EPL Talk » Michael Ballack

Diamonds Are Back In Fashion At Stamford Bridge

Paul Bestall — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:49:55 +0000

Carlo Ancelotti has certainly stamped his mark on Chelsea early in the season so far. A Community Shield victory, coupled with 3 Premiership wins on the bounce has seen Chelsea rise to the top end of the table. So far, so what then? Nothing surprising in that in itself, would we expect the any of the big four to not already be putting markers down for the early running. What did make me sit up and take notice was Michael Essien being placed on the bench so early.

Ancelotti said after yesterdays game that he wanted to rest Essien as he was tired after his efforts in the midweek win at Sunderland. Two weeks in to the season and rotation is already being seen in Chelsea’s team selection. In the two games since the opening day win against Hull, Ancelotti has changed 4 players in both starting line-ups, with only 6 players starting all 3 games.

Cech, Cole, Boswinga, Terry, Lampard and Drogba are the the six in question with only Lampard retaining his place in Ancelotti’s much discussed midfield diamond formation. Perhaps this is the managers way of dealing with the fragile ego’s that modern footballers display on a daily basis by showing that match time is available to as many of the players as possible. Yet, Lampard has been moved around the midfield diamond, starting on the right against Hull, on the left hand side against Sunderland and then at the forward point against Fulham.

Against Fulham, Lampard was consistently further forward throughout the game than I’d seen in a long time. Whilst there is no doubt that Lampard remains the most potent and consistent attacking midfielder in the Premiership, his position often saw him playing alongside Drogba and Anelka at Craven Cottage.I’ve only ever seen him playing so offensively in cup matches against lower league opposition but Fulham never got to grips with Lampard positioning. Chelsea’s were then able to control the ball and Fulham never looked likely to stop the flow through to the strikers.

Perhaps this is a part of the new midfield system that Ancelotti is trying to instill into the Chelsea midfield. By rotating the starting positions of the midfield, especially with such experienced international players keeps their opponents guessing. It seems designed to confuse teams that will be looking to specify defensive midfielders to do a man marking job on Lampard. Clever players can always cope with these systems, that seem to allow the midfield to rotate fluidly throughout the match.

It’s certainly given Chelsea a little bit more mystery when they play. Against Sunderland, they were constantly breaking in waves, pouring forward from the midfield but seemingly taking turns to lead the charge. Deco would go, then Ballack, then Lampard, occasionally Essien would burst forward confusing the opponents even more. Perhaps he’s already trying to work out how things will shape up when the African Cup Of Nations kicks off in January.

I’ve been very impressed with Ancelotti’s work so far, but the first real test will in October when the Blues entertain Liverpool at Stamford Bridge.Once we see this fluid diamond formation come up against top class midfielders trying to dismantle it, it will interesting to see if still works as well.

Chelsea’s Punishment Shows UEFA Is Toothless

Paul Bestall — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:00:30 +0000

Now I’m certainly not going to start defending Chelsea’s players or the reactions of certain fans after the final whistle back on May 6th. Yes, the referee had a nightmare, yes Chelsea should have had two penalties at least and yes to some people it was easy to understand the reactions of some of the players after Tom Henning Ovrebo’s performance that night.It doesn’t excuse the behaviour of the players and fans after the game at all.

What I am astounded at is UEFA fining Chelsea £85,000 for failure to control their players and fans. Not because I disagree with it, but because UEFA continually ignore the issue of racism at football matches and issue a stream of pathetic, pointless little fines to teams who allow they’re fans to pollute football with their backward mentality towards non-white players. When you look at Chelsea’s punishment and then consider it in the scheme of failure to control players and fans, you’ll see what I mean.

In UEFA’s little world, racism isn’t an issue that warrants serious attention. They pretend it doesn’t happen and we’re all one big happy footballing family. Two years ago, England Under 21’s were fined £2000 for failure to control thier players after taking exception to Serbia’s players and fans who had racially abused the black members of the England Under 21 team throughout and after their European Championship match in 2007. Serbia were fined £16,500 and allowed to continue in the competition. This is UEFA’s zero tolerance approach to racism, paltry fines and allowing racist idiots to continue to perform.

In 2004, England’s black players were heckled throughout the 90 minutes of a “friendly” against Spain in Madrid at the Bernabeu Stadium. The Spanish FA were fined the crippling amount of £44,500 from a game that generated 4 million pounds. 1% of the revenue that match created for the Spanish F.A . Once again, UEFA showed zero tolerance. That’ll show them won’t it?

Of course some Croatia fans infamously formed a human swastika in 2006 during a game against Italy but were only fined £10,000 even though it was the third racist incident by their fans in 4 years. Once again, UEFA showed zero tolerance.

It astounds me that the UEFA continue to punish clubs and players so leniently and then wonder why incidents still happen in certain countries. When a club receives a bigger fine for showing petulance and anger towards a match official than teams that unfurl racist, anti-muslim or anti-semitic slogans and banners at games then it shows how scared to tackle the issue they really are.

Of course Chelsea didn’t do themselves any favours by their behaviour that night, but does it justify a fine of such a value when compared to far more unsavoury incidents? For UEFA to punish Chelsea so sternly in comparison is an easy decision by UEFA. It’s an easy way out for them as it was so widely publicised around the world but in the scheme of football what causes the game more damage? Racist morons or emotionally charged football fans?

Drogba though is rather lucky in my opinion to have only received a 4 game ban from European competition; though he does have the threat of a further two games that have been suspended if he oversteps the mark again. Boswinga, who rightly apologised after calling the referee a cheat in the Portuguese media, strangely received a 3 match ban. He withdrew his comments as quickly as he had made them and even rang Overbo to apologise, so can feel harshly done by in comparison to Drogba. Michael Ballack meanwhile is quite possibly the luckiest player at Stamford Bridge, as he’s got away scot free for his body checking and pulling of the referee. Perhaps they were impressed with his star jumps?

In UEFA’s mind, swearing at a referee or calling him a cheat is a worse offence than racially abusing someone and that for me is a sad indictment of the governing bodies attitude to the fight against racism in football. Until they get their priorities right and throw teams out of competitions or hit them with seven figure fines, the racists will continue to abuse and divide. Now that is the real disgrace about Chelsea’s fine.

Chelsea’s UEFA Conspiracy Claims Are Laughable

tyduffy — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:33:58 +0000

With their typical class, Chelsea players and staff asserted their belief, following their 1-1 agg defeat to Barcelona, that UEFA conspired against them to prevent an all-English final in the Champions League.

Players, such as Didier Drogba, displayed their sentiment by all but physically assaulting the referee as he left the pitch. Manager Guus Hiddink took a more measured tone in the subsequent press conference, but offered much the same sentiment.

“Conspiracy is a very tough word and you have to prove it,” Hiddink said. “I don’t want to go with that tough word. It was said in the build-up that it would be nice to have a repetition of last year’s final, but I can only say what I see.

“I cannot say if Uefa would not like another all-English final. What I’m sure about that, in big games like this, you need top-notch referees. Players make many mistakes, coaches makes mistakes and referees can make mistakes. But if you have seen three or four situations waved away, then it’s the worst I have seen. At this moment I’d have to think a lot if I have seen worse.”

It may have been better for UEFA business had Barcelona won, but that alone does not justify a conspiracy claim. If UEFA had conspired to fix this match, they did perhaps the worst job in the history of conspiracy.

UEFA so pressured the referee for a Barca victory at the Camp Nou that he ignored a blatant Chelsea penalty committed against Thierry Henry, booked Carles Puyol rashly causing him to miss the second and leg and sent off neither Michael Ballack nor Alex when he easily could have.

The anti-English junta flexed it’s influencing muscle even further in the second leg when Eric Abidal received a red card for being in the vicinity when Nicolas Anelka tripped over his own feet, forcing Barcelona to play with ten. Claims that UEFA was fixing the match for Chelsea are absurd.

Moreover, most of the Chelsea penalty claims in the second leg were specious.

For Alves’ foul on Malouda, the foul began outside the area and was only given at all because Malouda hurled himself to the ground against physics. Abidal’s miniscule touch on Drogba was followed by a blatant, delayed dive. Toure’s foul on Drogba, if he committed one, was outside the box. He tackled fairly in the box.

Pique’s handball, perhaps, was a penalty. But, the call was a mistake and hardly conspiracy. The referee had a shocker, but both teams had to live with him, not merely Chelsea.

Chelsea played to score one goal over two legs. They deployed 11 men in Barcelona purely to kick and stifle the opposition, forgoing an away goal. The played defensively once they went 1-0 up at Stamford Bridge, pulling off Drogba for defense, despite facing ten men.

Scoring goals and preventing the other team from scoring, not referees, decides football matches. Chelsea’s negative tactics left defeat plausible. Andres Iniesta snatched an opportunity. Conspiracy did not fell Chelsea. It was karma.

Fabregas and Horton Prepare For Round Two

Paul Bestall — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:57:56 +0000

So, the FA have finally come out and asked Arsenal to respond within 7 days to Hull City and their Assistant Manger, Brian Horton’s, accusations that Cesc Fabregas spat at him in the tunnel. I’m amazed on several fronts, firstly the FA have managed to start an enquiry in the same month an actual incident happened, the fact that a little club ( as viewed by Soho Square) are actually going to get a chance to state their case to the FA and that we already have a lawyer already involved on Hull City’s side. Advice has been sought so now it’s in the FA’s hands.

What intrigues me and always has done, is the way that spitting in football is so frowned upon. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m no fan of spitting, but the ire that incidents like this create for such a minuscule display of immaturity and petulance still surprises me. Spitting just seems to fire so many people up, I could understand it 20-30 years ago, but still it probably attracts such anger from fans, pundits and the people on the receiving end of the projectiles.

Of course, the first real spitting incident I remember was this little gem, Rudi Voller still remains the only player I know to get sent off for being spat on and it was one of the major talking points of Italia 90. Yet, this new little tete a tete between Horton and Fabregas is unusual, now anyone who saw the pictures of Fabregas on the pitch that night can’t deny that he was certainly pumped up at the end of the game, but did he really have the audacity to then try and spit on Horton? Fabregas has denied it and claimed he’s never spat at anyone on a pitch, but something certainly happened between him and Michael Ballack once before. (Check it on Youtube, I’d include a link but the video has a soundtrack with some choice words, so just be careful where you watch it.)

Yet, just because he was pumped up after the match doesn’t make him guilty through pulling strange faces. I’ll be very disappointed either way when the story comes to it’s conclusion, but if he is guilty, what punishment will be given. It would surely be classed as ungentlemanly conduct, which I believe carries a 3 game ban, something Arsenal do not need right now. With a possibility of Arsenal playing in potentially 15 games, including Champions League and FA Cup matches and with him almost back to full fitness, Wenger will be counting on Fabregas to come into the team to give them a boost in the final two months of the season, he does not need him banning at this point of the season. If he did spit at Horton, then Wenger should throw the book at him, I hope he does.

Yet, I can’t see why Horton and Brown would lie about something like this, it’s a pretty concrete accusation to make about someone and the dossier that was sent to the FA is fairly substantial. Something definitely happened in the tunnel, so let’s hope the FA can work through the accusations and allegations and draw a line under the debacle and we can get back to football.

Chelsea Players Play Blame Game and Other Premier League News

Johnathan Starling — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 05:45:58 +0000

It took a couple of days, but the rift in the Chelsea dressing room seems to have finally made it out onto the public forum of the press.

It all had to start with John Terry, doing his best to absolve his blame in Scolari’s sacking by saying he was behind the manager 100 percent, but says he was only one of two or three people behind Scolari. I hate to say this JT, but I think you are lying right out of your teeth. If you were behind the manager, where was your work rate? Oh that’s right, it wasn’t there. Where was your motivation to get everyone behind the cause? Oh that’s right it wasn’t there. Did you show to the players why you should be captain? That right, you certainly didn’t.

If you are to believe the Daily Express (and Daily Mail), the three men responsible for Scolari’s sacking are Michael Ballack, Didier Drogba and Petr Cech. Ballack has come out and denied this, saying that it was all the players faults, not Scolari’s. Petr Cech is also saying it wasn’t him. All Drogba seems to want to say is that Hiddink’s appointment will be good.

If any player went to Roman and stated their case for Scolari to be sacked, they should immediately be put up for sale come the end of the season. It is not up to the players to decide who is or who isn’t the manager, it is up to the players to do their best to fit into the system their manager wants to play. Every single Chelsea player fits into that mold.

It’s going to be interesting to see who in the end which players were responsible for Scolari being sacked. In my mind, Ballack’s right, all of em were. In that case, attitude reflects leadership John Terry.

Other Stories
Could this be the first piece of the puzzle in Sven going to Portsmouth as Brian Kidd has come in to be an assistant. Could the second piece be Mexico’s 2-0 loss to the United States Wednesday night? The Mexican press is already calling for Sven’s head and they usually end up getting their way quickly.

Add Harry Redknapp to the list of people who will probably make a bet on Guus Hiddink staying at Chelsea once this season is over.

Daniel Agger is threatening to leave Liverpool unless he gets more first team games. Hey Agger how about this, do some of the hard work and if you’re good enough, you’ll play!

Newcastle United will wait on the next two games before deciding on if they will bring someone in to replace Joe Kinnear in the short term. While I understand they want to show some restraint, the number of games in the season is starting to dwindle, and you’re already admitting relegation fears. Dennis Wise though won’t be coming back.

And finally, it’s being reported Real Madrid are looking to get a seventy million Euro bank loan in order to fund purchasing Cristiano Ronaldo. All I can say is ‘oh brother, here we go again!’