A little stuff and Chelsea analysis

Hello reader(s),

Nothing much new in the Arsenal world today. ArsenalAnalysis has some stuff about Eduardo and how good he feels and how he's set to play for Croatia soon against Belarus after our game against Valencia. Personally I think another game before the season starts will help Eduardo get back to it, especially since I don't think he'll be featuring that much in the first couple of months of the season.

It looks like Pirlo is set to stay at AC Milan, which means that the Cesc to Milan stuff was completely made up, as I'm sure you all know. Hangelaand is cup tied for the Champions League after playing in a Europa League qualifier for Fulham, which makes the likelihood of him coming to Arsenal just about nil. Apparently we've had a bid for a center back from Sevilla turned down, although I can't find anything about it other than on the original Arseblog. It could be total nonsense or we may actually be in for the type of player we actually need. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to sell Senderos and then buy a player that's a bit less rated at 5.3m pounds, as opposed to Senderos' fee, which is upwards of 6. If I were to bet I'd say we won't bring in anybody. I guess we'll see.

Now onto our rivals, firstly Sir Alex has said that Liverpool won't be able to carry on their title bid this season, saying that last season was their best in 20 years and to carry that on won't be easy. You can see why too, they've sold Xabi Alonso to Madrid, who, if they can defend, could be something to be reckoned with. I don't rate their manager as highly as everyone else does and with board room interference I can see that whole situation getting very messy. Alonso was sold for 30m or so, which is a huge price in a crazy market, which has been upset by two massively spending clubs. We could have signed him last summer for less than half of that but Wenger wasn't willing to spend more than 12m. He would have been a terrific signing, but, oh well.

Ferguson goes on to say that Chelsea are his main rivals for the title. And now moving on with our rival analysis we hit the dark side, the evil empire in blue. Chelsea have had a funny couple of years. Mourinho left after loosing to a very well organized Villa and some board room stuff and the players seemed upset. They all loved Mourinho and I suppose you can see why, they had a little fraternity. They were like the assholes from "Animal House", sitting around they’re frat house living room, wearing cardigans and smoking pipes while they reflect on their superiority and mock the guys who aren’t as good. You can just imagine Ballack, Lampard, Terry and Malouda laughing at a little boy in a Chelsea shirt in a wheelchair after they tricked him into thinking they were going to sign his ball.

In stepped Avram Grant. Jaba the Hut’s cousin had no real established European managerial pedigree. I think he came from some board room position, he may even have been the clubs sporting director. He’s obviously an intelligent man and seemed capable of managing the assholes he was in charge of. He took those assholes to the final of the Champions League where they lost on penalties and to within a point of the Premier League title and still he was sacked.

In stepped Big Phil Scolari. A manager of high caliber and reputation. He’d won a world cup, some Brazilian titles and a couple of Copa de Libertadores, the South American version of the Champions League. His eminent arrival was announced in the middle of the European Cup and subsequently Portugal, who he was managing at the time, went from potential tournament winners, having put in some blistering performances in the group stage, to sadly eliminated pre Modonnas.

Big Phil arrived in time for Chelsea’s pre season, where they toured Asia and had some other games. They stormed through their pre season with new singing Deco looking a fantastic buy, particularly as he only cost 8m pounds. They opened their league account in the same way and went over 20 games unbeaten, including their pre season. I can’t remember where it all went wrong for them, I guess a string of losses and draws in games they were supposed to win and when their chances of winning the title looked grim, out went Big Phil Scolari.

In stepped Gus Hiddink, a good friend of Abromovic and a quality international manager. Over the past several years he’s turned countries never known to have anything to do with football into forces at world and European cups. Australia, South Korea, Russia, and of course his good work with The Netherlands. He turned things around for Chelsea who challenged fairly well at the end of last season. It was too late, however, and they didn’t win the league, although they took home the FA Cup, a trophy that we used to win regularly.

Chelsea are hoping that they’ve finally found an answer to Mourinho’s departure with Carlo Ancelotti. He was a hell of a player and is now a savvy tactician, having won one Scudetto, and always going deep in the Champions League, having won it a couple of times.

His squad at AC Milan was getting on and they never looked like they were making progress with a seriously aging back fou…everything, Pato and Kaka being exceptions of course. The move looked good for all parties, as he’s clearly capable of managing high profile players, maybe because he was such a talent himself.

Looking at his squad at Chelsea he has a lot of internationals, most of who are 28 or older. They’ve got some younger guys like Petr Cech and Essien and Ivanovic and some youngerer guys like Kalou and Obi Mikel (who I think is really very good and will give Essien a good fight this season) and some really young guys who I doubt will be anywhere near the first team, except for maybe Mancienne.

They are well stocked in pretty much every position with four center backs that would all likely be first choice at Arsenal. They’ve got Drogba and Anelka and if they let Kalou go they’ll be a little light up front with only youngsters like new signing Daniel Sturridge to cover, although I suppose that Shevchenko can come good, but I doubt it. (A real shame what happened to him, he used to be one of my favorite players.) They do have a slight problem in midfield however, with an overstock of central midfielders without a lot of width. They’ve brought over Yuri Zhirkov who’ll help with that, it’ll be interesting to see what formation they choose to play.

Chelsea’s major problem for the last few season, for me, has been that balance in the middle. Essien is deployed as a holding mid, when he’s much more useful given license to run from box to box, an all action player, Patrick Vieira in his hay day but with more pace and goals and less height of course. Obi Mikel is a much more natural holding mid and he’s very good at it. He surrenders possession a bit too often but does very well to stifle the opposition. They’ll surely be competing this season. Ballack and Lampard are essentially the same player, except that Ballack is good in the air and a total, complete and utter despicable piece of shit, perhaps the worst in football, although Drogba gives him a good run for his money. Playing Ballack and Lampard together will never win you the league, although I suppose it has come close. Deco was supposed to be the last piece of the Chelsea puzzle, a skillful player capable of individually getting the team into positions they may not otherwise be able to collectively. He turned out to be a flop and his lengthy injury has basically ended his time as an impact player at the club I think.

Malouda seemed to come good towards the end of last season, but he isn’t a natural winger, like Joe Cole, he’ll never really give you that defense splitting width, he’s more likely to wonder in field.

Their players are quality even if they are total cunts and if Ancelotti can get the correct balance in midfield and Anelka and Drogba can continue to work together well and stay injury free then the depth at the back will do the rest. They’ll be a very scary prospect that way, but this isn’t Serie A or the Champions League. English teams need more than tactics and well executed game plans, they need that something extra, that something special that comes from camaraderie and spirit, that comes when you’re up against it and need to work together to get out. Like movies where aliens take over the world and previously warring countries have to come together to fight and save the world. That’s something I don’t see Chelsea having and certainly something I can’t see Ancelotti instilling. His style is slow and boring and he likes to grind out games, which I suppose will suit Chelsea but I don’t think it’ll give them what it takes. To be honest I quite like the appointment the more I think about it. Chelsea playing snoozers all season and getting bad press will make me feel better when we give up a 2 goal lead in the last three minutes of a game.

My concern in head to head battles with Chelsea is that if we play a similar 4 3 3 as we have been, as they do, they will have the edge in physicality and when there is a man for man marking situation it’ll count for that much more. Should we play a 4 4 2 and really expose them down the wings with our awesome wingers and if our skillful forwards can wriggle free of Alex and Terry to finish we can beat them well and good, not the way we did last season with a sub par performance and an offsides goal, although it did make up for the one that Robin scored against them a few years back that shouldn't have been disallowed, but with a real performance, an attractive display, a spirited display. They'll be the Aliens, we'll be the world.

I guess I just don’t see Song and Denilson being able to take on Ballack, Lampard and Essien. Diaby is capable but has never shown any signs of materializing and he’s fucking injured again! And of course, either way, we’ll have to see if Vermaelen and Co can deal with Drogba, who on his day can be near unplayable, he’s so strong and good in the air.

We won’t play until November and by then the league will be shaping up nicely and both teams will have established their formation and style of play and we’ll have a much better idea of what we are and what we’ll be dealing with.

Highbury86