Chelsea 2-0 Fulham: Three points, top of the league - everything is OK, right?

Jose Mourinho

Hello Chelsea fans from all over the world!

I want to start by saying that I haven’t read anything to do with the game yesterday including match reports, pundit opinion or even the full post match quote from Jose Mourinho after the game as I want to write this post based on my own opinion of the match and our performance.

When news of Jose’s team selection came through, there were three things that stood out for me. I was pleased that Jose selected Cahill to play next to JT as I believe they work well together and understand each others games better than any other combination.

I was disappointed and frustrated that Juan Mata was left out of the squad totally. That is something I will never understand and as I said yesterday, he faces a fight to save his Chelsea career.

Finally, I couldn’t understand why Eto’o started again ahead of Fernando Torres! We have heard Jose talk of Eto’o being rusty after playing a lower level of football in Russia so why select him again? (I would like to point out that Torres had more of an influence on the game in the time he was on the pitch compared to Eto’o who played the most part!)

If any of you out there have ever been on a Management or Supervisory course during your work career, you will be familiar with a technique called “The Sandwich Technique”. If you are not aware of this phrase, it means to surround a negative with two positives and that’s exactly what I intend to do here but, at the moment, the negative is a major concern.

The first positive is the three points! It’s safe to say that every single one of us would have taken three points no matter how they came ahead of the game if we were offered them. It’s what is written down on record in the Premier League that counts this morning and Chelsea took an all important three points, scoring two goals against our local rivals Fulham.

Now the negatives and where do I begin? I’ll start by talking about our first half performance. We have all watched our performances against United, Everton and Basel and despite the first half at Goodison and the chances we created, the second half there and in the 90 minutes of the other two games produced very little goal scoring opportunities.

This was based on the tempo of our play and we played the first half exactly the same yesterday. When teams set themselves up against us, it’s obvious that they are going to pack the midfield, be disciplined without the ball and look to negate any space for Chelsea to exploit in their own half.

As a result, Chelsea dominate possession of the ball and do nothing with it. We have plenty of the ball but have no penetration. As we look up to pick a pass, there is very little option to try and create space and we end up playing the ball side to side or backwards. As soon as this happens, the tempo of our play slows right down and we play right into the oppositions hands.