sobota 28. září 2013

Spurs preview

If we don't count our game against Manchester at the start of the season, which was terribly boring, this match will be the first hard test for Mourinho's team. It will be very special, because Spurs's manager is our ex-manager André Villas-Boas. No need telling, that where once was a big frienship, there now is nothing but a cold relationship.

After failing at Chelsea, he went to our rivals from North London, where Daniel Levy actually gave him any chance to build a team with prospective players. Along with Arsenal, I think Spurs will be the hotest candidates for this year's trophy.

It will be a very hard game today, and I think we cannot really count ourselves as favourites in this game. We weren't showing the best that we have so far, and unless José makes some serious changes we won't win. I have to say, I really liked the performance in the first half against Swindon, and I hope that is how we gonna play today. Now let's have a look and our possible lineup.

Čech - Cole, Terry, Cahill, Ivanovič - Lampard, Mikel - Hazard, Oscar, Mata (Schurrle) - Torres

I think there is no doubt about the goalie and the defence, but we have some problems in the midfield. Ramires and van Ginkel are injured, which leaves Lamps, Mikel, and Essien. Now even though Essien played an extremely good match on tuesday, I don't think he will get a chance to start today. Lampy is just the number one player on this position, and Mikel was one of our best in all the matches so far. Now, above them Oscar is for sure. We established that he is Mourinho's favourite for this season, even though Mata is still way better. I think that Mata did show his quality on Monday, and that Mourinho will finally let him start today. It is true that this is a very important and difficult match, so if by any chance Mourinho still isn't sure about Mata playing on the right wing next to Oscar, he might let André Schurrle play instead. And our striker? Torres was our man of the match on Monday, seriously one of his best performances, but you can't really take it that seriously, because it was "just" Swindon. But anyway, if Eto'o starts today, then there is something seriously wrong going inside our manager's head.

KTBFFH

středa 25. září 2013

Swindon review

I was looking forward to this game very much, because I was excited to see all the other players, that weren't playing much so far, or maybe even at all. I was satisfied with their performance, but my overall happiness affected the injury of two of our midfielders, Marco van Ginkel and Ramires.

The first match was very exciting, Swindon seemed as a very decent opponent, and it looked hard to break through their defence. We didn't really show much effect until van Ginkel got injured, and the substitute Ramires changed the game completely. After Torres missed his first chance, he then finished Mata's shot. Ramires added another goal, after Torres making a beautiful pass.

The second half was a bit boring, Swindon were better in the second half than we were. Willian missed two open goals, with stealing a certain goal for Torres as well.

The man of the match for me was definitely Fernando Torres, because he scored one, and set up the second. On the other hand, if it wasn't for Essien, Swindon would have scored a few goals for certain. He and Ramires were very confident in the defence, and also starting up most of our counter attacks.

This was a good match for Mourinho to see which of the players, that he had left out in the past few weeks have the quality for playing in the regular squad. I think Mata, Essien, Torres and Bertrand can definitely play league matches all the time, the problem is that each of these players have a colleague on that position. Essien playes the same position as Lamps, Ramires, Mikel, and Luiz, so I guess he will have to work very hard to persuade the coach to pick him for the matches. Torres is definitely better than Eto'o or Ba, no doubt about that, but Mata has the hardest job. Too many players playing on the same position as him, and they are all certainly very good. I feel sorry for Bertrand though, because Liverpool made a bid for him in the summer, but he refused with saying that he wants to play for the club that raised him up. That will be hard though, because we have Ashley Cole as the number one left back at the club. Good luck to them all.

KTBFFH

pondělí 23. září 2013

Fulham review + Swindon preview

We finally managed to win, but I can't say that it was a top performance, that I ever seen. It seemed like we were besieging a stronghold. Lots and lots of short passes around David Stockdale's goal.
Fulham resisted for a very long time, with Parker and Sidwell showing their best performance in the defensive rows. On the other side Duff and Bent were taking care of the Fulhams's attacks. Right at the start of the match, after a beautiful pass by Parker, Darren Bent had a massive goal-scorring opportunity, but only hit Čech. Apart from that, I was very impressed with our english defense Cahill-Terry. They were very sure in their defending actions, and didn't let anyone else to go through like Bent did.

Seven minutes after the half-time Oscar scored after a rebound and got Chelsea to the lead. Fulham manager Martin Jol tried to react to this with some substitues, but Mourinho even increased the attacking power, and put Torres in.

And in the 84th minute, after 187 games, John Obi Mikel scored his first league goal for Chelsea, and secured us the 2-0 win. And with Arsenal, Man City, and Spurs winning their games, it makes us 4th in the league table.

This week we will be having two games in two different competitions again. Swindon Town in the Capital One Cup, and Tottenham in  Premier League.

I am especially looking forward to the Swindon games, because Mourinho promised letting Mata play the whole game. I am also hoping to see a few of the other players that we haven't really seen in action yet. I think it would be a good idea to let Čech have a little break, and maybe give Mark Schwarzer a chance. Maybe even try guys like Aké, Willian, Loftus-Cheek, Bertrand etc. And definitely not Eto'o as the striker! Either Ba or Torres, or even Feruz, but please not Eto'o!




KTBFFH

pátek 20. září 2013

Fulham preview

A home game against Fulham. In our last three games in this season we have experienced a defeat. And some defeats they were. The emotional lost in Prague in the European Supercup, a 1-0 disappointment at the Goodison Park and the famous defeat at the first round of the Champions League against Basel. But even after these crushing facts we are still the favourites. I don't understand that, Fulham are a very good team. Even though they handed their club legend Mark Schwarzer to us, they succesfully replaced him with the wonderful dutchman Steklenburg. It's true, that their head coach is struggling with injuries, with Ruiz, Briggs certainly out of the game, and the biggest stars Berbatov, Bent and Steklenburg having some problems as well. But Mou is rotating the team too much, and so far it's been proven to not to work.

There certainly need to be changes, no doubt about that. This time I'm not going to write the starting lineup that I think will start or that I would like to see start. I am going to write the best possible lineup that José can put together at the moment, and just hope he will grant me this wish and calm us and all the other Chelsea fans with a nice win.

Čech - Bertrand, Terry, Cahill, Azpilicueta - Lampard, Essien - Willian, Mata, De Bruyne - TORRES

And why is this you ask? It's simple, cut the players that have not been showing desire, or the capability to turn the Basel game over, out of the squad (Hazard, Luiz) and replace them with players that I believe have a bigger potencial to do that (Willian, Terry). Willian did very well in his first game, and no one really knows what made José to take him down of the pitch. Our legendary captain is known for his quality headers which I believe to be very important when having a corner opportunity. Cole has been absolutely useless in the last games, and Bertrand deserves to get a chance to prove that he is much better than his older colleague. And to solve the other side of the defence, Azpilicueta is the right man for that job. And Eto'o? I'm sure that he's trying to do his best when he's playing, but he is about as useful as money in Arséne Wenger's wallet. Get that guy out of the pitch, José!

Seriously, I think that our "new" coach is trying to turn the winning Chelsea into Mourinho's Chelsea. We did hate Rafa Benítéz when he came to Chelsea, but we did kinda forgive him and thank him when he left leaving us the Champions of the Europa League, ey? Well we celebrated the return of the "Special One" in style, but we all know this could end up like Benítéz started. With hatred and tears.

MATA DOES NOT BELONG TO THE BENCH JOSÉ, ETO'O DOES. KTBFFH!

středa 18. září 2013

Home game against Basel - review

And again, I am very very disappointed. I wonder what the problem is. Everyone expected Mourinho to be Chelsea's saviour, and so far, he is more then failing. The lineup was weird. Luiz was trusted as a defender, even though he was rubbish in the last game. Van Ginkel was very bad. Unable to control the ball, he kept fouling and fouling. Both of the halfs were catastrophic and boring. We had one lucky counter-attack lead by Luiz right at the end of the first half ended with a lovely shot by Oscar, and scored. I consider this goal as lucky, because we didn't really do anything at the Basel hald before this goal, and we didn't do anything after it neither.

I would have tho$ught that after the break, we would play a bit easier, but I had the feeling that we were even more stressed. And this is when Mourinho comes in. First sub: Mata in for Willian. I didn't understand this move, we were wining, okay, but only by one very very lucky goal, and we didn't have the game under control at all. If Mourinho really wanted to put Mata on for a equal position, then I would hoped it was for Hazard. I normally like his style, but he was showing of too much today. He kept on loosing the ball, didn't stop falling down with every opponent's touch. Bad first decision Mou, very bad. More to come.

Right after this, we let in a goal. A very nice one, I have to say. The reaction was simple. The fans wanted a win. Eto'o was useless on his own. So why not add another striker? It would be more reasonable to put Torres on, at this particular situation, but no, we can't put Torres on, because our Special Coach didn't even let him to warp up the bench. Demba on for Lampard, followed by Mikel for van Ginkel. This had consequences: second goal in for Basel, scored by Streller ... (who?, never even heard of this guy). Anyway, we lost at home, on our first CL game. Good start Mou, carry on destroying Chelsea :)

Sorry about this, I got a bit carried away :/ . I am really disappointed in the final score today. A lost against a team like Basel at the Bridge is ridiculous. There must be radical changes, or we'll loose against Fulham at the London derby as well.

Basel preview

I just wished Mourinho won't underestimate the swiss team. We did go past them in the Europa league with out him, so it shouldn't be a problem now, when we have got Him. Mourinho said he we can expect four U22 players in the starting line-up. I guess this will include Mourinho's favourites Oscar and Schurrle. We can only speculate about the other two, but I think one of them will definately be Eden Hazard, and the other one will probably be Marco van Ginkel making his first official Chelsea appearence, or maybe even Kevin de Bruyne. So what are the probable line-ups?



PROBABLE LINEUP:  Čech - Cole, Terry, Cahill, Ivanovič - Lampard, van Ginkel - Hazard, Oscar, de Bruyne (Schurrle) - Ba

Mourinho finally understood, that David Luiz isn't the right man for the defending position, so I think the english duo Cahill + Terry will be ideal. Ivanovič as a right back? Well he is one of Mourinho's old time era players, so I guess our coach will always give him the preference. Lampard - quite obviously the star of our London club - this time maybe playing with a new partner. With Ramires unable to play due to his red card in the Munich match, and Essien not even registered for the Champions league matches, there are only two real possibilities left: Mikel - but acording to some newspapers he is struggling with a small injury, and our new dutch youngster: Marco van Ginkel.
Hazard and Oscar,  quite obviously in the starting XI, but this time without their third amigo Juan Mata. Instead of him, it will be either Schurrle or De Bruyne operating on the right wing. And above them? We've got Torres, Ba, and the "lovable" Samuel Eto'o. Anyone BUT Eto'o. I am sure that either of them will do better then the Camueroonian. Now let me just show you how I would like to play it:

MY LINEUP:
Čech - Bertrand, Terry, Cahill, Azpilicueta - Lampard, Mikel - Hazard, Oscar, Mata - Ba (Torres)


KTBFFH



sobota 14. září 2013

Disappointment at the Goodison Park

Everton proved that they are still a very good team even without Fellaini. The spanish manager replaced him by the highly experienced englishman Gareth Barry who came from Man City. Barry proved to be a very good purchase with being one of the best players in the todays match.

Chelsea started with a very strange line-up. José chose Cole, Terry, Luiz and Ivanovič to help Čech defending Everton's attacks. It was nice to see captain JT play again, but I personally would have chosen Cahill next to him. The goal that we recieved was entirely David's fault.  Ivanovič played well but he isn't really the attacking right-back like Azpilicueta is. And Cole just carried on with his dreadful performance.

As I wrote before the match, I was quite confident with our defending midfielders. I think Mikel - Ramires didn't play that bad at all. Mikel started the match a bit weirdly with loosing the ball nearly every time, but he got a bit more self-confident after the brake. Ramires played very well indeed, with crossing the ball at Eto'o right at the start or actually shooting after that.

Mata got finally picked for the starting eleven. Good choice, he played well, got into some pretty good chances. I thought Hazard was a bit selfish most of the times, but I had the feeling that he was the only player on the pitch that actually wanted to score and turn the game on to our side. Schurrle wasn't very good either, but I think and hope that it's just the lack of experience.

Eto'o was picked instead of Torres or Ba ... well he did exactly what I expected. Absolutely nothing. He kept loosing the ball and made about one good pass in the whole game. He also missed a lot of open goals, and missed a certain goal right at the start of the game after a lovely cross from Ramires.

Substitutions: Oscar on for Mata - didn't make much sense to me, but the commentator said, it was something to do with Mata's fitness, so let's hope is o'right.

Lampard on for Schurrle - good decision, but not even Lampard managed to do anything, he didn't even try one of his classy long shots.

Torres on for Cole - This was a bit weird, José probably wanted him to play up front with Eto'o, but this meant Luiz had to move to the left side witch made everything even more catastrophic.


I watched the whole game today, and I have to say we should have been able to win this game. If it wasn't for Čech we would have been at least 3-0 down. But on the other hand, if it wasn't for Eto'o we would have been 3-0 up... I am just very disappointed. :/

Premier League - Round 4 (Saturday matches)

This weekend showing some quality matches, with english premier league clubs playing their fourth games in the league.

MANCHESTER UNITED - CRYSTAL PALACE
Satuarday will start with the defending champions Manchester United against one of this years newcomers, Crystal Palace. I don't this this will be a match full of suprises. Man United have the quality needed to beat "The Eagles", plus the fans are excited to see Marouane Fellaini making his first appearance at the "Theatre of Dreams". Crystal Palace bought a few players, but they are missing a key player, like Zaha was, in the last season.
My tip: 2-0

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR - NORWICH CITY
With all the players Spurs bought, they just must be able to beat a team like Norwich at home. Soldado, Chadli, Dembelé, Defoe, Lamela - all players capable of doing a good job in the box. Norwich aren't doing that bad so far, a draw against Everton and a win against Southampton giving them 4 points and the 9th place in the league table, but Spurs are a completely different level.
My tip: 3-0

FULHAM - WEST BROMWICH ALBION

This will be a quite interesting game to watch, both teams are about the same level. Both teams can be proud of their attacking power with Berbatov + Bent on the home side and Anelka + Vydra on the other. A very close game full of turnovers.
My tip: 2-2

STOKE CITY - MANCHESTER CITY
Stoke are doing very well so far, 6 points out of 3 games - a one nil lost at Anfield and two wins against the London clubs West Ham and Crystal Palace. Manchester City have the same amount of points, but they lost against Cardiff, which no one expected, so I would really count them as massive favourites in this game, but I still think they will manage to win somehow.
My tip: 1-2

SUNDERLAND - ARSENAL
Finally, Arséne Wenger finally bought someone, and he isn't bad at all, probably one of the best attacking midfielders Mesut Ozil will try out his red jersey for the first time. Arsenal are playing away, but I think they'll bring three points to the Emirates Stadium quite easily.
My tip: 1-3


ASTON VILLA - NEWCASTLE

This will certainly be a good match. Aston Villa brought another decent striker on their side (Libor Kozák). If they combine him with Benteke, they cannot lose this match. Newcastle is the similiar level as Villa but the maximum they can get out of this match is a point.
My tip: 2-1

HULL CITY - CARDIFF CITY

I have absolutely no idea. Two newcomers, lack of experience.
My tip: 2-2

These are only matches being played on Satuarday, and my tips on them ... I don't expect them to be right, I just thought it would be fun to write them down and then see what happens. And as for Chelsea ... I just hope it's a win :) KTBFFH!

středa 11. září 2013

Everton preview

Okay, a big match coming up on saturday against The Toffees. We are playing away, but I think we should still be able to win this match quite easily. It's obvious that it would be foolish to underestimate a team like this, so I think José should use the best he has. Everton have loads of decent players starting with Jagielka and Baines at the back or Mirallas and Jelavič up at the front. I am not sure if Lukaku can play against us, so I won't comment on that topic.

It is clear, that Mourinho shouldn't continue with whatever he was doing  till now, and should let ( I think our best player) Mata play. With the transfer deadline over, we have got soo many atacking midfielders like Willian, Oscar, Hazard, De Bruyne and many others. I personaly think that it's a waste of money to have this amount of players playing on the same position but okay.

So put Mata in the starting eleven and stick him with the one and only "Eddie" Hazard. Most of the games, we have been playing with three attacking midfielders, so the question is who will be the third one. I think it is quite logical to say that Mou will let Willian start as well, since he payed all that money for him.

Striker - a position that I personaly do not count as solved. Before the transfer window opened, there were rumours, about Mario Gomez from Bayern Munich moving to one of the english clubs. Chelsea were trying to get him to come to London, but he chose Fiorentina instead for some reason. Since then there have been many bids for strikers from Chelsea including Wazza Rooney, that unfortunately ended up unsuccesful. When they announced that Rooney ain't coming, it was quite clear to me that the striker replacing that gap won't be as good. And this is the point were I disagree with the czech Chelsea fans. Eto'o signed, and everyone here got really happy. I thought "what the bloody hell is going on?". With all respect, I don't like that guy, and I really hope Torres will kick him out of the squad. With all that Eto'o said about Chelsea in the past years, he must be joking, joining us now. I really really hope Torres will start on Saturday, and I really really believe he will do well :)

Defence - I am not very sure here. John Terry wasn't playing in the last games for Chelsea, nor for England, so I guess it will be Ivanovič and Cahill in the middle and Azpilicueta and Cole on the sides. I would be quite suprised if the defence would be different. I always liked when Chelsea tried out academy players, and Bertrand will always be my favourite player for that reason, but I don't think Mou will use him. Now, I think that the defensive midfielders are the only part where I am not worried. Lamps, Essien, Obi Mikel, Luiz and Ramires, all suitable for this position, and I really don't care who will play, even though I would love to see Lamps and Essien back together.

Please feel free to leave comments and support Chelsea on Saturday! :)



Who am I?

Hi guys,
first of all, I am a Chelsea fan. I've supported Chelsea since I was a little boy. I always dreamt to go and watch the Blues play at the Bridge but as you probably may found out already I don't live in England. No, even though I am half-english, I live in a nice small country in Central Europe, called Czech Republic. Football is very popular here, our local teams produced loads of quality players in the past like Pavel Nedvěd, Milan Baroš, Jan Koller, and of course our two main recent players the wonderful Tomáš Rosický and the number one goalie for Chelsea, Petr Čech.




The reason I started writing my own blog is, that I got quite angry with the czech Chelsea fans. As supposed, there are lot of them here, but I got a feeling they aren't true fans. They don't seem to have their own opinion on anything, they always agree with whatever anyone says or does. So I just thought, I could write my own opinions about Chelsea's signings, preformances, matches, whatever ...

I pardon my english, I guess it's not perfect, but I hope, that you will enjoy reading my little shouts, and maybe leave a little comment, so we can discuss :)

Cheers, KTBFFH