play in without our best midfield enforcer in the person of Nemanja Matic. Even Jose Mourinho has not won there on 5 occasions now and almost always the story is the same. We play well but create few chances and are finished off with some fine finishing.

If any team deserved to beat us for the first time this season it was Newcastle. They are not direct title rivals and neither are they London rivals. There is not much animosity between the fans either and we played them at a very good time in the season so no harm done there.

This match, however, gave us 2 things.

First, it eased the pressure on the team. Everybody in the media were so interested in this unbeaten run that it was neck breaking and exhausting and it put so much pressure on the team. Every opposing team prepared so much to have the game of their lives to be able to break it and this made it very difficult for the team.

Well its broken now so you can all relax now and play against us like you play the rest of the teams. Big teams are supposed to be able to handle such pressure but it is always fun to play with that freedom when nothing is at stake, except for the Premier league.

Secondly, it confirmed what I have always been saying that the most important player in this team now is Nemanja Matic. Anybody who knew how important he was to the team would not be surprised that we lost our first match in his absence. His work in putting out opposition fires is so vital and no 1 does it better than him. Mikel did his best but its not easy to command the middle like him. Its good news to have him available for the next games.

We are still 3 pts clear at the top of the table. This team will come stronger and tougher from this defeat. I've always said that the league is ours to lose this season and I still stand by it. We have everything we need to see things through so unless we are hit with the worst kind of hard luck we should be fine.

With the season building up some steam it is a massive blow to Manchester City to lose their best forward and leading goalscorer in the BPL. Aguero's scoring rate is impressive and has been the difference for the team this season both at home and in Europe. His injury is not that surprising considering his history with it and his absence will almost likely hand the title to Chelsea. City has no potent replacement upfront and Chelsea fans will not be feeling sorry at all.

I've always believed that one of the luckiest managers in the world is Arsene Wenger. With the board members of his club, their playing philosophies, the fans and even the players it looks like Arsenal was tailor - made for him. With everything that has been happening on and off the pitch I guess the last thing we all expected was to see the fans fight themselves over him.

The club can endure trophy hunger with him, no Champions league with him, unimpressive transfers and even his losing streak to Mourinho with him. But 1 thing the club cant survive is to lose their supporters. No matter how important you are to a club non can survive without their supporters. Master Wenger must really get his act together or risk leaving his beloved Arsenal like Rafael Benitez left Chelsea. And that is even if he can win something in his last season.

Giles Smith - Something Old Something New

Some old rituals never lose their magic. It doesn’t matter how many times they come around, nor how same-y they are in essence, they still gladden the heart and charm us all over again. Christmas, for example. And not losing to Tottenham at home in the league.

As people are forever pointing out, the last time Tottenham beat Chelsea at the Bridge in a league game, Gary Lineker was still a footballer and you could get one of his packets of Walkers crisps for a penny-ha’penny and still have change for the trolley-bus home.

And, of course, human nature being what it is, every year you go along to the ground thinking, ‘Will this, finally, be the one? Will this, at last, be the time that Spurs end this extraordinary, unprecedented run of fruitlessness and, for the first time since everyone in the crowd wore hats and stood around in black and white, go home with the points?’ And every time it isn’t. Last night being no exception.

It almost makes you feel sorry for our north London neighbours. They aren’t just playing us in this fixture, they are also playing the history of the British Isles. Sure enough, last night they started enthusiastically enough but within 20 minutes or so they were suddenly 2-0 and 24 years down. 

That’s always going to be dispiriting. And long may it continue. Same goes for Christmas.

How was the new light-show for you? Just before the players emerged from the tunnel last night, the floodlights were dipped, the hoardings around the pitch glowed bright blue and a heart-beat came pumping through the PA system. All courtesy of those new LED light bulbs of ours, which can be flicked on and off, unlike the old ones, which were powered by a complex system of hamsters on treadmills and therefore took a little while to warm up.

Maybe you had to be there. The thing is, if I had seen the plan written down on a piece of paper beforehand, I would probably have thought it was a terrible idea and turned my nose up against it as high as my nose would go. Artificial atmosphere in the stadium? Surely that’s a close relative of piping in music after goals, which would have to sit extremely high on the list of the very worst ideas that anyone ever had in the vicinity of a football ground.

As it happened, though, I thought it was brilliant - an enhancer rather than a detractor, a complement to the atmosphere that was already there, and probably quite a kick for the players, who got to walk out into these theatrical pools of light with the rest of the ground in darkness.

Shades, in fact, of the eerie aftermath of our 2005 Carling Cup victory in Cardiff, where the lights were dimmed for the trophy presentation and which I can still become quite shuddery thinking about even now.

So I’m all in favour of this new night-game curtain-raiser. It’s probably against Champions League rules, so I don’t know when we’ll see it again. But I’m already looking forward to it.

No music when we score, though. We must never let that happen. It’s up to all of us to unite against the notion if anyone so much as mentions it.

According to a theory advanced by the BBC Sport website the other day, it’s all the Champions League’s fault. The 0-0 draw at Sunderland, I mean. Keen-eyed statisticians noted that each of the three matches in which our team has failed to take the full complement of points on offer in a Premier League fixture this season has occurred during the weekend directly following a match in Europe. The conclusion was drawn that post-European fatigue must have been a factor. Well, maybe. On the other hand, we have played in the Champions League five times so far.

Which means (if I’m doing the maths correctly) that, as well as the three occasions on which there was a subsequent faltering, there were two occasions on which there wasn’t.

Indeed, on one of those two occasions when there wasn’t, we returned from Europe, went up to Liverpool about 10 minutes later, in a match which the schedulers weren’t even prepared to postpone until Sunday, or even Saturday evening, in accordance with the normal courtesy extended to Champions League contenders, and won 2-1.

And even though beating Liverpool at Anfield doesn’t quite bring the glowing sense of achievement that it once did, in the days when the coalman still drove around on a horse and cart and when Liverpool were still a big club whose ground was a genuinely intimidating place to go, that still felt like a decent enough achievement at the time, in the circumstances and given that some of our players were still clearing customs three minutes before the game kicked off. On the other of those two occasions, by the way, we came back from Lisbon to beat Arsenal at home. Again, I know: not the force they once were. But still not a bad result.

Also, let’s not forget that the places where we drew in the wake of European action this season were Manchester City, Manchester United and Sunderland. And okay, it might just about be reasonable to talk about ‘dropping points’ at the Stadium of Light, but surely it would be only patronising and presumptuous to speak of ‘dropping points’ at the Etihad and even at Old Trafford, which are places where a draw is a perfectly respectable outcome, and may even be regarded as a ‘point earned’.

Especially when your ‘point earned’ would have been three points if it hadn’t been for (respectively), an own goal by Frank Lampard and a desperate last-minute hack in the face of an unfortunately depleted defence by Robin van Persie.

Anyway, let’s say there is a recognisable phenomenon called ‘a Champions League hangover’; and let’s say our team has been in the grip of it on three out of five occasions so far this season. Even then it seems to me to be a reasonable trade-off.

Would you rather not be in Europe at all, like Manchester United, and 12 points clear at the top of the table, 16 points clear of the team in third place, and 19 points better off than Liverpool?

Or would you prefer to be (as we are) through to the qualifying stages of the Champions League, having finished top of the group with a game to spare, and ‘merely’ six points clear at the top of the table, 10 points clear of the team in third place and 13 points better off than Liverpool?

Surely any reasonable person has to be prepared to take the rough with the smooth and, accordingly, it’s the latter for me.

Giles Smith is a columnist for the official Chelsea FC website and his weekly piece is published every Thursday throughout the season.

A Fair Point

One point gained or two points lost?

Depends on how you are looking at things.
This was the most nervous match that the team has played this season. These were the type of matches that Chelsea lost last season.

Chelsea actually lost at the Stadium of Light last season. It is a sign of how far this team has progressed that they were still able to dig in deep and keep their shape and composure to get the draw.

Both teams put in a very steady but feisty performance and each had a ball hit the post. Both clearly had their objectives and were playing to it. 1 point each seems like a fair results even though Chelsea will rue not creating enough chances.

The team is high on confidence and on a steady run and can have a go at any team in Europe right now but this draw could be the best thing to happen to them this season. There is nothing more demoralising than to fly so high into the sky and eventually get burned and drop to ground.

Such falls are hard to recover from. It is far better to get an improved results at your supposed "bogey" grounds and still learn the lesson that you are not untouchable so get your stuff together and go finish on a high.

The title is still ours to lose. Such is the competition in the BPL that we can afford to drop the odd points and let your opponents win but still stay ahead comfortably because they will eventually drop some points too.

Every team will drop points and Chelsea might not even go undefeated but in the end it will all depend on how tough the team is mentally to hold on to such a lead and in such circumstances we all trust Mourinho to get us there.

So we play our favourite team on Wednesdays night at home. They have become a bit stable in their last 2 matches after winning their Europa League match and also on Sunday with the last kick of the game.

They will be high on confidence and playing Chelsea in the position that they currently are is always extra motivation for them. Nothing will please our neighbours from North London than to be the first team to defeat us this season and also derail us on our title march.

Well the fun part is that nothing also pleases us more than when we beat up our favourite neighbours at Stamford Bridge.

Southampton put up a spirited fight in the 1st half but after losing Schneiderlin in the 2nd half to injury and playing without Cork to plug the midfield it was always going to be a tough battle keeping Lampard at bay.

Lampsy perfected the art of finding space from deep positions in the league and is a master of it. He did it to Chelsea and he can do it everyday. Its no wonder that Pelligrini wants to keep him beyond January. He's been a very valuable addition.

The race is heating up and Manuel Pelligrini seems up for a fight. That will only make the fight for the title more fun.

At least he did not do a Wenger and concede the title lost before christmas.

Flamboyant And Assured

So my reaction to the match was expertly summed up for me by Fabregas
‘I don’t think I am exaggerating if I don’t remember playing and enjoying a football match as much as I did personally in the first half’.

That first half was a scintillating and flamboyant display by the team that is not normally seen at Stamford Bridge. The one-twos, the PC-assisted passes and the runs by the attackers. It was mesmerising.

I am a man who values efficiency and loved the periods between 2004 to 2010 at Chelsea. The game plan back then was simple. Go and win, no matter what. Grind out results. Bully the opponent to submission. In other words, dont do Arsenal.

Those days were fun and just like in movies, the fun restriction was CF (Chelsea Fans). It was hard for the other teams to like us considering the fact that our daddy was rich and we were bullies too.

But in this period the team seems to be playing to entertain all. Pass pass pass with fewer shots on goals. But the gaffer has the team high in confidence and playing well to win and entertain us all. Long may it continue.

This team is not getting carried away and are careful not to drop their performance and lose confidence as summed by Fabregas again,
‘I don’t compare us with any other big sides because we haven’t won anything, this is just the beginning.
Everyone is talking well about Chelsea now, how great we are and then you lose two games they will talk about how bad we are. We have been long enough in football not to fall into this trap and to just keep going the way we want to achieve things.’

I must admit that I was a bit surprised by the scoreline. The 2-0 might suggest a much stiffer encounter than it was but credit to West Brom that they came into the second half with a game plan not to concede more.

With a man down against this Chelsea team that seemed like the most prudent thing to do. They were very organised at the back and sacrificed possession to protect their dignity. Not conceding in the second half would have been a real lift for them.

Manchester United, before last saturday, had suffered more injuries to their players than Boko Haram in the past 3 months and not really playing at their best. So how on earth did they get a win at the Emirates? You ask any Arsenal fun and the answer is simple.

Arsene Wenger.

The man who shrewdly guided Arsenal to its highest points and helped them build the enviable Emirates stadium has now become redundant at the club. The man who was once considered to be one of the brightest managers on earth is now not counted at the top even by his own fans.

His tactics are questioned, his signings are scoffed at and he seems to identify the problems with his teams a season or 2 later than everyone.

Arsenal has not won against United in their last 7 matches now. They failed to win any of the 2 matches against them last season when United were at an all time low and that was terrible for the fans to take. But Sunday’s loss is leaving a far bitter taste.

Fans are calling for his head and it might be justified this time. Old age is has made him lose his touch with the game and its harming the team and the English game as a whole.

It seems kind of funny that the 2 managers who seems to have problems with teams defending have found their teams susceptible at the back this season. Arsenal have conceded a third of their goals from counter-attacks and Liverpool cant seem to find a plug for the hole im their defence.

Let them ask the man who has made it his art to perfect it.

Jose Mourinho

Giles Smith: Lighting up

A great performance and a life-enhancing result at Anfield. And what a reaction. That Saturday night, people round my way were letting off fireworks long into the night, and from what I can gather it was the same in many other parts of the country.

In some places, apparently, they even built huge bonfires, like beacons, and set fire to them. And, on the Thames, in the early part of the evening, newspapers and television reported that a glorious display of fireworks was launched from a barge moored mid-stream just east of Waterloo Bridge while a delighted crowd looked on from the pavement.

Extraordinary scenes, and it showed you how much that result meant to everyone – a testament to the way that football can really bring people together from time to time, and certainly when Chelsea win away at Liverpool.

Actually, now I come to think of it, people were still letting off fireworks more than 24 hours later, on the Sunday evening – largely, I guess, because, by then, a defeat for Arsenal at Swansea had been added into the celebratory mix, along with that pitifully scraped draw for Manchester City away at QPR. And also because it seems people just can’t stop letting off fireworks once they start.

Anyway, festive times. Those combined results left us:
1. Four points clear at the top of the table.
2. Eight points clear of Manchester City.
3. Twelve points clear of Arsenal, whose manager went on to state that the title was now officially beyond his team’s reach.
4. Thirteen points clear of Manchester United, whose manager has yet to express an opinion about the title but who surely wouldn’t want to quibble with an analyst of the game as shrewd and experienced as Arsene Wenger.
5. Fifteen points and 10 places clear of Liverpool.
6. Fifteen points and 11 places clear of Tottenham.
7. Only 10 points and 37 places clear of Fulham – but don’t forget that we have six games in hand on them.
8. Unbeaten in 17 games in all competitions since the season started, which is a new club best.

Really, you would have to say, that outcome was worth a Catherine wheel and a family pack of sparklers in anyone’s back garden. And that’s before you consider the remarkable fact that we would be four points even better off than we are, had the Manchester United game ended 10 seconds earlier than it did and had Frank Lampard not scored that own goal in the dying moments at the Etihad.

Not wishing to be greedy, or anything.

It’s been a truly outstanding opening phase, though, leaving us all with a sense of quiet, understated and becomingly modest confidence to take into the latest of this season’s seemingly fortnightly international breaks, and with some warm and fond memories to look back on as England take on the Faroe Isles or Iceland or Caragua or whoever it is they’re playing this time. Let’s not get carried away, though.

Despite the fact that we’re under a third of the way through the season, we’re already hearing people talk about whether a complete campaign without defeat in the league might be possible for this Chelsea side, emulating the achievement of Arsenal’s 'Invincibles' of 2003/04.

And obviously it’s nice when your team inspires that kind of conversation, because there are far worse kinds of conversation that a team can inspire. But, even so, don’t you kind of wish, deep down, that people wouldn’t? After all, it’s no longer 2003/04. The league in which Arsenal racked up 90 points, drew 12 times and suffered no defeats, included Charlton Athletic, Wolves, Bolton, Portsmouth, Fulham, Leicester, who were on their way down, and even Leeds, who were also on their way down. (Arsenal’s aggregate score against Leeds that season: 9-1.) Hard to spot the equivalent of today’s Swansea or Southampton or Stoke in there – tough, so called ‘over-achievers’, perfectly capable of ripping three points out of the hands of anybody who grows complacent. It was also a league in which Manchester City, Tottenham and Everton all contrived to finish well inside the bottom half. (Everton weren’t far off being relegated.)

The point is, in the intervening decade, the league got harder – more random, more variable and better, you could argue. It got so much harder and more random that it’s currently a place where, after 11 games, Arsenal are sixth, Manchester United are seventh and Liverpool are 11th. No disrespect to Arsenal, of course, but one hardly expects to see invincibility in such circumstances – not this season, of all seasons.

Or perhaps one should put it another way: if it happens, it will be a far greater achievement than anything the Premier League has known. One should also remember that you don’t have to win or draw all of your games in order to win the title. Though, of course, it helps. Brendan Rodgers got a lot of stick at the end of what turned out to be a triple-defeat week for Liverpool, but much of that stick was enormously unfair and even gleefully opportunistic in my opinion.

Management is about getting the best out of what you’re got, after all. Rodgers was noisily criticised for standing down seven first-teamers for a Champions League match against Real Madrid, in order to keep them pristine for a league match against Chelsea. Yet the plan worked pretty much perfectly.

His team selection for the Bernabeu effectively removed the competitive sting from the game and turned it into a televised training match. As a consequence, Liverpool came away with a narrow defeat, and nothing like the humiliation expected at the hands of a side that had already comfortably beaten them 3-0 at Anfield.

Moreover the first team was then fresh and motivated enough to restrict us to just the two goals – and, again, a predicted humiliation with genuinely lasting consequences for Liverpool's morale was averted. (They’ll be over this one by Christmas, no question about it. Or soon after.) Excellent maximising of resources, then, by Rodgers.

Last year’s ‘Make Us Dream’ slogan up at Anfield seems to have modified, metaphorically speaking, to this year’s ‘Spare Us Our Worst Nightmares’, and Rodgers more than met the fans’ requirements in that area, so they should give him credit for that.

We all should.

Giles Smith is a columnist for the official Chelsea FC website and his weekly piece is published every Thursday throughout the season.

Superiority Complex

Once upon a time far in the year 2014 Ghana's most hilarious boxers Braima Kamoko (Bukom Banku ) and Aryitey Powers were billed for a bout at the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium in Accra. It was a sell out and the anticipation was high despite the fact that everybody, except for Aryitey's family, knew that it was going to be a handicap win for Bukom Banku if there was such a thing in boxing.

Aryitey Powers, in a funny twist to the story,  asked for a change of date because his pastor T.B. Joshua has warned him not to fight on that day or he'l lose. The date was changed to a further date and guess what. He still lost.
Moral of the story? You can't stop the inevitable.

Fast forward to present time and Liverpool are only beginning to understand this basic concept.

Brendan Rodgers as inexperienced as he is rested 7 players against Real Madrid in the CL on Wednesday to play Chelsea because that was his priority. As to it being a misplaced priority, I dont even want to go there but now it sure looks to have been his worst managerial decisions after losing both matches albeit it being narrow defeats.

There was no way Liverpool were going to win on Sunday against the league leaders. This wasn't exactly a David and Goliath fight but it wasn’t a battle of 2 equals either. Chelsea are in their best and bullish form at the moment and with the dip in form of Liverpool, their goal-shy strikers and also seriously lacking confidence this Chelsea will never let you off in that state.

Chelsea played a half-fit Diego Costa and Ramires and a humstrung Fabregas with only 2 days rest after travelling to play Maribor but still proved too much for them so it wasn’t a matter of rest and rotation for the players. Chelsea were just totally superior to their opponents. They had the best team, the best bench, the better coach and even the best plastic supporters who were still behind their teams when they went behind.

Lets pick them one by one.

Courtois is keeping Mignolet out of the Belgium national team and widely considered to be the best young goalkeeper so no argument there.

Southampton has conceded the fewest goals in the division but Chelsea is perceived to have the most composed but fierce defence. They are all warriors at the back led by the battle hardened John Terry and completed by Azpilicueta who provided the assist for the winning goal at Enfield. Cahill and Ivanovic completes the back four and this defence can hold any attack at bay.

Liverpool started with Johnson-Skrtel-Lovren-Moreno. A back four that has looked shaky all season. Glen Johnson is not at his best and Lovren was a better defender for Southampton. Skrtel only has more match experience than Chelsea's Kurt Zouma.

In Chelsea's midfield with Matic and Fabregas its easy to boss games like they did. Ramires provides some steel on the right and Oscar and Hazard are unplayable at the moment.

Gerrard has been a fantastic player for Liverpool and one of the finest Midfielders this game has seen. Emre Can is now improving for Liverpool and Henderson has yet to hit the heights of last season. Raheem Sterling has been a breeze for them this season but Coutinho on the other hand seems to have hit a pause on his development. 

Should I talk about the strikers Mario? Well to put it simply one is battling Sergio Aguero for the golden boot and the other seems comfortable at the defence and competing with Gary Cahill for most goals and losing.

So this was really not a contest at all. Chelsea only had to show up for the 3 points and that is what they did.

Brendan Rodgers could have rested the whole team and he would have still lost because Chelsea would still have been the better team.

What more can say about Nemanja Matic? Guy is a rock. Mourinho says he's a giant by the way he plays. On a day when Fabregas was clearly not at his best the Serbian took it upon himself to sort out the midfield and boy what a fantastic job he did. After Emre Can's goal there was no room for their attacking players to move. Talk of a destroyer.

So Arsene Wenger has ruled his team out of the race, Dzeko believe Chelsea are just pretenders,  Mourinho believes his team will definitely lose a game or more over the season and Southampton boss Koeman believes they can overtake Chelsea.

What I believe is that if any team has the know-how, the resource and the experience to maintain a lead at the top its Chelsea managed by Jose Mourinho. So if I were the rest I'll fight for the other Champions league slots left.

A word to a wise.

Giles Smith: In contrast

What a total and utter Champions League disaster. What a complete shake-your-head-in-disbelief shambles.

For Manchester City, I mean – defeated at home by CSKA Moscow, reduced to nine men, wedged dismally at the bottom of their group with merely two points from four games and obliged to beat both Roma and Bayern Munich in the next month or so in order to have even the faintest chance of appearing in the competition on the other side of Christmas.

Whereas our team, by contrast, secures a handy point away from home, increases its points tally to eight (the most of any English representative in the competition and more than Manchester City and Liverpool combined), maintains its position at the top of its group table and remains set fair for the knock-out stages, with the ample possibility of
qualifying as group winners, which is always nice if you can manage it. (Ask Arsenal.)

Plus we dominated the game in all the important areas, had a penalty to win it and would have had the luxury of two penalties if the referee hadn’t missed a high-definition, wide-screen trip on Oscar mid-way through the second half, and if that extra official behind the goal with a blunt stick (who was only four feet away from this particular incident and was almost close enough to feel the pain in his own ankle) had anything other than a purely decorative function, like the marzipan on a cake, if the marzipan on a cake wasn’t edible.

The player who missed the penalty that the referee did manage to award was Eden Hazard , which was a shame because, for long portions of this match, he appeared to be surging about the pitch on a mission to win it on his own, and this was a particularly neat opportunity for him to do just that. Even so, in my opinion, he could have missed this one, the penalty that wasn’t given and a third penalty for good measure and it wouldn’t have detracted from his pre-eminent qualification as Man of the Match. He was blistering to watch.

Obviously, a win would have been even nicer – and would hardly have been considered undeserved in the circumstances. But instead we’ll simply have to settle for extending our unbeaten run since the beginning of the season to 16 games in all competitions, now officially the equal best in the history of the club, and then swiftly turn our minds back to the pressing matter of our league title campaign.

Which, specifically, means Liverpool away on Saturday. Yes, I know: Saturday. Didn’t there used to be an understanding that teams who played in Europe in midweek would be given the honour of a Sunday kick-off in order to allow them time to finish getting their bags out of the plane’s overhead locker? I’m fairly sure there did – but clearly not any longer.

What can you do, though? Well, one thing,
obviously, is leave all your best players on the bench for your Champions League games. That certainly seems to be the Liverpool way, at any rate.

I don’t know about you, but at the beginning of the week when I saw the headline ‘LIVERPOOL RESTING GERRARD FOR REAL MATCH’, I couldn’t help but feel the writers had gone slightly over the top. Okay, so it’s difficult to know where the Champions League could realistically be said to lie among Liverpool’s priorities this season. But even so, to imply that, by comparison with taking on Chelsea at Anfield, travelling to the Bernabeu to meet the reigning champions of Europe doesn’t even rank as a real game.

Then, of course, I worked out that I had misread it.

Still, Liverpool do seem to have looked at the fixture list and decided that a showpiece match against Real Madrid in Europe’s elite competition is less important to them than the weekend’s upcoming fixture, and I suppose we can only feel flattered by that – not least because it’s just the next game as far as we’re concerned.

It must be somewhat dispiriting for Liverpool’s fans, though, some 4000 of whom apparently travelled to Madrid this week. This, one imagines, is not exactly what they longed for, throughout all those long years in the European wildnerness: the chance to let Raheem Sterling rest up and to give Lazar Markovic a run-out against the best team in Spain.

Or perhaps I’ve got it wrong and the current generation of Liverpool fans will grow old reflecting nostalgically on ‘those big Capital One Cup-style nights in the Bernabeu.’

Anyway, the mind went back to that little storm that kicked up last season when poor old David Moyes was in charge of Manchester United and, ahead of a match against Liverpool, made the mistake of saying, ‘They possibly do come here as favourites.’ Whatever you want to say, Moyes did have a point at the time. And, looked at with the benefit of hindsight, it was two bald men fighting over a comb in any case. Nevertheless, it prompted a response from Brendan Rodgers: ‘I would never say that at Liverpool, even if I was bottom of the league.’

Surrender, or even the mere prior concession of an advantage, Rodgers seemed to be implying, was not in Liverpool’s DNA. So it was all the more surprising to see him send out a team-sheet for Tuesday night which effectively doubled as a huge white flag, made out of hurriedly tacked-together bedsheets, and with 'We certainly don't come here as favourites' written on it in big black letters.

He would be most welcome to do the same against us on Saturday, but I don’t suppose many of us think he’s likely to do so. There seemed to be something of the smokescreen about Rodgers’ suggestion that the rested players were by no means guaranteed a return to the side at the weekend. How many of the seven players deselected Tuesday do you suppose will be on the pitch at the beginning on Saturday lunchtime? Here’s your handy ‘cut out ‘n’ keep’ checklist, so you can tick them off on the day: Raheem Sterling, Philippe Coutinho, Mario Balotelli, Glen Johnson, Jordan Henderson and Steven Gerrard.

My guess: all seven. But we’ll see.

It’s not often, as a fan, that you get a personal dressing down from the manager after a game. But on Saturday evening, I was one of the 40,000 or so who were hauled up in front of the gaffer and told to pull our socks up a bit in terms of what we bring to the table, noise-wise.

Personally, I wasn’t in any real position to argue. I’m big enough to admit that, when it comes to being noisy in the ground, I could do a lot more, and I’m going to be looking at it hard on the training ground.

Mind you, I’m not using this as an excuse, but I do think the fact that it was QPR had a lot to do with it. There’s no question in my mind that, had it been, for instance, a London derby (but, you know, a proper one), the atmosphere would have been altogether hotter and the dressing-down wouldn’t have been necessary. Point taken, though.

Giles Smith is a columnist for the official Chelsea FC website and his weekly piece is published every Thursday throughout the season

A Red Devil's Derby View

After the 1-0 lose to Manchester City on Sunday lets hear what my colleague Kwabranee Kofi Wusu, who is an ardent Red Devil, an administrator of a sports group on Facebook and a follower of several other groups had to say.

Q1. Kofi, in general, how did u see the match?

Kwabranee Kofi Wusu(KKW):  It was a real derby game. Expectations were met. City as usual, performed to their ability until the 65th minute.
Coming into this game, united had put a spirited performance in the previous two games. Such a performance confirmed their status as 'come back' kings. Utd had a late equalizer at West Bromwich Albiom n against Chelsea at Old Trafford.
United in the initial stages of the game looked a bit shaky as seen in their passing. United lost many touches in the middle of the pitch with the worst culprits being Wayne Rooney n Fellaini.
As a derby game, high flying tackles epitomised the game, fans were absolute behind their teams ann players played to prove their worth.
The game remained balance till that 'stupidity' from smalling which underlined the lack of leadership at the United backline.

Q. The team put in a lot of effort in the final minutes. How positive are you for the rest of the campaign?

KKW: As said earlier, haters called the final minutes the 'fergie' time because miracles did happen in those periods previously but moyes came in n United started conceding in those periods so to see the lads get their mojo back n play in that form means the United of old is gradually coming back and proves a sense of confidence the manager has brought back to the team.

Q. Van Persie's performance has been sub par this season. Should Falcao be starting?

KKW: Van Persie, as I've told you has been our weakest link all season. Hopefully, Falcao gets back in the team and gives Persie a competition.

Q. Manchester City has won 5 of the last 6 derbies. How does it feel?

KKW: Its bad to lose derbies and it can't feel any better.

Q. What are your expectations for united this season?

KKW: I see United playing in the top four this season because we are only 4 points away from that position and with the current performances barred of injuries, I see United in the Champions League next season.

That's it from Kwabranee. Injuries permitting and with a better defence we might see United in the CL next season. Lets hope they get better luck with injuries than they've already had.

Defensive Shield

More than £60M was spent to bring Costa and Fabregas to Stamford Bridge this season and the impact has been nothing short of stunning but it still looks like the best piece of business that the Chelsea board has done in the past year is to bring back Nemanja Matic for £21M from Benfica.
He plays in the Claude Makalele position and for a club from whom that position was coined it's amazing that we've not been able to get a replacement for him since he left about 10 seasons ago despite trying different players in that position till now.
Essien was more of a box-to-box midfielder just like Ramires. Mikel Obi, a converted attacking midfielder, does not have the same effect when the team is playing our expansive game. He thrives more in the park-the-bus games. Oriol Romeu played it differently but was hampered by injuries and was loaned out so Sevilla.
Matic himself was sold as part of the deal to bring David Luiz to Chelsea because he was still not up to the task but after 3 seasons away he's grown into 1 of the best defensive shields in the world and definitely the best in the BPL.
He is stronger and quicker on the ball, very good in the air, and his passing range is outstanding (he completed 97 passes out 102 against Aston Villa).
His partnership with Fabregas has flourished this season with both making effective contributions at both ends of the field on Saturday and his heat map (from Daily Mail) below shows his dominance in the middle of the pitch.
He made sure he fouled the breaking Charlie Austin on halfway as we crept into stoppage time at 2-1. QPR looked dangerous, but the destroyer hauled Austin down to get a crucial break in play and the resulting free-kick came to nothing. He makes the back four comfortable and his calming influence will be a huge welcome in the big games this season.

Frank Lampard moved to Manchester City after making a stop at New York but it seems like he left us a huge parting gift with his number 8 shirt for Oscar. The brazilian has been in a scintillating form this season and scored another wonderful goal on sunday from a another Fabregas assist. With his current scoring rate it feels like our legendary number 8 never left. That is called succession.

I made a suggestion on this blog last week that irrespective of the mutual respect between Mourinho and Louis van Gaal the latter might not really like his former prodigy that much. Other than that how do you explain what happened on Sunday in the Manchester derby?
United were playing to lose until they went behind. Chris Smalling's red card was so pathetic it seemed tactical. Di Maria who has been their best player this season played like he was under orders to get his 1st flop in a United shirt.
Is that how to treat a friend?
Definitely not. You do them big favours like blocking their rivals to help them win leagues when you have no chance. That is friendship.

Big ups to Barcelona who managed to lose again against Celta Vigo at home with their supposed fearsome III all starting. For a team that makes so much long term planning its amazing that they've been playing with this makeshift defence for almost 3 seasons. Its all good as far as I'm concerned. Their loss is always my happiness.

Zion's Combined Manchester IV

Ahead of the super sunday clash between the Manchester clubs at the Etihad this is my combined IV to while away the time. And I must say it wasn’t that difficult considering some players are still playing catch-up as the season progresses.

Formation 4-2-3-1

Goalkeeper:
David De Gea - The spaniard has shaken off an awkward start to become 1 of the best keepers in the BPL. He was the reason United kept Chelsea at bay for that long before Van Persie's equalizer. That save from Hazard's shot was an incredible use of body to narrow the space for Hazard.

Defenders:
Kompany - This is easy. He will easily walk into any defence in the world and be a starter. Such is the influence of the Belgian that City has always looked vulnerable without him to lead the team out. He's the complete defender combining strength with pace and agility. He's kept Diego Costa at bay this season, up next is Van Persie.

Demichelis - He was terrible last season and I think he found the solution in getting rid of his ponytail to cut down time at the salon to train and its paid off this season. He's kept Mangala on the bench and keeps the likes of Phil Jones and Smalling from this squad.

Zabaleta - The businessman. Thats what he is. He does his job without fuss. The Argentine would have been the captain of his club if Kompany wasn't so damn good at his job. Luke Shaw was under consideration but he's only had 1 good game all season against Chelsea.

Sagna - His switch from Arsenal to City has been as smooth as he could have wished slotting straight into the team.  He's one the players who can guarantee you an 8/10 performance in every game.

Midfielders:
Yaya Toure - Another easy choice. The ivorian powerhouse has been a little under it this season not really hitting the heights of last season yet but then who's there to knock him out of this team. Rojo has been good this season but its easier to spot in a united team that is not really up there in terms of performance.

Fernando - This was harder. I was tempted to go with flair in the middle and pick Herrera but this team has much of that upfront so I go with tha brazilian hardman. He's so strong in tackles and hardly pick bookings.  He's efficient.

Angel Di Maria -  His price tag would have got him in there anyway. For United its; if u have the ball give it to Di Maria and problem solved. If you don't have it go for it and give it to him and problem solved. That is how much the team depends on him now.

David Silva - Smooth as silk. Classy. Beautiful on the eyes. The brain to Yaya Toure's brawn. He orchestrates all of City's attack and his absence will be a massive loss to them.

Rooney - United's captain is the current highest scorer in the Manchester derby. His presence on sunday will be a massive boost to the team. He plays just off the striker where he's currently more effective.

Striker:
Aguero - Leading goalscorer in the league and highest league scorer for City. Very difficult to play against. He's fast, he's trickery and he scores. On his good day United are in big trouble.

The big match is tomorrow. A draw will be a massive favour to Chelsea

Giles Smith: Sure-footed and Sensible

For the definition of a ‘banana skin’, you could hardly have done much better than consult our Capital One Cup match at Shrewsbury on Tuesday night.

Lower league club on a hot streak of form? Check. Tipping rain? Check. Pitch tending towards the condition of a children’s paddling pool in certain areas? Check again. Capacity crowd? Check. In fact, specially enhanced capacity crowd. (The sponsors got some extra seats in for the occasion.)

Throw in a few injury problems and suspensions in key areas for the visiting club, and the fact that only about 10 minutes had passed since the final whistle blew on that visiting side’s last, relatively taxing league game, and you had an occasion which, to the viewer of a nervous disposition, could hardly have looked more yellow or more slippery or more obviously strewn across a pavement.

The fact that no chortlesome slapstick outcome ultimately ensued was, then, another reason to take quiet satisfaction in the encouraging sure-footedness of this current squad, now impressively unbeaten in 15 games across all competitions, apparently immune to the concept of ‘priorities’ (be they league, Champions League or Capital One Cup), and capable of traction, we now learn, on both a slippery pitch at Shrewsbury on a wet Tuesday night and a banana skin.

Incredible scenes on the full-time whistle at Old Trafford last Sunday; players and fans, their faces wet with tears of happiness, rejoiced and clutched each other in disbelief, scarves twirled and flags flew, fireworks exploded in the air,

tickertape fell from the skies in quantities unseen since the Apollo 11 astronauts were driven in glory through the streets of New York, and ecstatic supporters jigged in their seats and then danced out into the Manchester night, their revels just beginning.

How tempting it was, in those moments, to imagine a visitor to the planet watching these images unfold, and turning to his human guide to ask: ‘Why are your earthlings so behaving?’ And the guide would have had no choice but to reply, ‘It is because Manchester United have just drawn 1-1 at home.’

I suppose we ought to concede that it wasn’t just any old 1-1 draw, though. It was a 1-1 draw secured with almost the last kick of the game following a highly inconvenient sending-off for the opposition. You certainly don’t see too many of those.

You’ll remember, perhaps all too clearly, how it panned out in those dying seconds. Our right-back had just been booked for (I think) giving a hard stare to Angel Di Maria and simultaneously breathing outwards, causing the United player to stumble slightly. Unfortunately, our right-back had already been booked, earlier in the game, for (again, I think)

sneezing without using a handkerchief. (Apologies if I have got the precise details of those two offences slightly wrong. I’m taking a stab at these explanations on the grounds that, at the time, it was almost impossible to see what the referee was finding fault with. Obviously, I’m sure he had his reasons.)

And then, of course, with our right-back absent from the pitch, there was suddenly a large hole on the pitch, in the exact size and shape of Brana Ivanovic, who had been very much the opposite of a hole up to this point. Which in turn meant that, when the ensuing free-kick arrived in our penalty area, Marouane Fellaini was exactly 100 percent freer than he would otherwise have been, or certainly 100 percent less encumbered by a formidable piece of Serbian defender.

Even then, United didn’t score because Thibaut Courtois (only moments earlier handed the man of the match award by Gary Neville, which felt ominously like a jinx even at the time – and we all know who Neville used to play for, of course) managed to stop Fellaini’s header… only for the ball to drop freakishly into the space in front of him, creating a chance which Robin van Persie, even on current form, couldn’t miss (although, if you look at the replay you’ll see that he gave it a good old go).

Cue those scenes of unbridled joy. Now, you could say that it’s a mark of how spectacularly United have fallen from their former eminence over these past couple of years, that a point at home in the fourth minute of time-added-on is deemed all but worthy of an open-top bus tour. That would be small-minded and ungenerous, though, wouldn’t it?

Better, surely, to point out that life is short, and so is football – even when more than four minutes gets added on to it, as it tends to at Old Trafford – so you take your pleasures where and when you can. And don’t let’s forget that United were on their way to their third league defeat of the season. As it was they came

back to record their fourth draw. Of course, it didn’t feel like it at the time, nor for a number of hours afterwards, but we, too, had some reason to rejoice in the wake of this result, in the sense that, with Manchester City already having contrived to lose that weekend, it usefully expanded our lead over them at the top of the table.

And no one could deny that to be four points clear of Southampton, to be six points clear of Manchester City and to be (count ‘em) 10 points clear of Manchester United, after just 10 games, and with further league trips to Manchester entirely off the agenda for the remainder of the season, is to be in a happy enough position.

Indeed, if we manage to get it right against QPR on Saturday afternoon, we’ll be nine points clear of City and 13 points clear of United before those two sides play each other on Sunday. Though, of course, being a modest and sensible club, who likes to go about our business quietly and with decorum and a sense of perspective at all times, we’ll save the ticker-tape for bigger days.

Giles Smith is a columnist for the official Chelsea FC website and his weekly piece is published every Thursday throughout the season.

Bigger balls

Chelsea still lack balls. We lacked balls in the game against Manchester City and lacked balls on Sunday against Manchester United. The team has improved massively from last season due to the massive improvement on the part of our players and creating a balance in the squad from this summer's transfer activities but it is not far from the truth to say that this team still lacks the massive balls of the 04-05 Chelsea team. They killed the game even before it started. Once they took lead the match was practically over no matter the opposition. This current squad has played against United, City and Arsenal this season and has drawn 2 and won the Arsenal game. In those 2 Chelsea took the lead before conceding late equalisers. The ability to see out the bigs games is a quality that the previous teams had that this team needs to grasp very quickly before the turn of the year. There will be no room for error when the knockout stages of the Champions league begins next year.

United must really have it in for Chelsea. I mean how then do you explain what happened on Sunday? We were cruising to an 8 pts gap and then all of a sudden BANG...... the team is brought to the ground to do damage limitation. I mean this is a United team that is supposed to be not playing well with a questionable backline and even graciously gifted out all 3 pts to Swansea City when school reopened in the BPL  so what did we do that was so bad that they couldn't do the same for us? The least they could have done was play that famous 3-5-2 formation. Isn't the best way to try something new and make it work is to use it against the man you trained so you can all gain some experience? I guess Van Gaal is not that good a mentor after all.

It's been a long time coming. Since the times when we had  Eiður Guðjohnsen,Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Gianfranco Zola in 2003 all banging in the goals for Chelsea have we had more than 1 forward carrying the team forward on his own and I must say that has practically always been Didier Drogba since then doing the job for the team till he departed in 2010 to be succeeded, albeit unsuccessfully, by Fernando Torres. This makes the amount of silverware the team won in that period all the more sweeter. The team placed second last season and was only a couple of bad results from winning it with a team whose midfielder (Hazard) scored more than the combined total of the strikers .But things look very different this season. The strikers are in super form led by Diego Costa with 9 goals already supported by Loic Remy and The Drog himself. It makes for pleasant viewing when you lose your 1st choice striker to injury and the 2nd choice comes and scores.  You lose the 2nd too then the 3rd choice too comes on and score 3 goals in 3 games within a week. The injuries aside it really makes for pleasant viewing. Manchester City won the league last with all their forwards very potent in front of goal. If the attack can continue delivering the goods the happy one might just turn into the excited one.

2014 FIFA Ballon d'Or shortlist:
Gareth Bale (Wales)
Karim Benzema (France)
Diego Costa (Spain)
Thibaut Courtois (Belgium)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)
Angel Di Maria(Argentina)
Mario Gotze (Germany)
Eden Hazard (Belgium)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden)
Andres Iniesta (Spain)
Toni Kroos (Germany)
Philipp Lahm (Germany)
Javier Mascherano (Argentina)
Lionel Messi (Argentina)
Thomas Muller (Germany)
Manuel Neuer (Germany)
Neymar (Brazil)
Paul Pogba (France)
Sergio Ramos (Spain)
Arjen Robben (Netherlands)
James Rodriguez (Colombia)
Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany)
Yaya Toure (Ivory Coast)

Everybody knows that Ronaldo is at the forefront to win it but why is James Rodriguez in there and not Luis Suarez?
I guess we all prefer a 5-goal non - biting world cup star to a 31-goal biting BPL star.

Giles Smith - Six Shooters

Some 36 hours after it happened, scientists are still at a loss to explain the appearance of John Terry in Maribor’s six-yard box on Tuesday night.

The bare facts are these: that in the 31st minute of our Champions League group game, our captain was seen defending a corner; and yet that, within seconds, after a run somehow entirely unnoticed by many of the more than 40,000 people in the ground to witness it, he was also spotted in the penalty area at the other end of the pitch, sliding onto a Cesc Fabregas cross and scoring the third of
our cluster of six goals on the night.

‘Was that… Terry?’ said my puzzled companion at the Matthew Harding End.

It was, though I don’t remember feeling quite so bamboozled since a Michael Jackson show at Wembley in the early 1990s when the late King of Pop (a massive Fulham fan, of course)
disappeared in a puff of smoke on one side of the stage – only to reappear almost instantaneously in another puff of smoke on the other side of the stage.

I believe this was an illusion on which Jackson had worked closely with David Copperfield, the great American magician and lavishly well-kempt showman who spent a significant portion of the Eighties and Nineties downwind of a hair-dryer. The stunt was said to involve cunning use of body-doubles and also an elaborate system of pulleys under the stage.

Has Terry been collaborating with Copperfield (who still has a show in Vegas and, I can report, a very brilliant one)? Are there pulleys under the Stamford Bridge turf? Again, we simply don’t know.
What we do know is that the distance of the run, as measured from its starting point just outside his own six-yard area, was 97.8 yards and that Terry was clocked (by police speed cameras, presumably) completing the distance in 13.2 seconds, which is none too shabby given that, so far as we are aware, he wasn’t using blocks, and given that he definitely wasn’t wearing Lycra. (UEFA frown on it, and quite rightly, in my opinion.)

Whisper it, but there may even have been a hint of offside. Which only makes us marvel at this moment still more. When your central defender is possibly a hair’s breadth in front of the opposition’s defensive line a split second after defending a set-piece in his own area, that player is showing a commitment to getting forward on the counter-attack which simply cannot be questioned.
It just seemed perfect that this goal should come directly after Terry’s 500th game as captain, which was marked in the victory over Crystal Palace last weekend. It was also amusing to note that Terry was older than Tuesday night’s referee, Danny Makkelie from Rotterdam, aged 31. (It’s always
good to see the young refs coming through, I’m sure you’ll agree.)

The cliché about Terry at this particular stage in his career, of course, and the one you will hear blithely trotted out in every pitch-side television studio across the land, is that pace is a diminishing
resource but that he compensates for its diminishment with positioning. Tuesday night’s pitch-length explosion rather dynamited that handy punditry nugget. It may actually be the case that, as he gets older, far from lagging, Terry is turning into that all too rare asset: a box-to-box central defender.
Here’s the other thing about that John Terry strike. It wasn’t even the most impressive goal on the night. That was Eden Hazard’s in the 90th minute- the first touch, the double twist, the curled
shot... brilliant. Given its timing. I’m guessing that a number of people missed it, having decided to do the 9.25 Tuesday-night excuse-me and head for the exits to beat the rush. 

This is something which we bash on about in this column a lot, and I know that some people genuinely do have last trains to catch, and so on. But nevertheless, it cannot be overstressed: you can never leave early. Even at 5-0, you can’t leave. Or, at least, you can, obviously. But only at the risk of missing something that you would have remembered forever.

This column is in danger of turning into a slightly breathless goal catalogue – but nevertheless, a big cheer, too, for the Didier Drogba penalty on Tuesday, another moment of take-home magic
from an evening bountifully blessed with them.

Obviously there are distinctions to be drawn between the pressure of taking the potentially trophy-clinching kick in a shoot-out in a Champions League final in Munich, and taking one in the 23rd minute of a home group stage game in which your team is already a goal ahead and fairly conclusively on top.

Nevertheless there was still pressure because expectations were inevitably high that the Drog would oblige us by producing some sort of replica 2012 moment, to the point where, had he punted it wide of the left-hand post, the atmosphere would have pancaked and the traditional descending cartoon trumpet signature (‘wap-wap-wap-waaah’) would have been virtually audible in the ground.

I don’t really know how players summon the nerve to take penalties at the best of times. But to do it while history is squatting on your shoulders and the gods of slapstick are, metaphorically speaking, gathering behind the net into which you are shooting and pulling faces at you, must require a particular kind of steel, and in especially baffling quantities. Credit to the Drog, then. There was fibre in that pen and, accordingly, an awful lot of happy memories were stirred.

Of course, you don’t necessarily turn to the Champions League expecting to see six- and seven- goal spankings and the unusual coincidence of a small cluster of such spectacles on Tuesday night
seems to have led to a bit of grumbling about the competition in general.

Too padded out, the complainers were saying, in the usual outlets. Too inflated with weaker sides, leading to ‘meaningless contests’ in the group stage. Better when it was truly a proper knock-out competition for champions only. Well, it’s a point of view, I suppose. But due respect and humility obliges us to point out that there was only one reigning champion on the pitch at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night, and it wasn’t Chelsea.

Incidentally, was there a ban on spectators at Anfield this week? I tuned in briefly, about 35 minutes into Liverpool’s game against Real Madrid, and it was like CSKA Moscow v Manchester City all over again – so quiet in the ground that you could hear the players shouting to one another.
And this on what television had promised us would be another of ‘those famous European nights at Anfield’. So what happened there? I’ll look into it and try to get back to you at some point.

Meanwhile we head to Old Trafford for a match which, despite United’s best efforts, still just about retains the status of a ‘big clash’ and can still make it onto the television in one of the live slots.
United, of course, don’t play in Europe these days so they will be well rested. And by the look of their performance at West Brom on Monday, a rest was exactly what they needed. Still, I suspect that all of us, deep in our hearts, know that United’s status as mid-table stragglers is just a delicious phase which is bound to end at some point. They have a number of extremely capable players and a
manager who may one day be able to form those players into a team. Let’s just hope it’s not before Sunday.

Giles Smith is a columnist for the official Chelsea FC website and his weekly piece is published every Thursday throughout the season.