Either Carlo Ancelotti reads this blog, or he's a pretty good football manager. My ego tells me it's the former, everything else suggests the latter.
I didn't see Chelsea's dismantling of Sunderland, but Ancelotti appears to have continued from where he left off against Hull - the process of adaptation. Basically everything I complained about was addressed. Mikel was removed, with Lampard reverting back to where he is most effective. Malouda was replaced which the more reliable Ballack, and Anelka was relieved of his lone striker duties in favour of the more busy, more creative Deco. A scoreline of 3-1 hints that the tinkering may have worked.
Of course we're only two games into the season. This time last season I recall Scolari being hailed as the answer to Chelsea's problems, with Deco shining as the "missing piece of the puzzle". Is Ancelotti just quickly morphing his team into the one that was initially successful for Big Phil, but was eventually found out as an impostor? Perhaps, but with Didier Drogba looking like he's gives a so-and-so, this Chelsea team may not drop out of the top four after all [!].
I didn't see Chelsea's dismantling of Sunderland, but Ancelotti appears to have continued from where he left off against Hull - the process of adaptation. Basically everything I complained about was addressed. Mikel was removed, with Lampard reverting back to where he is most effective. Malouda was replaced which the more reliable Ballack, and Anelka was relieved of his lone striker duties in favour of the more busy, more creative Deco. A scoreline of 3-1 hints that the tinkering may have worked.
Of course we're only two games into the season. This time last season I recall Scolari being hailed as the answer to Chelsea's problems, with Deco shining as the "missing piece of the puzzle". Is Ancelotti just quickly morphing his team into the one that was initially successful for Big Phil, but was eventually found out as an impostor? Perhaps, but with Didier Drogba looking like he's gives a so-and-so, this Chelsea team may not drop out of the top four after all [!].
2 comments:
Does this mean when everyone else is jumping on the Spurs bandwagon you're jumping off it?? Defoe looked a bit special last night too, he was so strong on the ball but it was Hull. My prediction of the season United to finish outside the top two and depending on the draw, to go out at the group stages of the CL.
I won't quite back out of my prediction just yet. Honestly, this big 4 is harder to call than I originally thought. The jury is still out on all of the teams, but your Man Utd fears appear to be justified. It doesn't take much foresight to know that 4-4-2 with two out and out wingers is an archaic formation that little teams will do well against, nor can we expect any surprises from THAT midfield. You know what you're going to get, and you know it's not going to be especially good. I predicted second in the league and a CL semi final. It could end up being much worse.
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