Chelsea Blip-O-Meter Reading
71+0 = 71 points
Chelsea Blip-O-Meter reading: 5.5
Welcome the Chelsea Football Club, André, where you can take nothing for granted. One up against newly promoted cannon-fodder ought to mean a relaxing afternoon basking in golden late-summer sunshine. Not at Stamford Bridge, it doesn’t.
It is not so much the fact that we appear to be struggling to score (again) this season that has made the Blip-O-Meter needle bounce around like a punk in a mosh-pit. No, it is the way we are making journeymen midfielders look like Zinedine Zidane – and with that lumpen forwards look like, er, Fernando Torres … used to look like.
Simple little dinks over the top are repeatedly catching our defence flat-footed and allowing opposition forwards a free run at goal with only the keeper to beat.
Be thankful it was Morison and not Rooney on Saturday with just Hilario to beat. An extra touch, or two, meant that Terry managed to get a foot in. That won’t happen at Old Trafford.
Be thankful too that we benefited from the bad refereeing calls this time. Torres ought to have been off and the Norwich goalkeeper should have stayed on (one defender had got back behind him). If both those calls had been made correctly the Blip-O-Meter may have finished the game at a much higher reading than it eventually did.
And now for the good news:
Juan Mata.
Arjen Robben on steroids (or, more tellingly, Fernando Torres two seasons ago). His goal was the predatory behaviour of a natural striker brimming with confidence.
Perhaps if Ancelotti had introduced Torres to the Chelsea team in the same manner that Villas-Boas launched Mata’s career with us (from the bench at about 60mins) we would have witnessed a similar result.
As it is the damage is done.
Somehow or another we’ve got to undo it.
And we’ve got one more game to do it before we head to Old Trafford and The Manchester United Private Equity Fund Ltd.
Torres to score the winner from a Mata cross after Sturridge cleaned up Ferdinand from a visionary McEachran pass?
It’s nice to dream…
| Match | Available | 11/12 | GF | GA | GD | 10/11 | GF | GA | GD | Par | PtsYTD | GFYTD | GAYTD | GDYTD |
| Stoke (a) | 2 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1-1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | = | = | -1 | -1 | = |
| WBA (h) | 2-1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6-0 | 7 | 1 | 6 | = | = | -5 | = | -5 | |
| Norwich (Blackpool) (h) | 3-1 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 4-0 | 11 | 1 | 10 | = | = | -6 | +1 | -7 | |
| Sunderland (a) | 4-2 | 15 | 3 | 12 | ||||||||||
| Man Utd (a) | 3 | 1-2 | 16 | 5 | 11 | |||||||||
| Swansea (West Ham) (h) | 3-0 | 19 | 5 | 14 | ||||||||||
| Bolton (a) | 4-0 | 23 | 5 | 18 | ||||||||||
| Everton (h) | 2 | 1-1 | 24 | 6 | 18 | |||||||||
| QPR (Birmingham) (a) | 3 | 0-1 | 24 | 7 | 17 | |||||||||
| Arsenal (h) | 2-0 | 26 | 7 | 19 | ||||||||||
| Blackburn (a) | 2-1 | 28 | 8 | 20 | ||||||||||
| Liverpool (h) | 3 | 0-1 | 28 | 9 | 19 |
Steve Symmons
