Blog Archives
Is AVB a square peg in a round hole?
After Chelsea were pegged back by Wigan last night Tom Gaunt takes a look at some of the fundamental problems facing Chelsea and Andre Villas Boas.
Is this really the best vantage point?
As a Chelsea fan I have resisted the temptation to write about Chelsea and their woes this season. Plenty has been written and there is a fair chance that whatever I say will be somewhat biased. However after last nights draw away at relegation threatened Wigan I had a long hard think about what was going wrong and who or what was to blame. I will take a brief look at tactics like the high line, how Chelsea have pressed the ball and whether we are playing the right formation but I also want to examine the bigger picture to try to identify some major problems that cannot be solved by a bit of tweaking or a new number nine. Read the rest of this entry
Win or Lose Ancelotti must stay
Ancelotti: Dead man walking
By Tom Gaunt
Two months ago Chelsea were dead and buried scrapping to qualify for Champions League football. One of the most remarkable things was, that although he was the bookies favourite to lose his job Carlo Ancelotti somehow avoided the chop from the Russian oligarch famous for his long pockets and short patience.
Whether he was distracted jetting around the world brokering dodgy oil deals or whether he had just grown weary of sacking people, Abramovich, it seems, has given Carlo a second chance. His reward has been eight wins out of nine in the premiership and a gap of 15 points closing to just three. You would hope that this will help Abramovich see that sometimes stability and consistency go hand in hand and that knee jerk sackings are rarely a beneficial tactic, as he witnessed after mercilessly giving loyal soldier Ray Wilkins the elbow, but the bookies aren’t convinced. Ancelotti remarkably still sits up there with other regular favourites for the chop like Steve Keen, Gerard Houllier and Avram Grant (how they would love to have won 8 of their last 9 games). Read the rest of this entry
