Chelsea tasted their first defeat in 10 games in all competitions after two second half goals stole all three points for the magpies. It’s a defeat that is not going to go down too well especially after a massive win for Arsenal over Liverpool which has taken Arsenal 5 points clear at the top of the table and a big win for City over Norwich which has once again closed the gap on 2nd place Chelsea who are level on points but ahead of Liverpool only on goal difference.
The competition at the top is quite narrow and every point counts and with Arsenal now having opened up a 5 point lead at the top every match becomes crucial, even if we are only a quarter into the season. The margin for error is minimal with Chelsea, City, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal in the mix with United not too far behind either. Jose knows this and that’s the reason why he was quite pissed today after the match. Calling his team selection a mistake Jose said:
“I made 11 mistakes. I should pick the other 11 and not this one, and it’s the feeling I have when my team plays so bad. Of course I’m exaggerating because I had some players in good form but the feeling is that I made 11 wrong choices.”
It was a game of two halves really, in the first half Newcastle United sit deep and absorbed all the Chelsea pressure and the Blues were not able to create enough from the open play with the blues hitting the cross bar with an effort from John Terry that too on a set piece.
In the 68th minute Newcastle executed to perfection what they practiced on the training ground and took the lead. This forced Chelsea to make the changes and Chelsea threw in Schurrle for Lampard, who really didn’t have a great game. Lampard was only able to complete 16 of the 24 passes he made which meant a modest percentage of 67, surely a game to forget for the Legend.
Once Chelsea went a goal down the team really went on the attack in search of the elusive goal and created chances but it was ‘one of those days’ when nothing came right. A chance for Eden Hazard late in the game, a chance every Chelsea fan would have expected him to bury went wide and it summed up our outing.
The setback came at a time when we were on an amazing run, 100% record in October and the first game of November (the month that usually defines our title challenge). Our winter slumps in the past few seasons have started in November and its Jose’s task now to make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself. Speaking of the possible reaction to the defeat ahead of the crucial Champions League encounter in midweek and the November blues, Mourinho said:
“What’s the difference between November 2 and October 31? If this game is October 31 and this happens it makes no difference. There is no point about this.”
“I don’t know what reaction to expect. First of all I have to understand why we had this performance. The reaction is something that comes after this match”
“I am worried. I saw the previous years and the same thing happened. The team was successful in cup competitions and they were not successful in the Premier League. They finished 15 points, 20 points behind the league leaders.”
“This season we have played five matches away in the league – I know difficult places, difficult matches – but we have one victory and we have two defeats. It does concern me.”
Chelsea’s next match in the league is against West Brom while the league leaders Arsenal pay a visit to Manchester United. Surely plenty is at stake in that match. Chelsea need to get their act together and get over today’s disappointment and look forward.
There are 84 points on the table, still plenty to play for. The season has only just begun.
What a nightmare though on the eve of my birthday. This one was hard to take.
KTBFFH!
Mourinho should come to reality and accept that his untouchable lampard is no longer a young chap that should play every week. His strenght and speed are gradually eluding him..
chelsea fc should hv a plan b by now cos’ we usually find it hard to break down teams that ”park the bus” and we should employ a pivot that’ll give Ramires the room to gallop forward at will like last season..a rami n mikel pivot is still my best option..
Who is this Ken that always takes words out of my mouth?
nobody is happy to lose a game,but i know jose will know what to do,his reputation is at stack.
He always think as special one…….,but he cant think that there is a special player at Chelsea team..,MATA suppose to be number 10 and not OSCAR…,if you can remember the match with Spurs and the last one with Arsenal…..
Hey, Mata played absolute crap , so please!
you are absolutely stupid! MATA lays scrap yesterday. I am tired of mata. He must be consistent by now. same for torres
We are not a very physical and fast team(like Newcastle).Newcastle muscled us out most times hence our loss.this is now a boogey team that beats us every season,even when they do poorly all year;this should stop henceforth.We need massively physical,intelligent and fast midfielders(2 additions)and 2 strong central defenders.We played but did not cut off the ball in the Mid half of our half.those goals were unstoppable though for cech.I only,again,blame david luiz(who lacks dicipline) and Ramires(lazy attimes after giving away the ball) for this loss.Lampard is old.we should buy santon,shaw,Barkley khedira ,mangala and parker immediately.we need pace and creativity in our game.
valid point, but scott parker? really? you speak about lampards age and not his? why do we need two lefts backs?
Fidel the answer is not alwayz buy! buy!! buy!!!, we can work on all those things…Mikel is physical, Oscar intelligent and Ramirez fast
some times I just don’t look at the games we got left, match to match basis works better cos ryt now we got an Arsenal team that got 5 points to spare at the top, a Mancity team that responded well with a 7 goal throbbing and above us on goal difference..
My personal view, I think we starting this week’s games made us laid back, if any of the other top 6 teams had played first, we might have had more zest in us to win to close gaps
Jef u very right, mou should know frank is old 4 me the best best is ramires and mikel.
Am short of word for dat match. lampard,ivanovic n mourihno r our calamitie for dat match. i hope jose wou wake up n realise lampard is no more on our first eleven,if he want to succed
We need defensive midfielder and left back..
Nov always a bad moth for CFC. 🙁
@ anonymous we dont need any defensive midfielders.4 me khedira is not better than mikel.the problem is that we dont value what we have.play cahil & mikel.give bertrand chance & he wil perform.
Must we always buy n buy all the time, we ought to get rid of that mentality..we got a good academy and loaned out players. Why not recall them…mourinho should start looking the way of Batrand….
Mourinho should Mikel and Ramires more often. Kamparena has been awful of late.
I have been saying this since, Lampard is not suitable for the deep midfield role. He cant run anymore, neither are his passes accurate. We always struggle to get the ball quickly from defense to Attack because of Lampard. Mikel is the obvious solution. Hate him or love him, he provides midfield stability, good positioning, defensive shielding, ball recovery and he has great vision (even if he doesn’t play through balls, he plays long passes which move re ball faster) and he also frees up our engine, Ramires so he can go forward. In the pivot, Mikel is 20 times the player Lampard is. Look at how we controlled the best midfield in the league (Arsenal, not Chelsea, we are the best on paper) with Mikel on Tuesday. Mourinho just has to stop starting Lampard at pivot, as he provides NOTHING! Our attacking midfielders need to take risks. This has been the reason why our strikers have struggled. Our AMs play like thy are competing for pass completion. They don’t pass, or they pass too slow. Our midfield yesterday were mostly responsible for the defeat. The defence was disappointing but both goals weren’t really their fault. The midfield just wasn’t creating anything! MOU PLEASE PLAY MIKEL!
Well written!
For me Oscar is too weak for Chelsea middle with mata as both are not physical to the fact that epl is a physical league . Mikel , shurel , Williams , Ramirez,N hazards should be fielded on the middle always
yes, that is why mata has to leave because he doesn’t provide nothing!
@ ken,u are on point.i wil always say it lamp & luiz is not better than mikel & cahil.
@ fidel,there is no need 2 buy parker who couldnt perform in blue shirt b4.mikel is a good cdm that should be playd wit rami.jose pls remove sentiments in team selection.
I think he learn his lesson: he said after that the match
Cahill > Luiz I don’t know why but this year Luiz is making a lot of mistakes
our refuge as fans is in chelsea never gve up. ARISE AND SHINE CHELSEA FOR YOUR VICTRY HAS COME!!!
It’s true our players allow defences to get back, we’re to slow to penetrate, to slow to shoot, by the time we’re ready the moment is gone. Sell Luiz and get a proper defender, I’m sure he won’t come back to haunt us, no new contract for Lamps he too slow now, the best midfielder ever, but that’s life. Get the mid field moving forward, use Obi to cover so Rami can attack, the 3 in forward midfield, use the best from training, no favouritism, no pre ordained player just pure training results. Up front lets not panic yet, January is still some time away. And always keep an eye on the academy.
“Game of two halves”? Really? We lost because we didn’t play well until they scored first! First half we did nothing. The mid-fielders did nothing to help Torres. Lamps has been very poor of late; giving away possession, wrong passes and zero shot on target and Mou capped it by making wrong changes that he’s not known with. Anyways, we’ve lost three points (vital), let’s wait for Wednesday to be happy again!
I don’t believe in this “November-December” bad months mumbo-jumbo stuff. Did we play or create any chance that is worth remembering? We didn’t and we lost. Except you now want to believe that there are forcing militating against us during these months. As Mou said “we derserved to lose” but the better team didn’t win.
Wednesday is another day! We’ll be happy. KTBFFH!!!
Jose will sort it, Wednesday will be back on track. The hard thing is we’re predictable, we must change every game, don’t let the teams against us know what’s coming, speed is the way to go, look at Borrus and Bayern, they give no chance to the opposition, just attack with speed on both wings giving no chance for the big bus. We want the league so believe Jose will get it quickly right. Blues for ever.
As you say Jose would sort it out, well he’s the coach so he has to but the team was generally poor, maybe nonchalant OR was still riding in the euphoria of the wins against shalke, mancity and arsenal….Its our team so we must get behind them…
Another thing I believe the coach knows is every team is different so we have to play them differently which he rightly pointed out when he said he made 11 mistakes
When will you all stop over reacting?!!! Some guy wants to buy 10players!!! Other wants lamps and Mata out?!!! Stupid and Stupid to say the least. We lost because we played poor. Simple as that. We dint put enough effort in the game. None of the players did. … The team was good enough to beat Newcastle. We just need to pull our socks up.. Thats all. Geez you guys watch too much family drama shows…
Lololololololol
@ vaibhaav,if u are a chelsea fan u must understand that team succes is ahead of ur lov 4 any player.if pep didnt hav d courage 2 force dinho out of barca they wudve suffered it cos his personality wont give room for messi & pedro 2 perform at their best,even eto,deco al are great players,but for club succes 2 b sustaind they were al sold.i lov lamp 2 stay & retire in cfc,but not at detriment of cfc succes.let lamp be playd sparinly simpl cos he is not gettin younger.
@zyte. I am a Chelsea fan and I know what I am saying. M talking of the team and not of any single player. How can u justify and person saying that Chelsea needs to buy 6-7players. You are fixated on lamps. But tell me who else played a good game. Nobody. The whole team was poor. Thats noy so difficult to see. . But ppl making up such comments does noy make sense. Change this change that, sell him buy him.. all cause of one game where the whole team was poor. Ppl need to use more logic here.
I went through all your comments. I saw lots of bizarre stuffs, some said Mata shd b sold, Lampard shd b benched but only few people mentioned that Mourinho is to be blamed.
Firstly, Jose plays Mata and Lampard out of position, Mata is better in the centre but he keeps playing Oscar in that position and it is very obvious that Oscar is not as creative as Mata. We saw Mata play the number 10 position to perfection against Spurs and Arsenal, even the match we lost against Everton, Mata created chances for Eto’o.
De Bruyne is a better 10 than Oscar too, at least he is more creative. Still he is used sparingly through the right flank. Don’t get me wrong, Oscar is a fantastic midfield but is a ball recycler with an attacking intent unlike Mikel that has been restricted @ the bridge. Oscar-Mikel- Ramires shd be reshuffled @ the pivot with Lamps and Essien providing cover. I think Mou shd think of the possibility of using Lamps as an impact sub behind the striker to use his late surging runs to great effect.
Against Newcastle, Jose made hurried changes, removing your most prolific striker for a not so prolific one and bringing Willian, a definite hardworker but not a direct player, remember, the game was still goalless @ dis stage. Torres should have stayed on, with Schurrle replacing Lampard.
This is my ideal team with their replacement in bracket
——————Cech (Schwarzer)———-
Ivan(azpi)—-Cahill—Luiz(Terry)–Cole(Bertand)
———–Mikel(Essien)–Oscar(Ramires)–
Schurrle(Willian)–Mata(Bruyne/Lampard)—Hazard(Schurrle/Willian)
——–Torres (Eto’o/Ba)
Well that is a revelation of a team. Czech and the back line I agree with, but the covering two Mikel and Ramires surely and Lamps selectively. Schurrle/ Willian, Mata/ Oscar, Hazard/ De Bruyne, front line as you say