This season saw Chelsea move to a 4-2-3-1 formation for the first time in their recent history. Looking to deploy their three main creative stars together with the hope of moving towards Abramovich’s ideal playing style. Whilst many articles have explored how good the attacking midfield of Mata, Hazard and Oscar is, this article aims [...]

Manchester United came out strong and dominated the first half against Chelsea. However, Rafa Benitez made some astute tactical changes and altered the flow of the match in favor of his side. In the second half, nearly all traffic was flowing against Manchester United’s goal, and Chelsea nearly walked away with a 3-2 victory. United [...]

Seven different goal scorers contributed to Chelsea’s 8-0 win against Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea finished practically every chance they were presented with, with the glaring exception of one missed penalty. It was a straight forward match. Torres scored within three minutes and Chelsea never looked like conceding. Chelsea dominated and Villa utterly folded. [...]

Not many people can be universally liked for their ability on the pitch. Such is life that someone will always have a gripe or obligatory comment to bring players down.  Juan Mata is not one of these players. In fact he is loved for his modest demeanour as well as his ability. It is an [...]

Ever since Ramires has come to the English game, I’ve been a big fan. Although slight in frame, he is someone who has energy in abundance and can change a game, Barcelona away sticks in the memory. However, with new signings coming in, his place in the team is in question, not only is his [...]

The holding midfielder has become a prominent role in the majority of sides in the Premier League. In our opinion the lack of a “midfield enforcer”, effectively, cost Manchester United the title last season. I’ve heard a lot of Manchester United supporters bemoan the lack of strength (in terms of power not finesse) centrally in [...]

Last week against QPR in the FA Cup 4th round, Ramires was injured and there was a collective nervousness amongst Chelsea fans, taken off on a stretcher and it looked serious. After the match Villas Boas said that the injury could have been a lot worse and shortly after it was revealed that he was [...]

Possible line ups and formations Defend from the front As you can see from the chalkboard below from Chelsea’s last away game at Bolton, Cech plays the majority of his passes onto his central defenders. 25 out of the 34 passes he took were played short – the reason why Petr Cech has the best [...]

Ramires is a player who when initially coming to Chelsea came under a lot of criticism, he seemed lightweight, some described him as a ‘headless chicken’, however his vast improvement in the second half of the season has continued in to this, he arguably looks like our best midfielder at the start of the season, [...]

Chelsea v Stoke could be described as a good, old-fashioned tussle between two sides who were physical and direct, the game arguably was one of, as the old cliché goes, two halves. In the first Stoke caused Chelsea some problems with their physical nature and Chelsea couldn’t really create any clear cut chances, when it [...]