Sunderland Away Saturday 530 PM Home Spuds Wednesday 745 PM Toon Away 12:45 PM Seriouly - who comes up with these kind of fixture list? How many long distance travels? Jose always had issues dealing with Sunderland & Toon in the past. His record is not very good in the NE.
You should be on 41 points after that sequence of matches and the second placed team not even on 30 if lets say my team and City draw next Sunday. Then we have the small matter of Arsenal and Manchester United. Not sure how City's fixtures are after Sunday but you could well be at least 10 ahead!!!!
Travels to NE are always tricky for us. To make things worse Sunderland broke our record last season at the Bridge and put us out of the title race. Toons are on a roll. On paper - easiest of those 3 fixtures is Spuds at the Bridge..
I don't think you can take any away game for granted. We should and will win most our home fixtures but you'll always get tricky away games. Toon are flying and that looks the hardest fixture of the 3. 7 points wouldn't be a bad return, 9 would be brilliant.
Looking to remain unbeaten so home win and two draws would suffice. That said, with the 3 points for a win I'm hoping for 6 hard earned points from these. Anything more would be simply fantastic. A victory tonight to secure top place qualification is important in as much we can attack those games full on without concerning ourselves with our final group match post Newcastle.
19 games unbeaten in all comps now by my count. That's pretty damn good going given we've played 3 away C.L games and been to Anfield, OT, Etihad and Goodison already. Dropping points in the next 3 games is only acceptable really if at least City drop the same (or more). I could live with a point this weekend if City also draw for instance. 8 points isn't a big margin and we need to keep that gap as a minimum IMO.
9 points is easily achievable with the way we are playing. We dropped a bit against QPR/Palace but since the international break we have come out firing. We battered West Brom and only Foster kept the score respectable and last night was great to watch, destroying Schalke in their own backyard. Sunderland will be one that Jose will want to win after last year. They stopped his little horse galloping to the title. Spurs I'm actually more worried about, they seem to be doing okay on the road, but if they start like they did against Villa and Hull, and we don't go down to ten men like they did, then we should get a routine victory. Newcastle is the one where people expect us to slip up, but I can see that helping us to victory. Jose lost there last year and will be weary of losing there again. I expect this to eb the match where we grind out the win. A Remy goal from the bench here would be nice too. One final thing I would like to say, how good has Nemanja Matic been this year. All the talk of Costa, Fabregas and Hazard, but this guy has been my player of the season so far and if he was to get injured then I would be worried. Warrior!!!
DM's quite often get overlooked. Makalele was the same, everyone purred about Robben, Drogba and Lampard in that team because they got all the goals, but it wasn't acknowledged by all until he was actually gone, how much Makalele really did for us.
Ivanovic as well is having a stonking season. Ivan, Terry and Matic are the biggest differences between us and say Arsenal. They bring the physicality to add to the finesse of the more talked up players.
Speaking has a SAFC supporter and very envious of you !, your record up at our stadium is excellent, and talking about Man c, we are their bogey team. We have beaten them 1-0 in the last 4 seasons at home and drew twice at their place, when they were champions both seasons ! so roll on next Wednesday. I reckon you could win all 4 trophies this season. You won 5-0 at Shalke without Costa is that right !, I am dreading Saturday.
Never thought I'd be including JT in that company but hats off, he's playing a style that suits our new attacking form. He's found the secret to losing speed is positional play, and with Cahill and especially Matic also cleaning up everything that moves, JT is in fine form. Matic is as valuable as Fabregas, and Ivan, what can you say ? His attack is now as good as his defending, the complete parcel. Once again , Chelseas' defence is back on song, very well done to two of our "veterans" for stepping up a gear.
Keep this kind of form up and there won't be many spots left in the team of the year for the other teams.
Well written, I've watched some truely great Chels sides over the past 15 years but this current one looks the best balanced in my opinion. We've won FA yet with this current side but the trophies are bound to come.
Its annoying, but we are still going great-just need to bounce back quickly and decisivley! I hope jose rotates, because towards the end i saw a lot of tired legs and minds out there this afternoon.
