This season: success or failure? Aug-Dec

This season was surely an eventful season following the dramatics of May 19th in Munich with the Blues having a chance of 7 trophies to win: The Community Shield, the UEFA Super Cup, the Barclays Premier League, the Capital One Cup, the FA Cup, the Club World Cup and again the chance to be double Champions League winners. How could we match the cup heroics in May 2012? By signing quality players? By playing the Chelsea way? By having a quality manager? Or was it all three combined?! We started off with Roberto Di Matteo; the Chelsea legend who Roman (Abramovich) offered a 2 year contract throughout the summer as deep down he wanted Jose to return for the 2012-2013 season. This would be the start of a turbalent season.
The summer started with signing the Belgian playmaker Eden Hazard from Lille in a 32 million pound deal where we fended off interest from Manchester United and City which was pleasing for a Chelsea fan. Hazard showed his quality in Lille and dedicated his desire to leave at the end of the 2011-2012 season as he wanted a new challenge and fair enough because he wasn’t going to develop just playing in a not really competitive French league despite winning the league in his time there. Our other signings consisted of: Victor Moses who we overpaid for to be quite honestly from Wigan (11 million), Cesar Azpilicueta from Marseille for 7 million on Deadline Day, Oscar from Internacional on a 25 million deal and German Marko Marin from Werder Bremen for 6 million.

AUGUST: We started off at Villa Park in the Charity Shield game versus Premier League Champions Manchester City in a pre season affair. It was Roberto Di Matteo’s first competitive game of 2012-2013 and the start of a potentially long season for the London club. Eden Hazard made his debut for us and to be honest it was fairly average as he was lacking the intensity of the Premier League. Fernando scored a goal for us after his impressive showing for Spain at the Euros 2012. We went into half time 1-0 up but Branislav was sent off which would make the second half equally as difficult. City capitalised and made it 3-1 within minutes of the second half- Yaya, Tevez and Nasri scoring. It was far too late to make a recovery and City were deserved winners. Our PL form though was fantastic to start with: 9 points out of 9 with wins against Wigan, Reading and Newcastle scoring 8 goals in the process. Our good start wouldn’t last forever as we got absolutely murdered by Radamel Falcao in the first half in the UEFA Super Cup in Monaco. We were 3-0 down at Half time and staring down the barrel of defeat. We drew the second half though but lost 4-1 in the game. It was a result to forget.
August results
Chelsea 2-3 Manchester City, Villa Park (Torres and Bertrand)
Wigan 0-2 Chelsea, DW Stadium (Lampard and Ivanovic)
Chelsea 4-2 Reading, Stamford Bridge (Lampard, Cahill, Torres, Ivanovic)
Chelsea 2-0 Newcastle, Stamford Bridge (Hazard and Torres)
Chelsea 1-4 Atletico, Stade Louis II (Cahill)
Goalscorers: Torres 3, Cahill 2, Lampard 2, Ivanovic 2, Bertrand 1, Hazard 1.
September: We started with a break which was beneficial so we could eradicate the humiliating Super Cup defeat and we started our Champions League campaign in a relatively tough group with Shakhtar Donetsk, Juventus and Nordsjaelland. The first two would definately be competiting for the two available knockout stages for the last 16. Drawing against QPR ended our 100% record in the league but the main focus was on Juventus at the Bridge in an enthralling game- 2-2 with Oscar scoring a worldy for goal of the season contender leaving Gianluigi Buffon with no chance but we ended up messing it up by conceding before half time through Vidal and conceding to Quagriella in the 80th minute only to see a shot hit the bar by Quagriella again late on which could’ve sealed a remarkable win for Juventus. Our league form was consistent with us remaining unbeaten in the league with victories over Stoke (1-0) and Arsenal away at the Emirates. We also went through in the Capital One Cup with a 6-0 demolition of Wolves although it wasn’t anything to be excited over.

September results
QPR 0-0 Chelsea, Loftus Road
Chelsea 2-2 Juventus, Stamford Bridge (Oscar 2)
Chelsea 1-0 Stoke, Stamford Bridge (Ashley Cole)
Chelsea 6-0 Wolves, Stamford Bridge (Cahill, Bertrand, Mata, Romeu, Torres, Moses)
Arsenal 1-2 Chelsea, Emirates (Torres and Mata)
Goalscorers (Altogether): Torres 5, Cahill 3, Bertrand 2, Ivanovic 2, Lampard 2, Mata 2, Oscar 2, Cole 1, Moses 1, Romeu 1
October was a mixed month for the Blues with a couple of great wins but with a couple of defeats too which would be crucial. We started with an unconvincing 4-0 win in Denmark against Nordsjaelland where I know we won but there wasn’t that the champions league winners as we gave them some silly chances. Our PL form however was good with us maintaining our unbeaten run: a 4-1 defeat of Norwich at home with Torres again continuing his fine form with Lampard, Hazard who scored his first goal for us and Ivanovic completed the rout. Some Mata magic at Spurs proved our class against them showing champions form with a comeback from 2-1 down to 4-2 winners. We were still poor in the CL with a defeat against Donetsk in Ukraine may end up been crucial but to be honest it was a poor showing with Di Matteo rotating. Rotation may not be his strong point but the controversy at the Bridge versus United would end up messing this season up. An offside decision by Clattenburg not seen when Hernandez was yards off side after we rallied from 2-0 down with goals from Juan and Ramires with us more likely to win. We got our revenge on Halloween night with us defeating them 5-4 at the Bridge in the Capital One Cup.
October results
Nordsjaelland 0-4 Chelsea, Parken Stadium (Mata 2, Luiz, Ramires)
Chelsea 4-1 Norwich, Stamford Bridge (Torres, Lampard, Hazard, Ivanovic)
Tottenham 2-4 Chelsea, White Hart Lane (Cahill, Mata 2, Sturridge)
Shakhtar 2-1 Chelsea, Donbass Arena (Oscar)
Chelsea 2-3 Manchester United, Stamford Bridge (Mata and Ramires)
Chelsea 5-4 Manchester United, Stamford Bridge (Luiz, Cahill, Hazard, Sturridge, Ramires)
Goalscorers: Mata 7, Torres 6, Cahill 5, Ivanovic 3, Lampard 3, Oscar 3, Bertrand 2, Luiz 2, Hazard 2, Cole 1, Moses 1, Romeu 1.
November, the part of the season where we faltered and that’s exactly what happened. November hates Chelsea and we hate November. We started the month at Swansea which would be a difficult place to go as is every stadium but we would’ve won if we didn’t concede an 88th minute goal to Hernandez which cost us as we were now 2nd in the table. We got a valuable win however against Shakhtar in a frantic game with goals going in left right and centre. Then on the return of our captain who did score against Liverpool, he ended up getting injured which was a severe knee injury which was a massive blow. Then at West Brom, the stadium which marked the end of AVB proved to be a harsh defeat for RDM as again squad rotation failed with Juventus in mind. The end was near for RDM sadly as it was a disastrous performance in Turin and we were on the verge of elimination. Roberto was sacked and unfortunately Rafa Benitez was appointed- a villain to the majority of Chelsea fans. His first game was against City who were unbeaten and surprisingly solid keeping a clean sheet which is rare for us. A 0-0, more defensive then attacking I’m afraid though which was followed up by a 0-0 draw against Fulham which brought more boos and abuse to Benitez.
November results
Swansea 1-1 Chelsea, Liberty Stadium (Moses)
Chelsea 3-2 Shakhtar, Stamford Bridge (Torres, Oscar, Moses)
Chelsea 1-1 Liverpool, Stamford Bridge (Terry)
West Brom 2-1 Chelsea, the Hawthorns (Hazard)
Juventus 3-0 Chelsea, Juventus Stadium
Chelsea 0-0 Manchester City, Stamford Bridge
Chelsea 0-0 Fulham, Stamford Bridge
Goalscorers leaderboard: Mata 7, Torres 7, Cahill 5, Oscar 4, Ivanovic 3, Lampard 3, Moses 3, Hazard 3, Bertrand 2, Cole 1, Romeu 1, Terry 1.
December, part of a barren spell for the Blues; we just hate winter. With Rafa still unpopular his job was under threat just 3 games in with defeat to West Ham in a disappointing second half losing 3-1 in the end. Yet that wasn’t the most disappointing performance, the next one was where we had to rely on Shakhtar Juventus for champions league hope once again. We demolished the Danish side 6-1 at the Bridge but we could’ve won 10-1 or 20-1 and we still wouldn’t have reached the last 16 so we were in the Europa league following Christmas. We were the first holders out at the group stage the following season. We went through against Leeds in the league cup and we were off to Japan to participate in the club World Cup championships where we beat Monterrey in the semis but lost to Corinthians in the final 1-0. We returned though and took our anger out on Aston villa by thrashing them 8-0 in a convincing performance two days before Xmas. We got a great two wins against Norwich and a tough win against Everton, 1-0 and 2-1 respectively.
December results
West Ham 3-1 Chelsea, Boleyn ground (Mata)
Chelsea 6-1 Nordsjaelland, Stamford Bridge (Luiz, Torres 2, Cahill, Mata, Oscar)
Sunderland 1-3 Chelsea, Stadium of Light (Torres 2, Mata)
Monterrey 1-3 Chelsea, Yokohama Stadium (Torres and Mata)
Corinthians 1-0 Chelsea, Yokohama Stadium
Leeds 1-5 Chelsea, Elland Road (Mata, Ivanovic, Moses, Hazard, Torres)
Chelsea 8-0 Aston Villa, Stamford Bridge (Torres, Luiz, Ivanovic, Lampard, Ramires 2, Oscar, Hazard)
Norwich 0-1 Chelsea, Carrow Road (Mata)
Everton 1-2 Chelsea, Goodison Park (Lampard 2)
Goalscoring charts: Torres 14, Mata 12, Cahill 6, Lampard 6, Oscar 6, Ivanovic 5, Hazard 5, Moses 4, Bertrand 2, Cole 1, Romeu 1, Terry 1.
Thanks for reading and part two of the season will be uploaded soon.
@Chris_EH_CFC