How fun it must have been for each and every Chelsea fan to watch the 4-4 draw at home to Aston Villa. Our Russian kingpin has now got what he wished for last Christmas - attacking football with no defending in sight! Is this what we really need at Chelsea or will this signal the start of many heart attacks and strokes to come for the Stamford Bridge faithful.
CRAZY
Earlier in the season, Mourinho’s supposed defensive tactics, which brought 1-0 wins on a consistent basis, were deemed not good enough for a club of our stature. We needed, it appeared, a coach who plays an attacking brand of football. Off went Mourinho. In came the gremlin lookalike Israeli, Avram Grant.
Abramovich felt that Grant would give him the attacking style he so craved for but what the new man has really done is simply put out the same team under Mourinho and with some luck, the side has churned out more goals in every match but also with a new found uncertainty in defence.
Grant has done nothing so far to show that he is indeed the man for the hot seat. The good thing for him is that results have been going his way so far. Once he gets into a run of bad results, the kingpin will start looking somewhere else for his new toy boy.
NAUGHTY
Also, what is with Ashley Cole’s crazy behaviour in recent games? I mean, when he returned to the Emirates to take on the club he abandoned for us, he went into every tackle against Arsenal looking like he had only one thing in mind. Rough house tactics. He wanted to show the Gunners fans that the constant taunts and jeers did not affect him but he knows how badly he is hurting. And then, against Villa at home, he kept his wild streak going and went in for two-footed lunges and was constantly lavishing his expensive saliva on the referee’s face. He finally got his just desert when he was red-carded for handling the ball on the line.
Personally, I would put Wayne Bridge in the left-back position instead of him. Bridge might not be as good going forward but he provides us with a more solid defensive option.
SEXY
One good thing that has come out of this messy attacking affair is the resurgence of a German maestro. The man who was named in Pele’s 125 greatest living footballers list and the same player who single-handedly guided Bayer Leverkusen to the 2002 Champions League finals. The forgotten man at Chelsea who many fans nicknamed Bullocks.
The moment Frank Lampard got injured against Villa, Michael Ballack threw off his tracksuit and stood by the sidelines with his chest puffed up ready to plunge himself back into top flight action. From his first tackle on Gareth Barry, you could see that the man was back with a vengeance. He knew that a clean slate has been presented to him with his nemesis Mourinho gone, and it was like presenting a kid with a new toy. He wanted to play!
And while Mourinho tried to play him alongside Lamps in similar fashion to the England setup where Gerrard and Lamps have struggled in the middle (struggled is an understatement to begin with.), Ballack couldn’t cope with having another midfield general beside him.
The German captain is the kind of midfielder who likes to dominate play. He has to be the heartbeat of the team. No sharing of responsibilities. A one man show might sound a tad selfish, but looking back at what he did at Leverkusen, it would serve us well to give him the chance to be just that.
Let him have a run of games without Lamps and see if he can have the same influence on our wonderful attacking game like he did with Leverkusen and still does with the German national team. Chelsea is a selfish place to be anyway. Our money-throwing oil mongul just wants to buy his favourite players and play fantasy football while our club captain wants to be the highest paid footballer in the world and make merry.
So we at Chelsea get another stab at making it all the way in the Champions League (with our attractive attacking football) and, if I dare say so, challenge the impressive United outfit that is beginning to look close to the class of 99’. Forget about Arsenal. There is only one club in London. And BLUE is the colour.
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