by A.B. » Sat Sep 25, 2004 5:15 pm
First I want to say that the Reds played a great game, Alonso was brilliant along with Garcia,Baros and Cisse. Alonso and Hamman are looking good in the midfield.
However Norwich City was only our pre-test without Steven Gerrard. The true test lies ahead, and that is Chelsea. Chelsea have only allowed one goal and that was against Southampton. They are a type of team who can score once and sit on that lead for the rest of the game with solid defending.
I was glad that Chelsea won against Middlesbrough because if they had another draw Mourinho would be frustrated and then Chelsea would be really eager to beat us at home, now things might be a bit different.
Chelsea will be propably one of our biggest challengers of the season, their defence is solid as a rock.
The thing that troubles me is two things one being Jerzy Dudek and the other being our defence during set pieces.
Against Chelsea I think that Christopher Kirkland should start, it would be a good game for him to get some action. We need our goalkeeper to be solid and our defence should not contain Finnan, at least not against Chelsea.
Hyypia is a good player but needs to step up even more along with the rest of our defencive players when we face the Blues because if we don't we will let a goal in and losing another game so soon after losing to Manchester United will be a blow.
Chelsea's strikers [Drogba,Kezman,Gudjohnsen,Mutu] haven't gelled with each other very well, the partnership up front hasn't been the best but they have managed to score in almost every game they've played. Their biggest win was 2-1 over Southampton and if Southampton can score against Chelsea I think we can as well.
This shouldn't be the time we get carried away. True we beat Norwich but they haven't won a game this season. I hope that our players and our manager have learned something from the game against Manchester United because Chelsea will be 10 times tougher, their defence is uncredibly solid and our players need to effort into this game and not slack off like we did against Manchester.
Great to bounce back but we have a huge challenge ahead of us, I would be happy with a draw and we need to improve our away record. 1 draw and 2 losses isn't the best even though we have the best home record in the Premiership so far.
Last edited by
A.B. on Sat Sep 25, 2004 5:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
YNWA - DrummerPhil
Gone but not forgotten
R.I.P.