10/14/03 EPL Round 8: Birmingham v. Chelsea [R]

[GPK]

Chelsea 6-1-0, 19 PTS, 3rd Place (-1)
Birmingham 4-2-1 14 PTS, 5th Place (-6)

7:45 PM Local Time
2:45 PM EST

Live on Big Blue (http://www.chelseafc.com/statpage.asp?id=Big_Blue_Live)

ChelseaFC.com (http://www.chelseafc.com/index.asp)

News on Soccernet (http://soccernet.espn.go.com/team?id=363&cc=5901)

TEAMtalk-Chelsea (http://www.teamtalk.com/teamtalk/Team_News/0,1562,14,00.html)

BBC-Chelsea (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/default.stm)

[GPK]

The full squad is: Cudicini, Ambrosio, Johnson, Melchiot, Terry, Huth, Gallas, Bridge, Geremi, Stanic, Lampard, Makelele, Veron, Duff, Cole, Hasselbaink, Gudjohnsen, Crespo and Mutu

[Clan]

An away game to a team that have improved considerably from last years 3-0 mauling by us.
Their defence is quite tight and it'll be an open game only if they think they can win and press forward.

I think that Ranieri will go for a win though and will put out an attack minded side.We have a crunch couple of games coming up and three wins would be nice as that would shape our season quite well for the time being.

However, realistically , if we pull 4 points out of the next 2 league games it will be a success.Therefore, i think he will go for the "win" at brum and play "not to lose' at the library.

Imho that is.

Looking for...
--------------------Carlo-------------------
Johnson------Terry-----Gallas---------Bridge
-------------------Makelele-----------------
Geremi-----------Lampard---------------Duff
-----------Hasselbaink---------Crespo-------

[starman1994]

I'd be happy with a 1-0 scoreline, us winning it of course!

I do have some reservations as to whether CR will stick to a 4-4-2 tactic however..... knowing him, he might throw out a 4-5-1 again!

If it's a 4-4-2, this is how I see the lineup:

--------------------Carlo-------------------
Johnson------Terry-----Gallas---------Baba
Gronks------Makalele----Lampard--------Duff
------------Crespo---------Mutu------

If it's 4-5-1 then the line up will be:

--------------------Carlo-------------------
Johnson------Terry-----Gallas---------Bridge
Gronks------Makalele-----Lampard------Duff
--------------------Veron
-----------------Crespo / Mutu

We just cannot lose this match and I hope CR will stick to what's been proven and put his experimentations on hold for now.

[CFC Forever]

Originally posted by GPK
The full squad is: Cudicini, Ambrosio, Johnson, Melchiot, Terry, Huth, Gallas, Bridge, Geremi, Stanic, Lampard, Makelele, Veron, Duff, Cole, Hasselbaink, Gudjohnsen, Crespo and Mutu

Is Gronks injured or did he just not make the squad?

[CFC Forever]

For those of you that subscribe to Chelsea TV Online, the website is saying that you will be able to watch the full match as of midnight GMT, 7pm EST, tomorrow. Hopefully they wont have the result plastered all over the site so I can watch it "live" when I get in.

[Clan]

Originally posted by CFC Forever
Is Gronks injured or did he just not make the squad?

Played a full 90 for the Danes and had no problems.
Might be excluded just because of that.

Babayaro is out Starman-for up to a month with a hamstring injury.

[starman1994]

Yeh..... I just read the news on soccernet ..... that means that Bridege will start every game now.

Heh heh heh.... he will be the only few that will get to do that.

If Gronks doesn't start, Geremi or Cole will likely get a chance on the right side..... and puhlease don't put Veron there for heavens sake!

[mst77]

schedules a 4 PM meeting on the day of a Chelsea match when they know I will be listening in and pretending to do work? Bastards. At least I'll catch the 1st half, hopefully we'll be a few up by then.

[themightypuck]

I'm in early to make sure there isn't anything that needs getting done between 11:45 and 1:45 pdt. This is going to be a real test for us. But we must emerge victorious!!! And healthy (for the weekend).

[bmw9983]

23 Carlo Cudicini;

2 Glen Johnson

13 William Gallas
Gallas injured in warmup - Huth in

26 John Terry (c)

18 Wayne Bridge;

4 Claude Makelele;

8 Frank Lampard

10 Joe Cole;

14 Geremi;

21 Hernan Crespo

9 Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink



The five substitutes are: 11 Damien Duff, 12 Mario Stanic, 15 Mario Melchiot, 22 Eidur Gudjohnsen and 31 Marco Ambrosio.

[mst77]

--------------------------Carlo-------------------
Johnson---------Terry---------Gallas--------Bridge
Geremi---------Lampard-------Makalele-------Cole
-----------------------JFH---------Crespo--------

Subs: Marco Ambrosio
Mario Melchiot
Damien Duff
Mario Stanic
Eidur Gudjohnsen


Bit surprised not see 4-5-1 tonight. No Mutu or Veron either. Think we might need some magic from Duff in the second half.


**********Priority users my ass*************

[Clan]

Not exactly inspiring stuff--missing Duff for sure.

[the101er]

Well, if it were May, and we'd just fought through a tough away game to earn a draw that saw us go top of the league, I'm sure I'd feel better than I do right now.

But still, the formsheet I'm reading from says, Chelsea will stumble out of the blocks and get tougher as the season progresses as Claudio Ranieri molds his gang of expensive mercenaries into a team.

So, we've stumbled out of the blocks into first place. And we get to play Arsenal on Saturday, to see how we measure up to one of the two teams who are the real title contenders this season.

Yes, Birmingham were undoubtedly hurt by the absence of Forssell and Savage, but Chelsea had loads of players on international duty over the weekend and even when they don't play, they don't stay at home resting either.

I wish I could have seen the game and it doesn't look like a repeat on FSW as it's gone all Rugby World Cup. From reading the BBC ticker, it looked like we had more chances through out. But, that's like watching the game on CM2.

[Clan]

Ah, the eternal question-is it a point gained or two points lost?
On the face of it we traveled to the 5th placed side in the league and came away with a point-good result no?

But, we dominated the game which saw us fail to score.
Bad?

No, i don't think so.
We wont know untill the end of the season if it's a disaster or not.United may have beat them-however they were at home and only got the better of them after they went down to 10 men.

We haven't really played well yet and we're top of the table.
I'll take some more of that please.

[BridgeMonkee]

In this corresponding fixture last season we won the 3 points. So, thats two points down on last year. However, we go TOP and to be fair Brum are a much better side now, than they were at this time last season. You just feel that with all the players we have we should get at least ONE bleeding goal eh?

Brum missed Forrssell today

RE: My Fantasy Football team. I have 3 Chelsea players; Veron, Mutu and Duff. I may have to have some words with Claudio about his team selections.

[themightypuck]

2 points lost I suspect but we shall see how Arsenal and Manchester United fare at St. Andrews. Only Fulham and Manure have managed to score on these guys so I knew it would be tough. Still we should have done better I think.

[starman1994]

Originally posted by Clanblue
We haven't really played well yet and we're top of the table.
I'll take some more of that please.

A point is a point. We didn't lose even when we were not playing well in the first half. We got another clean sheet and that is another boost.

We dominated the second half, it just shows that we are strong even on away matches. I'll take that one point anyday with so much other bonuses that comes with it.

Cheers to the lads. Now it's time to collect a big Arse scalp!!!!!

[Andy Bennett]

Originally posted by themightypuck
2 points lost I suspect but we shall see how Arsenal and Manchester United fare at St. Andrews. Only Fulham and Manure have managed to score on these guys so I knew it would be tough. Still we should have done better I think.
IIRC ManU scored when their keeper was sent off for doing exactly the same thing that ManU's keeper, (Barthez?), did last year at Old Trafford - and he wasn't sent off. How surprising.

It was a pretty good performance BUT - what the hell was Geremi doing on the left???

[fernb8]

lets see
We drew a decent team away from home to go top of the league

I am sure I can remember moaning about the same problem when we were playing Grimsby... eh Clan?