Matrim55
15 Aug 2006, 01:04 PM
Well, Makelele is hurt. He's their lynchpin, one of the three or four best d-mids in the world, and borderline irreplaceable. Cech being out is a problem as well. Same with the incredibly underrated Joe Cole. But there's something more than injuries at work here. There's the fact that Chelsea don't look particularly like a football club so much as a collection of weekend warriors.
What's astonishing about that is that hey have one of the best collections of talent in the world, second behind only Barcelona in my mind. On sheer talent alone they should be running roughshod over the competition, but the air went out of the balloon after last season's loss to Barca in the CL quarters, and Chelsea haven't been the same since. In fact, they look pretty damn beatable.
When Jose Mourinho came aboard his mantra was "By my third season we won't need to buy new players; we'll have acquired everyone we need by then." Yet Duff and Gudjonsen are out, with Schevchenko, Ballack and Diarra in. And the price they pay for that is cohesion, and I think it's a higher price than Mourinho originially recognized simply because of this: Frank Lampard can not function at a high level unless surrounded by players he knows well and in a role that is clearly, succinctly defined. And if Lampard can't function, then Chelsea can't. The massive turnover every year has robbed Lampard of his confidence and, in large measure, his greatness. He looks lost. And when the focal point of your offense looks lost, your team is in trouble.
I don't know if Lampard can recover his form, not because he's not capable of it, but because Mourinho is not capable of settling on a first-team and leaving well enough alone. It will be mitigated somewhat by Schevchenko's arrival, meaning that Chelsea won't be as reliant on Lampard's scoring from midfield as they were the past two years, but that's not going to make them a complete team.
In my mind, this season is Mourinho's to save or ruin. If he gets his team in order, they should win the Premiership going away and make it to the finals of the Champions' League. If he doesn't, Chelsea will be in a dogfight in the league and suffer another early exit in Europe.
What's astonishing about that is that hey have one of the best collections of talent in the world, second behind only Barcelona in my mind. On sheer talent alone they should be running roughshod over the competition, but the air went out of the balloon after last season's loss to Barca in the CL quarters, and Chelsea haven't been the same since. In fact, they look pretty damn beatable.
When Jose Mourinho came aboard his mantra was "By my third season we won't need to buy new players; we'll have acquired everyone we need by then." Yet Duff and Gudjonsen are out, with Schevchenko, Ballack and Diarra in. And the price they pay for that is cohesion, and I think it's a higher price than Mourinho originially recognized simply because of this: Frank Lampard can not function at a high level unless surrounded by players he knows well and in a role that is clearly, succinctly defined. And if Lampard can't function, then Chelsea can't. The massive turnover every year has robbed Lampard of his confidence and, in large measure, his greatness. He looks lost. And when the focal point of your offense looks lost, your team is in trouble.
I don't know if Lampard can recover his form, not because he's not capable of it, but because Mourinho is not capable of settling on a first-team and leaving well enough alone. It will be mitigated somewhat by Schevchenko's arrival, meaning that Chelsea won't be as reliant on Lampard's scoring from midfield as they were the past two years, but that's not going to make them a complete team.
In my mind, this season is Mourinho's to save or ruin. If he gets his team in order, they should win the Premiership going away and make it to the finals of the Champions' League. If he doesn't, Chelsea will be in a dogfight in the league and suffer another early exit in Europe.