In his press conference Jol said that Ashkan Dejagah's surgery was a success but the winger will still miss the remainder of the season. Also Damien Duff's groin injury will keep him out of tomorrow's game and the one on Saturday against Arsenal. So with 40 pts secured, is this the chance for him to blood a few youngsters or at least give Frei a game? Who to play on the right is the problem. Jol could go with Mesca or actually bite the bullet and play Frei there on his naturally footed side. I suspect he will rather see more of the loanees. Within that he has few options though and the format of the team will hinge on his choice of who to play ahead of Reither on the right - will it Manolev again or Bryan ? If Manolev then the line-up will be pretty much the same as at the weekend; if Bryan then Petric or Hugo will be up front. While I personally would go with one (or more youngsters) I don't think we'll see a change, except at left back: ...................Schwarzer.............. ..Riether...Senderos..Hangeland...Riise.. .Manolev.....Enoh.....Kara.....Urby... ...............Ruiz....... .................Berbatov......... PS Team selection at the moment highlights the difficulty of getting a proper balance because of how many left footed/left sided players we have
Jol's not thinking radical, Madness. In his internal video interview he's only concentrating on filling the midfield gaps caused by the missing players. In other words Enoh and Kara plus two others. Interestingly though he doesn't at any time include Ruiz as one of his midfield 'stalwarts' (in fact he doesn't mention him at all). [video=youtube;2ZqsvClfCpc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZqsvClfCpc&feature=player_embedded[/video]
I'd go for ...................Schwarzer.............. ..Manolev...Senderos..Hangeland...Riise.. .Riether.....Enoh.....Kara.....Richardson... ...............Ruiz....... .................Berbatov......... Having lost both Duff and Dejagah I'd try to put Riether on wide right and give him more freedom to attack, and see how Manolev can do defensively, as we know Riether can back him up. Same with Richardson and Riise although both have problems in defending properly. I would have liked to put Frie in but he still has poor defensive qualities (reason Cardiff didn't keep him on loan), but he could make a good impact in the last 20 minutes if needed to replace Ruiz, and then put Urby on for Kara or Enoh and Petric on for Richardson. Let's hope Ref Dean is wise to Luiz nasty little kicks and elbows off the ball and does something about them early on, or I can see Kara or Berba losing it big time.
Apparently Eyong Enoh has had some trouble with his ankle in training and is having a late fitness test. Hope okay but if not I guess Frimpong is the obvious replacement.
Hard to disagree with that team 58, although I don't rate Manolev at RM, but that may be down to lack of matches rather than lack of quality. Don't think Frei will start but would prefer to see Hugo instead of Manolev.
I would be feeling really confident if we has reither along side deejagah to run at there defence, deejagah so tricky he wins fouls and free kicks in dangerous places, we need to have someone to run at them, have frei as a sub
No. It just wasn't our day.Chelsea played well and deserved to win. We had our chances and could not convert..Dissapointing night tosay the least.
The first goal was lucky against the run of play... Other than that Chelsea played well and took their chances unlike us with Petric. Jol should have taken Petric off at half time and either bring Hugo or Frei.
My new name for Senderos is PhilipingHell Senderos or should it be Blunderos. He has obviously read the book How to to play like Zat Knight or Titus Brambel. When we are playing well we have to take our chances, the goal gave Chelsea a boost and then a poor goal given away before half time gave Chelsea an cushion and confidence from which we never recovered. Think Chelsea felt comfortable coming forward from the back as we don't have any quick forwards, and our slow methodical play let them get back to defend in numbers.
The first half was so good but when the second goal went in the heads had dropped and we admitted defeat. Our new cliché is less "**** away" and fast becoming "**** in the second half". There's a stat saying we'd be 5th if matches ended at half time!
