Pretty straightforward performance apart from opening 15 minutes of Burnley spirited play. Very little to write home about, we were our usual sleepy selves, with very rare moments of attack. Standouts were Neto, Cucurella, Santos and Fernandez for energy, the rest were OK defence basically pretty sound. Unimpressed by Gittens again and Delap looks like he's in the wrong team. Does nothing, always facing backwards.He's not a poacher, so he'll struggle in this set up. Guiu looks better suited to me. That said Delap gets bugger all decent stuff to run onto from our turgid play behind him. Any possibility we might see some brave attacking play against Barca and Arsenal?? I hope so, the stuff we played against Burnley won't beat either of the next 2.
Am glad we were able to get this victory over the line. Its the kind of game that has so often been a banana peel for our club these last couple of seasons. I was hoping Palmer would be back for the Arsenal game, but just as he was coming back at training last week, the guy stubbed his toe and fractured it. I cant see us getting anything from that game, as good as we can be. Their defence is too good.
So, the fact we aren’t playing very well but still grinding out wins against teams that would have either drawn or beaten us in previous seasons, is this a sign we’re maturing? Is it a sign we could actually be in the mix for the title? I’ve been seeing a lot of analysis that says our set up is causing teams all sorts of problems and the scrappiness is kind of the point. As long as we keep notching up the wins I don’t mind.
That's all true, we are winning and causing plenty of chances while not playing even close to our PSG form. If we have improved, it's grafting out wins we couldn't do against determined teams last year. Yet in among all this have been a couple of really impressive games when we definitely out played opposition with speed and teamwork. Question is why do we then keep going back to the sideways ,walking stuff? We're in the top 4 mix along with a very ropey Liverpool, suspect City, up and down Newcastle, dodgy Spurs and awful Man Utd etc. Strange old season. Arsenal and Barca will sort us out one way or another, though we play our best stuff when Teams go at us. Fascinating week ahead. Hope the real Chelsea turn up with our running shoes on.
