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Champions League: Madrid roll into Lyon, Chelsea visit Copenhagen

February 21, 2011 — by Sean

Does this guy get a chance in front of the old home crowd?

First knockout round matches continue on Tuesday with Real Madrid visiting the very well run french side Olympique Lyonnais (richest club in the country, ‘natch), while the slumping Blues from London head to Denmark to meet FC København (the first Danish side to play in this phase of the cup).

Under normal conditions Chelsea would be heavy favorites, but their recent run of form makes every match a toss-up. The Løverne haven’t played a match in two months, though they currently sit 19 points clear at the top of the Danish Super League. You’d think rust could play a problem, but that wasn’t the case for Shaktar when they visited Rome last week on the same time off.

Chelsea has most recently, well, sucked. They are a strong side with fantastic players, but they haven’t had that killer edge of late—and this from the team who started the season so strongly it seemed they were a lock for the title. Maybe this is the match Torres and co. need to settle back into a good run of form.

The real match to watch will be Lyon v Madrid. Madrid have been the losing side in the team’s last three trips to France’s second city, though up until now it wasn’t Mr Mourinho holding the reins. Les Gones are a side to be admired. A selling side, they won’t hold onto young talent when the big boys of Europe crack open their checkbooks, and they certainly won’t buy expensive older players, preferring to scout young talent and develop it before moving them on for a big payday.

The system works: the team has been getting further in the Champions League every year, while managing to win seven consecutive Ligue 1 titles between 2001 and 2008. Some players you may have heard of who moved on from the french side? Michael Essien, Florent Malouda, Karim Benzema, and Éric Abidal to name a few.

Ligue 1’s player of the year Lisandro Lopez is likely to miss the match due to injury, though attacking midfielder Yoann Gourcuff, and preferred right wing Clément Grenier are back in for the Frenchmen. Though that may not be enough to hold back the flow of Madrid’s attack. Franco’s choice hasn’t been piling in goals at their early season rate, and they had a few stumbles before the new year, but this is just about the time Jose has his teams hitting their fullest stride. With Adebayor, Kaka, Ronaldo, Ozil, and Di Maria pushing forward, fed by Alonso from deep and Marcelo and Ramos on the wings, it’s surely only a matter of time before the special one’s system clicks into full-gear.

Lyon could play a deep lying game and seek a counter-attacking chance when it materializes, but let’s hope it’s an open game and we get to see some of the French side’s class on display too.

Commentary

A Dark Cold Monday Night at Craven Cottage

February 14, 2011 — by Cunning Linguist

[Editor’s note: We’ve been soliciting commentary from our resident Chelsea fan via back-channel communications over the course of the season–here is his writeup of the scoreless draw between the Blues and Fulham.]

Watching the Monday game in the EPL. On a dark cold night, very little shine on offer to dispel the gloom. 45 mins in, this is dreadful stuff. The only bright point is that Duff, Sidwell and Sparky are former blues.

Dempey the Tex vs. Čech the Czech

The second half saw Chelsea establish complete and utter domination in the midfield and dictate ball movement with relative ease. By my count Fulham had less than 4 credible attacking forays; in fact, the second half was mostly played in Fulham’s half with about 8 men in the box. Chelsea attacked from all angles but found it extremely difficult to break Fulham down. If Fulham’s resolute defending weren’t sufficient, Chelsea contrived to muck up every opportunity that came their way, and there were quite a few opportunities for Chelsea.

Chelsea were too much for Fulham in the second. In one of two errors for Luiz, Tex was able to win a very soft penalty. Tex then missed his gift-penalty to hand Chelsea a point when they should’ve gone home to face Everton in the FA Cup replay and ManU in the EPL fresh from another loss. Chelsea really should’ve won this game; the ease and abundance of goals from early on in the season have completely disappeared. I do believe the rot is in at the Bridge.