New territory for Roman

Whilst watching the last few minutes of the game against West Ham on Sunday i fully expected Graham Chapman to walk onto the pitch in full army generals uniform to tell us to stop the game as it is all getting a bit silly. And it is too. It was easy to predict what was going to happen in that game and too easy to see us lose it, even from half time. It is remarkable that we are playing so badly and are so vulnerable no matter who we are playing against.

We are entering uncharted territory for Abramovic, every time previously he has felt the need to chop the manager and replace with an interim manager results have improved, even under Avram Grant we managed to have a steady season. But now we have an interim manager who in 3 games has yet to win a game and it is hard to see what he is going to do to improve things. A bigger question and one that there is no precedent for is what does Roman do if we continue down this path of poor results? Does he ditch Rafa and bring in another interim manager? Who knows, but it just goes to highlight what an awful decision it was in the first place to bring in Benitez.

Changes have to be made and fast! Benitez is just carrying on with the same formation and changing a player here and there just hoping that things will improve. Something has to be tried, anything. 4-3-3, 4-diamond-2, 4-4-2!! Just try something and see what happens and not just carry on hoping things will magically improve. But will he? It does not look likely, if reports today are to be believed then he is going to ditch playing all 3 of Mata, Hazard and Oscar and play Moses (didn't he already do this against West Ham) and apparently he doesn't fancy Ramires and will drop him for Romeu i would assume. Considering Ramires has been one of our best players this season that would be pretty stupid. But again, one player for another is not going to change anything.

Tomorrow will see our fate in Europe decided, and it is pretty likely that we will be out of the Champions League. But more important than that in the scheme of things is to win the game, we must get back to winning ways and find a way of playing that suits the players we have. 

It is testing times at Chelsea for sure and it is hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel at the moment but surely it will come?

Youth Cup starts with a win

Whilst the first team were faltering at West Ham on Saturday afternoon we looked to the U18's to provide us with something to be cheerful about in the first game of this years FA Youth Cup. Even though they made it harder for themselves than necessary they did give us something to be cheerful about and won the game 3 - 2 against Colchester United.

The team selection was always going to be interesting with this group and it is a strong team even though there were a couple of players out with injury which i will get to. The new faces in the Youth Cup team were Mitchell Beeney in goal, Fankaty Dabo at right back, Jordan Houghton at centre back, Ruben Loftus-Cheek in midfield and Reece Mitchell on the right wing. The returning players were Alex Davey, Adam Nditi, Nathan Ake playing the holding role in midfield, John Swift, Lewis Baker and Islam Feruz.

The game certainly started with a flourish with 3 goals scored within 6 minutes of kick off. Islam Feruz scored the first of the day after being put through one on one and placed a tidy finish in the bottom corner. Next up was some poor defending from a corner which saw the ball pinball about in the box before falling to a Colchester player to slot it home. Lewis Baker took Chelsea back in the lead though with some fine work down the left flank beating a couple of players and driving the ball home.The next goal was again some good work by Feruz who upon trying to beat his defender was brought down in the box and the penalty was awarded, Lewis Baker stepped up and put it away comfortably. 

Chelsea for the majority of the game were very comfortable and playing within themselves, they should have put away a number of chances that game their way to totally bury the game but didn't. The football that was being played was of a very high standard and they were very pleasing to watch. However as the game dragged on Colchester caught us on the break and a delightful ball played right across the defense caught everyone out and Colchester got one back. Immediately after Chelsea should have scored the exact same goal, the ball in from Nditi met by Feruz but the striker put it just wide. After that things were a little uncomfortable and Cochester who looked dead and buried earlier suddenly had a new lease of life. But we was able to hold on and progress to the next round.

Lessons will be learned from this game and no doubt performances will improve but we are going to be a very difficult team to beat. Looking at the players missing i would think that Alex Kiwomya and Jeremie Boga when fit will be in the starting 11 and will add another level of quality but this team is very good. Lewis Baker looked a class above and was my man of the match, Islam Feruz is going to cause any defenders nightmares and Nathan Ake wherever he plays is top drawer.

So now we await the drawer for the next round, but like i said we are a top team and no one is going to want to drawer us.