Big game mentality

I’ve read a lot of blogs and surfed the net, it’s the same news all over. Chelsea dominates the headlines with their “kill and destroy” (trust Mourinho to so “gracefully put it”) tactics that ran the rule over Arsenal while some dwell solely on the demise of Arsenal rather than the great football produced by Chelsea. This has been an attitude that has been lacking so many times this season. In fact matches we lacked the killer instinct resulted me in writing an article on our penchant for second half performances (see http://chelseafc360.com/2014/03/29/jekyll-and-hyde-one-half-conundrum). Not against Arsenal!!!

The game against Arsenal was a continuation of the dominating performances in the big matches. Eto rolled back the years with his goal, Schurrle continued his recent goalscoring form, Salah showed promise of performances to come with his well taken goal, Oscar continued from where he stopped against Galatasary, with 2 goals this time. To put it in perspective, this was Chelsea’s best performance this season with that against City at Etihad coming a close second. And it was continuing with a trend that has seen Chelsea up their overall performances in games against top four or five teams this season (Man Utd included).

Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Man Utd have all lost at Stamford Bridge this season, so also has Tottenham and Everton, teams that have threatened to break into the top 4 early in the season. Coincidentally Chelsea has contrived to draw against all these teams in the reverse fixtures except against Everton whom we lost to and Liverpool whom we are yet to play. Given our displays against the top four it’s safe enough for me to say that Chelsea look very likely to thrive in Anfield two weeks from now especially with Liverpool conceding goals against the likes of Fulham and Cardiff.

Before then we face PSG though, and the outcome of that match would go a long way in determining how we face Liverpool. Luckily for Chelsea, PSG with the likes of Zlatan, Cavani, Lavezzi, Thiago can be classified as a top team, not too different from the Napoli side that almost knocked Chelsea out 2 seasons ago. We knocked Europe out instead.

At Chelsea we dare to dream the impossible. It’s who we are especially with Jose Mourinho at the helm. Let’s get Crystal Palace out of the way and face the next match. One game at a time.