It's been a while since I've been, but I'll be in the UK watching footy on Saturday when Chelsea take on Southampton. The current Chelsea squad, despite being the most talented ever in the clubs history, is very annoying. Recent results atgainst Monaco and Newcastle prove my point. Both were games that should have been won by the forwards. The team plays very well to get in postition to score and then you see too many appalling misses from players like Hasselbaink, Bridge, Cole and Crespo. (and Mutut has dissapeared into the lost form warp )
I'm not sure that Chelsea's best natural striker isn't Forsell who's not only been on loan at Birmingham this season but is staying there for one more year!. Carlton Cole is another with great potential (on loan at Charlton). Yet we have Hasselbaink, Crespo and Mutu. all well below form...and Gudjohnsen who is potentially a great player (better than the other three) but blowing hot and cold. This midfield depends on Lampard having a good game (and he had a great season coming second in the PFA awards behind Henry) and the wingers are totally all over the shop.
My belief is that the average quality is very high, but Chelsea need to buy a genuine superstar or two to win something. The only players playing in the UK that make that grade are Henry and Van Nistelroy, although Rooney might be up there one day. Owen isn't the player he was. We also need an attacking midfielder to trade in Veron/Cole/Geremi/Gronkhear for. Zidane is the prototype here, but Totti, maybe Pires, Nedved or someone in that class would do. It's a pity Gianfranco Zola is 38! Maybe we should have been in for Rivaldo?
Rather than spending 15m GBP each on 5 players, we'd be better off spending 60m GBP on 2. OK this sounds like sour grapes, but Abramovitch's (stolen) wealth is the only chance a Chelsea fan willever have to play fantasy football, and despite our ability to win a lot of 1-0 games on the back of Terry, Gallas, Cudicini and Makalele and Lampard, no Chelsea fan can pretend that we have turned it on like Arsenal.....who truth be told should have won the European Cup the last two seasons, and were unlucky to go out to us. Not that I'm complaining, but too much "industrial football" had them lose a smidgen of form just at the wrong time, and realistically they have outplayed Chelsea for well over 70% of the time in the 5 times they've met this year. We just had one excellent half in the quarter-final when it mattered and they were in the middle of a fixture pile up.
So I'm hoping like hell that we stick in a ton against Southampton and that the boys discover their shooting boots for the Monaco return. 2-0 is by no means impossible, but longer term I think the management need to look at how they are spending all that money.
