Galatasaray Preview

After a rubbish performance against Villa the next club we have to face is the turkish Galatasaray Istanbul. This match will be very special for everyone supporting The Blues, because the one and only King Didier will be finally returning to Stamford Bridge. After a 1-1 draw in Istanbul I believe no one can say that this will be an easy match even though the bookmakers at betting services think different. We have all established that Galatasaray has not only got a fantastic manager, but also a very good team starring Didier Drogba.
But we must not think that Gala is only Drogba. They have more big names in their squad haunting Mourinho at nights. If you just look at the lineup they had last time in Turkey  (Muslera – Eboué, Chedjou, Balta, Telles – Hajrović, Melo, Inan (C), Sneijder – Yilmaz, Drogba) you can see a lot of players that we already saw previously playing for big succesive clubs in the Champions League. Emanuel Eboué for Arsenal, Felipe Melo in Italy for Juventus or Fiorentina, Aurélien Chedjou for Lille, and especially Wesley Sneijder who played for the best clubs in Europe such as Ajax, Real Madrid, and Inter Milan.

I can't say it's much of a young team really, I think we have quite an advantage in that. We can outrun them with players like Hazard, Oscar or Willian. Now this is how we played last time: Čech – Ivanović, Cahill, Terry (C), Azpilicueta – Willian, Ramires, Hazard , Lampard, Schürrle – Torres.

Considering a very bad performance at Villa Park there should be some changes. We can't use Salah nor Matič, which I don't really call a problem, even though some fans say that Matič has been outstanding so far.
José shouldn't interfiere with the defence, it's not perfect, but we can't really rotate the players, since the only other defenders we have are rubbish. Cole is slow and Luiz keeps making mistakes. Yes, we do have Tomáš Kalas, who I think is a wonderkid at this position, but I would be very suprised if I saw him in the starting lineup. So, above the traditional defence Iva-Cahill,Terry-Azpi it leaves us with Lamps, Luiz, and Ramires. Now it will probably be Lampard and Ramires, but I think we should forget about Ramires for a while. He hasn't been perfect in the last few matches, and I'm hoping to see an entertaining match, so I'd rather watch Luiz with his attacking way of playing rather than Ramires loosing his balls all the time. The attacking trio? None of them were perfect, none of them were even good in the last matches if I may say. I would probably give Schurrle a chance, because he always seems to be trying, and keeping up the hard work, unlike the brazilians. Then there is an option of Hazard, Oscar or Willian. They were all very poor lately, but I have to say Hazard is the man for important matches. He can always think of a clever pass or a good run to do in the right moment. And he's good with Azpilicueta on the left side! The striker is something Mourinho needs to think about in the future. Eto'o is old, Torres isn't doing a great job, and the only one that seems to be good whenever he is on the pitch (vs. Tottenham for example) is always on the bench.

I would love to see this lineup, what about you? :)
Čech - Ivanovič, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta - David Luiz, Lampard - Hazard, Oscar, Schurrle - Ba

Enjoy, and leave a comment