Are Chelsea locked in a battle with Tottenham Hotspur for fourth?.
I was reading this article this morning by Alan Hansen in the Telegraph and straight away like the rest of you became defensive as the maj...
https://www.chelseadaft.org/2011/01/are-chelsea-locked-in-battle-with.html
I was reading this article this morning by Alan Hansen in the Telegraph and straight away like the rest of you became defensive as the majority of you would do. I will be posting about the rest of the article later but it's this point I am looking at and wanting to blog about this morning. I am trying to decide if he is talking rubbish or if he has a point. Surely he can't be right!....can he?.
First of all when I read that comment I thought to myself "What!, Are you having a laugh!?". Let's be honest, Chelsea haven't finished fourth for years now. I also thought to myself, we have the players, we have the experience with us still to play Spurs, Liverpool, City and United at home in addition to United away, we still have our destiny in our own hands so of course we aren't in a battle for fourth!.
The next point Hansen makes is the following:
The big worry for Carlo Ancelotti’s team is that Spurs have a bigger squad and look capable of rolling teams over. Chelsea, on the other hand, are in trouble. They are beginning to look leggy, ageing and tired. It would be no surprise if Bolton Wanderers got a result against them at the Reebok tonight.Now when I read that I did think he has a point about the squad, but as we all know but recent rumours, Chelsea will be adding to their squad within days (hopefully) so we should be looking better and in a much better position especially with Alex due to return in around six weeks.
There is no question Spurs have a stronger squad and more options to call upon compared to Chelsea but for me it all comes down to experience. Chelsea have been there and done that when it comes to the race for the title and Chelsea are more than capable of putting a run of wins together. Spurs are the same but I think even all Spurs fans will admit that they lack consistency at times and that is their downfall.
Not only that, I think if Spurs fans are honest, with the squad numbers they have, Harry doesn't know his best team. This could be another issue that could cost them. For example, against Man United the other day he had Defoe and the Russian on the bench in favour of Crouch and Van Der Vaart. Whereas against Newcastle, Defoe started. At Chelsea, Carlo and all of us know our best eleven. I know before you guys say it, when these players are injured and have been injured this season it has cost us, but at least when they are all fit, we all know who plays.
As for Bolton, in my opinion they always play well against us, Kevin Davies always has a good game against us so I wouldn't be surprised based on recent form (before Blackburn and Ipswich) if we did struggle for a result against them tonight, but we look to have returned to some kind of form and the way we played against Blackburn was encouraging for me so I do expect us to get a result tonight.
Getting back to the point of this post, I still have to wonder so am asking you all:
Are we really in a fight with Spurs this season for fourth place?KTBFFH.