Chelsea Terrace Talk – Irish Examiner Article By Trizia

Can you hear that loud revving noise? Is it a Harley? Is it a Ferrari? No – it’s the Jose Mourinho football machine finally getting into gear.

Looks like we are finally turning a corner and leaving the inconsistency that dogged the earlier part of the season behind. Given how we were playing in the first quarter of the season, and how well Hull were doing, this could have been “one of those” games. Hull did everything right too – they harried us every time we were on the ball; they closed us down quickly forcing us into mistakes, they worked hard at suppressing us – but for me there was no question we were going to win this game. The team look so disciplined – every Chelsea player knows their job – knows where they should be when, when to go forward, when to drop back – Jose doesn’t encourage displays of individual inventiveness as such – you follow a plan – and as most who have played under him will confirm – you follow that plan faithfully & exactly – and you invariably win.

This sort of discipline & blind, unwavering faith in the manager takes time to drill & nurture, but it looks like we are well on the way with this group of players. We are by no means the finished product, given the well documented deficiencies in our squad, but at Hull I at no time felt that they were going to get anything out of us. As it was, Hull could never keep up their tactics of the first half, it’s an exhausting tactic to play so the second half saw them abandon fair & resort to foul to try & stop us – with predictable results – we punish undisciplined sides – even if Clattenburg chose not to.

The next four games will give us a good indicator of exactly how far we’ve come. Both the Manchesters, West Ham fighting for its life & Stoke in the Cup – a team that beat us in the league not that long ago.

Despite the games coming thick & fast I hope that Mourinho plays Torres for all of them – we don’t look half the team we are if he starts with E’to or Ba. The manager’s confidence in Torres as well as the fans continued backing is having an effect. Not only is he working hard for the team but the goals are beginning to come. I think he still sometimes over-thinks his options in front of goal, but the instinctive aspect of his game is beginning to come back – the Hull goal was exactly that – a speculative shot – he needs to do that more & hopefully the old Torres will re-emerge from the unwanted hibernation he has had since joining Chelsea.

Speaking of come-backs – there is some talk of John Terry making a return for England – my feelings are very mixed on this one. Whatever your feelings on John Terry, unless you are very blinkered indeed, in terms of form, JT is the best out there at the moment – and anyone who wants England to do well in Brazil would welcome his return. However, animosity towards Terry remains and he is regularly booed no matter what ground we go to. As an aside I’d wager these same fans have never booed Ferdinand who was fined £45,000 for racism, or Ledley King who was arrested for a racist attack nor Suarez who also was banned for 8 months for racism – only John Terry is the anti-Christ.

But I digress; my issue with John Terry going back into the England team is that the press will have a field day – everything will be dragged up again and once again it will be open season not just on Terry but Chelsea too. I’d imagine that he will be the ready-made scape goat for whatever goes on in Brazil & even the run up to the tournament. There will be reports of disruption to the team from “England sources” & however & whenever the team got knocked out it would be his fault. But then knowing the press – should he turn any request for a recall down, it would be perceived as letting his country down so he probably can’t win anyway.

So, first up for Chelsea – the Chosen One against the Special One. Much has been written about United’s demise – a dangerous thing to under-estimate them in my view. Neither Moyes nor Manchester United have impressed this season, but one thing we have seen in this campaign is that anyone is capable of beating anyone so we need to have our game-head on. They still have dangerous players that have been our undoing in the past but I’m hoping that Jose as a superior manager (and make no mistake, he IS a superior manager) will have the measure of them and will have devised their down-fall. Time to put that Chelsea machine in top gear & leave the others in our dust.

Posted by Trizia

(You can see all the Terrace Talk articles here)

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