Chelsea Blip-O-Meter Reading
71+2 = 73 points
Chelsea Blip-O-Meter reading: 0.5
Almost time to talk about putting the Blip-O-Meter back into the Chelsea Museum. The only worry at them moment is our apparent inability to keep a clean sheet (Memo to Villas-Boas: Bosingwa can’t, or won’t, head the ball).
The first time we have actually picked up points in a fixture compared to the previous season’s game since beating Manchester City at home in March last year. The time before that was when we extracted a point from White Hart Lane in December 2010.
Being a glass-half-full kind of guy, I expect that to become a bit of a habit through this season – starting at that Subbuteo of a ground Loftus Road, because we contrived somehow to lose at St Andrews last season (yes, we lost to relegation fodder). Then we can atone for Ancelotti’s sins against Liverpool at home a couple of weeks later.
I suggest that Ferguson would be privately rather glad that we played them when we did, because we are starting to move the ball around in the manner that we must assume Villas-Boas wants. In Mata we really have found a gem and Sturridge is starting to turn his potential into fact. Ramires is morphing effortlessly into Lampard Mark II. All we need to do is get Torres to carry on from where he left off (before he lost his rag) and nobody will want to play us (something that hasn’t been the case for a long time.
Footnote:
When you live 10,000 miles away from a situation, you should be careful commenting about matters that will affect others every week of their lives while it will only impact on you but once a year.
However, I might observe whether a cynic might wonder if the main purpose of the CPO scheme was more to preserve Ken Bates’ arse than to preserve Chelsea at Stamford Bridge (that our cynic may have felt was merely a happy coincidence). With the title effectively turned into a doughnut, lenders may have had something of a problem should there have been a default.
Ken Bates was what was termed charitably an “entrepreneur”. As we know now, Chelsea was very, very, very close to hitting the wall before Abramovic stepped in.
Not that the lenders would have found the title issue insurmountable. Without the need to pander to fans’ emotions they would have sought recourse in the courts where they would have argued that the CPO scheme was, in fact a contrivance designed to ring-fence a critical asset and therefore circumvent Chelsea Village’s obligation to pay its debts in the case of a default. We will never know (I hope) whether the courts would have found such arguments compelling.
But we do know that comparing the likelihood of Abramovic’s Chelsea going belly-up to that of Bates’ is like comparing night to day.
Do you really think that Abramovic bought Chelsea to get his hands on the Stamford Bridge land for development?
Do you really think that he wants out of Chelsea?
All the hypothetical questions that are being thrown about at the moment seem to ignore the greatest what-if of them all: What if Abramovic stops tipping close to 100mill a year into Chelsea?
The answer to that one is not very pleasant.
I suggest the answer as to where he wants to build his new stadium would be far more palatable – wherever that is.
I understand the emotion, but fear of what might be is worse than its reality.
Posted by Steve Symmons
| 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) | 2-1 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 4-2 | 15 | 3 | 12 | = | = | -8 | = | -8 | |
| Man Utd (a) | 3 | 1-3 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 1-2 | 16 | 5 | 11 | = | = | -8 | +1 | -9 |
| Swansea (West Ham) (h) | 4-1 | 12 | 7 | 5 | 3-0 | 19 | 5 | 14 | = | = | -7 | +2 | -9 | |
| Bolton (a) | 5-1 | 17 | 8 | 9 | 4-0 | 23 | 5 | 18 | = | = | -6 | +3 | -9 | |
| Everton (h) | 2 | 3-1 | 20 | 9 | 11 | 1-1 | 24 | 6 | 18 | +2 | +2 | -4 | +3 | -7 |
| 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 | |||||||||
| Wolves (h) | 2-0 | 30 | 9 | 21 | ||||||||||
| Newcastle (a) | 2 | 1-1 | 31 | 10 | 21 |
Bosingwa has been superb this season and is a lot more valuble to the team than Ivanovic. Thankfully AVB knows this.Fellani(who is one of the best headers in the league)outjumped Bosingwa and knocked the ball to Drenthe to cross but Sturridge was asleep and out of position.You can’t knock Bosingwa,he has been our best player with Ramires and Mata.
Liam, however well Bos has been playing and however important he might be to the set up, the fact is that he cannot head the ball at all and is often found out in this regard – more often than not leading to goals. It remians a weakness and, therefore, something that needs addressing.
Ivanovic is not a specialist RB but is a good back up – he can also shore up that side when Bos is getting stripped. This still suggests, though, that we could do with a specialist RB who has Bos’s qualities AND can head the ball.