Chelsea Blip-O-Meter Reading

86-11 = 75 points 

Chelsea Blip-O-Meter reading: 7.5

So much for putting the ol’ Chelsea Blip-O-Meter back safely under lock-and-key in its cabinet in the Chelsea Museum.

So much for dreaming about successfully defending the PL title, while we’re at it.
 
75 points means third or fourth.
 
And to achieve that we have to either beat Manchester United Limited Company twice or compensate for that by beating Manchester City, Everton and WBA where we dropped points last season..

We have a maximum potential of 83 points if we win all remaining 13 games.
 
Yeah, right.
 
The fact is that a large part of the responsibility for Sunday’s miserable performance has to be firmly attributed to Ancelotti.

He picked the team. He chose the tactics. He made the substitutions.

I think it fair to state that the vast majority of people that follow Chelsea would not have adopted any of Sunday’s above unholy trinity. Dalglish set out his stall without a genuine striker (Kuyt is more a half-forward) with five-at-the-back and a further three defensive midfielders screening them. And we went with the diamond and tried to play the ball through a red blanket thrown over the front of their penalty area.

Funnily enough, it didn’t work.
 
On the bright side: Luiz looks like the ball-playing defender we’ve lacked since Carvalho lost his edge a couple of seasons ago.

Torres will score a lot of goals for us – eventually.

But, for crying out loud, the introduction of Luiz showed how it ought to have been done for Torres: Second half. Give your existing players the acknowledgment they deserve by starting the game and graft the new player into the team.
 
If, as is alleged, Abramovic simmered quietly on his yacht for six months before exacting revenge on Wilkins for last season’s UCL debacle against Milan, after yesterday’s humiliation by a Liverpool that had just trousered 50mill of Roman’s cold hard cash, what odds a “Shock!” end of season departure for Ancelotti, regardless of UCL outcome?

Meanwhile we have got some serious flat-track bullying to engage in before and after we meet the Manchester clubs (depending on FA Cup outcome) to blip-proof our UCL status for next year (and next manager?).

It might be regarded as “bold” to leave our participation in next year’s European Cup reliant on winning this year’s.

Posted by Steve Symmons