UNITED BAG THREE
As LVG walked off the pitch on Saturday afternoon after securing 3 points against Tottenham, you could see the smile of satisfaction on his face. Not at a team that outplayed its opponents, not at a team that played its best football, but at his Man Utd team that just scrapped the three points on offer.
He has won so many titles for him to know that you don’t have to play well to win, but you have to win no matter how you play.
That’s exactly what LVG troops did on Saturday. In the same fixture in another season previously, the defence would have given away a silly goal at some point and would have drawn this game, but new faces meant old problems were put to bed.
Romero looks like a ready replacement for DeGea; he was comfortable on the ball, made a few saves, was commanding and imposing in goal, and brought confidence to the back four. Darmian was excellent on the right, Shneiderlin and Carrick closed the space in front of a usually suspect defence, and Dephay showed glimpses of what is to come, even though I think he struggled a bit with his positioning whenever Mata or Young got the ball.
Overall, a massive three points to LVG and his troops, considering how their London rivals feared in the aftermath, but it’s still early days.
ROMAN TO RESCUE THE FALLING BRIDGE
I remember during my playing days, the most difficult periods for the players, coaches and staff were just towards the end of pre-season and at the onset of each football season.
At those times, the friendly games became unfriendly for the players as the games turned to litmus tests for players positions for the entire season; every player in the squad used them to compete for starting places on the opening day of the season.
If you played badly, you were looking over your shoulders, or should I say, to the reserve bench, as you feared that there may just be someone on that bench who may just step in and play their way into the manager’s starting line up.
The coaches also didn’t have an easy job as I recollect, they had to weigh their options; look at the players’ fitness, take tired legs into account, study the psyche of the individual players and decide who was ready and who wasn’t, and most importantly, if the team didn’t get it right up until the first few games of the season, they had to keep changing personnel until they got the winning team out there.
As I watched Chelsea play Swansea on Saturday evening, I couldn’t help but look to the bench at Mourinho’s options after 20 minutes, but just as I feared before the season started, there was no winning edge on the bench.
What were the starting eleven thinking? It can’t be “well it doesn’t matter how I play as there is no one that can take my starting place on the bench’ Surely professionals don’t think like that, but something of the sort would have played on the minds of the boys on the pitch.
Who was on the bench to put Cesc on his toes? Who can make Hazard a better player this year? Who would push Willian to start scoring goals? Who can relegate Ivanocic and Azpilicueta by defending and attacking?
Chelsea looked out of sorts on Saturday. If Swansea was Man City next weekend, I don’t know how humiliating the scores would have been at the end of the game.
Thanks to Bergovic, and thanks to Courtois, for the humble result at full time.
This was a team Chelsea Scored 9 against over two games last season, but if there was a team likely to score nine in this one game, it was going to be Swansea and not Chelsea.
Not only have Chelsea stood still, Swansea have narrowed the gap to a bare minimum. The only blitz came from Monterro, Ayew and Bafatemi
There was no creativity anywhere, the team defended badly and to think I thought the team stood still! This team have gone back in two months.
If you look to the bench, you see players who may not make much difference if brought on, so even if you changed personnel, there are no guarantees for change.
This is not the team that threatened dominance for a few years, last term. This is not the team that everyone said would go places in Europe, and if Swansea have closed the gap, Bayern and Barcelona have surely extended it.
Unless Roman and Mourinho sit down and discuss the next few years without sentiments, there is a danger that the bridge would fall again after just two seasons under Mourinho.
The truth is that there are only two ways to evolve into a legendary team; you either
GROW players or BUY players.
At the moment, I struggle to see which one it is for Chelsea this season.
3 POINTS FROM EMIRATES TO EAST LONDON.
If it’s too good to be true,then it is too good to be true. After all of Arsenal’s scintillating displays during pre-season and their win over Chelsea at the Community Shield, something was just not right; yes they got Peter Cech, yes they mastered the 4-1-4-1 style, yes they’re all Compact and fluid in the middle, yes they have a big striker and a tall defender, but something was not just right.
With all the possession and the crowd, Arsenal lacked a killing edge upfront and their game looked predictable from the first minute.
West Ham played to their own strengths and gave nothing away, closing all the channels in the middle of the park that Arsenal always exploit against many opponents.
16yr old Reece Oxford looked like a veteran in the middle alongside Kouyate and Noble as the quartet of Cazorla-Ramsey-Ozil and Oxlade found it difficult to find a way through. New comer Ogbonna was excellent at the centre of defence alongside Reid who marshalled the defence with a commanding display.
There were snippets of good football from the Ox and his friends in the middle, to remind everyone that yesterday’s was just one game, so don’t just write the gunners off yet, but I know Petr Cech – a fantastic goalkeeper – would be disappointed with the goals that he let in.
I saw Coutinho’s goal on Television, what a finish! Can he inspire Liverpool to a decent run of games and momentum? Like they say, this is just day 1 of 38, and there is a long way to go yet, but Liverpool’s magician has surely put the spotlight on himself and his team for the other games to come.
CITY SET STALL EARLY
As I write this, Man City are rolling over West Brom at the Hawthorns. Two goals in 25 minutes from Yahaya Toure and the Fernandinho- Yaya-Silva- Sterling – Boni are proving too much for Pulis and his boys.
No Aguero, No Zabaleta, No Clichy, No Demechelis, No Fernando No Nasri yet it is a commanding display with “101 Ways to attack”
Again it’s just the first game back, but it’s looking like City would be very hard to beat this season.