No Mata, no Luiz. His changes did come early however, which in itself is a bit of a change. Pretty ordinary performance though considering all the players had been bollocked and allegedly told they are playing for their contracts. Made very hard work of penetrating a workmanlike 10 man opposition. Actually, I don't think they slacked . I can't really fault the effort, they mostly don't have, or no longer have, the class. How do we feel about the formation ??? Drogba looks well past it for a lone striker that the whole structure is set up for. Fabulous finish aside, he just doesn't have the legs for a flat out 90 mins like 2 or 3 years ago. And why would he? He's 34/5 years old for gods' sake. Can't wait to see our approach to Naploi, both tactically and Team selection. I hope we go for some pace, cause they sure will.
You've hit the nail on the head CP. The "older" players can no longer produce the magic for prolonged periods. Some of them who were average at their peak are now worse than useless!
must admit when i saw the line up i thought how the hell are we going to score, there is no pace there at all but as you say he did bring the guile and pace on early which i think helped and we could of had 3 or 4 on another day. What bothered me was when 10 man stoke pegged us back !! and we couldn't even kill them off on the break !! and how comes kalou has suddenly become one of the first names in !!
It did seem strange, seeing that we had a completely fit squad! I have long thought of Kalou and Mikel as bench warmers! I can only assume RDM thought his side was more than enough to deliver the goods against a poor Stoke(which was true) and to keep his pwder dry fot the run in with Napoli on Wednesday.
Surely there can be no other reason mate? If I thought I'd have to watch Kalou starting much more I think I'd hang myself. I thought he was done!
On reflection I think Robbie got the defence spot on. With JT back Cahill was for me MOtM and looks all over a future Chelsea captain. Starting with Kalou was a mystery but with Napoli coming up fast Your probably see a team that looks like this on Wedneday; Cech, Ivanovic, Cole, Terry, Cahill, Ramires, Lampard, Mata, Malouda Drogba, Sturridge.
Think the reason why Di Matteo decided to leave Mata and Luiz out is that he wanted to match Stoke on paper because they are a strong physical side.
Now there's an idea !!! I go along with the view he had one eye on Napoli, which is a bloody good idea. As for Kalou and Mikel, they both looked pretty lively against Stoke.
