Premier League: Chelsea 1 - 0 Portsmouth

3 more points in the bag! I have the feeling that it will be a record-breaking and history-making season for Chelsea. :-)

Sign of a good side is to win when not playing well.
Whilst this is true, it is also slightly flattering to Chelsea. Portsmouth have in the past come to the Bridge and played a defensive game when even 2-0 down.
Not so this time. They were well organised, skilful and very pacy all over the pitch. Chelsea were not at their best because Portsmouth did not allow them to be.
I was very impressed with them and believe they are a team to watch this year, especially if they get Anelka or Defoe as is believed.
Their fans are always a credit to them and we would do well to learn from what are after all the premier leagues fans champions!

I was there and watched it, and have to say it was rather a strange game, "dull" would perhaps be the right description.

The players from both sides did look tired late on, which wasn't surprising considering the heat... bloody hell I was pretty knackered just watching.

Not much to add other than 3 points and top of the league, which is always a great place to be.

And also an observation with regard our support in the Matthew Harding end, you were very quiet over there, but I'll put it down to the heat as well ;-)

Can you post highlights from a different source? Folks in the U.S. cannot view the video from that Virgin Media site and the Pompey game wasn't televised in the U.S.

Bryan - I do my best to find alternative highlights/goal videos, but it's becoming increasingly difficult. The Premier League is cracking down (they're suing YouTube) on "illegally" uploaded material. Video shared on sites like YouTube, Dailymotion etc. is removed within hours, often minutes.

I will continue to look, though.

Don't fret too much about missing the game fella's, you didn't miss much...It followed the same pattern as the previous three: Not much creativity, an inability to dominate for long periods, and an element of good fortune in the result.

It's difficult to see where the problem lies, no one played particularly badly, but there were certainly no stand out performances either.
Villa away next...never an easy fixture for us. We've gotta raise our game, and soon!

C'MON CHELSEA!

I didn't really want this to be my first post of the new season, but I was a bit annoyed by the way we played so far. I can always accept a draw away to Liverpool a good result, but with two goals from The Other Blue team and a snap win home against a middle team (though they played a good game I admit) is something that many can consider "lucky". TSO promised for another philosophy this season, didn't he? I hope it's just a switching-between-philosophies phase, we really lacked creativity, and as Southside Bucky said, it's never an easy fixture the Villa away game.

Clive, if you want to know what "heat" really means, please be my guest sometime in Syria :)

Still waiting to be impressed by Belletti on the right, I have a gut feeling that he will be just a cover in case someone got injured.

Anyway, being ahead of Manu always puts a smile on my face. ;)

Blue Will Always Be The Color.

It is the sign of a 'good' team to win when playing badly, but we seem to have mastered that art so successfully over the past couple of years, you have to wonder if we are capable of anything better.

It would be nice to actually watch a Chelsea side run riot against someone, but we dont even seem capable of doing that against the supposed lesser teams in the league.

Southside Bucky makes a good point in that it's hard to pinpoint what the reason is, but the whole team seems to playing in one gear at the moment, with no sign of stepping it up at all.

Still, this made me laugh this morning : LINK

Yeah, we'll swap arguably our best player this season for Spurs forth-choice striker. He's behind Darren Bent in the pecking order. Oh dear.

If we're after a striker, get on the case with Adriano.

Fiffy,

That is the funniest thing i've read in a while.....The Sun never fails to make me laugh!

Defoe is one of the most useless footballers.....he might improve if he was getting first team football but no chance.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////K.T.B.F.F.H///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Well, I have bben laughing about this SWP - Defoe swap, as well. However, I think it is just another try to unsettle Chelsea. All these rumours about Ronaldinho and all the other crap is just another try to unsettle us.

£15m for Defoe - now that IS funny.

Much of the recent nonsense seems to be the hacks purging themselves of final silly season stories before the window closes. Presume the Sun will be suggesting that we're after Kaka for £100m tomorrow then.

Seen Adriano's name mentioned - not in a million years; Inter want shot because of his attitude and more recently excessive boozing. And Veron called him lazy during his spell there - enough said really.

Okay so now the complaint is about creativity...Hmmm interesting bunch you all are.

A while back I was saying that our creative midfielder is meant to be Lamps and I was literally shot down by the gang...

Well he is and that is why creativity is not our strong point...

fact is a fact...Lamps is a goal scorer with a scotcher of a shot but he is killing our midfield play... Funy that our strikers have to create for him.

I was proposing that since his goal return is good...push him up field as a number 10 to partner a striker and we get a proper 8 who can do the distribution a lot better. Fact!

I was bored off my seat totally bored. SWP tried a little magic but like has been said...Pompey gave us a game...

click, click, click...

the sound of a broken record...

It is difficult to disagree with Jose. It is true Lamps is not creative midfielder. It is fact and there is nothing to do about it.

It's also difficult to to disagree with the fact that he's very effective in what he does within the current Chelsea setup. If it ain't broke...

Depends on what your definition of creative is. I assume Jose and Mikel that you've not actually watched Chelsea play for real.(and thats not meant to be a criticism) Frank is creative in what he does, he makes unselfish runs which frees up space for others, his passing is pretty superb most of the time, and it's no fluke he gets so many goals with the late runs.

He gets into those positions because he's intelligent and reads the game, he may not have blistering pace or the fancy footwork, we have other MIDFIELDERS with those qualities. It's called balance in the team which all good sides need, and if we didn't want him, other teams would be lining up to take him.

Chelsea have always wanted to sell SWP and cut their losses. Besides, Joe Cole can always replace SWP. Also, Chelsea maybe getting Defoe just to prevent ManU have him!

Regarding our general play: With a bit more thought on the subject, it's my considered (but humble) opinion that most of our problems stem from one main aspect of our play...A lack of pace.
We're too slow in the build up department, too often fuffing about with short passes across the back line and the midfield. Consequently, we give the opposition far too much time to get everyone behind the ball and get organised. therefore, we very rarely catch teams on the break, and we're finding it increasingly difficult to break defences down by trying to play short passes through 'em. The only time we seem to step it up is when we go a goal down.
I'd feel a lot more confident about our title chances if we moved the ball about quicker!

There are no entertainers - Osgood, Cooke, Gullit, Zola et al.

Basically we're a machine. I know everyone say it's the results that matter but if I just wanted to watch a well oiled machine it would be far cheaper to go to the local launderette!

Hmmmm....JD 'if it aint broke...'

To be fair, chelsea is an effective team, we achieve results through our doggedness and discipline...

As for flair...we are not really up there with the best (and i'm talking about crisp & tidy 'one-twos' in the last third of the pitch). Once we go beyond the centre circle (precisely in front of, or around the opponents 18) we tend to get clumsy sometimes...

From this point of the field, its team understanding, players' individual ball control skills and confidence that comes to play to create 'flair'...

We dont tend to do much in this part of the field...though we do take a fair portion of the chances that come our way...and we are one hell of a team when it comes to defending any lead...

This approach has served us well all this while...if we go for flair, some of the current attributes may be lost in the process...like Drogba for instance, the guy is a power-playing goal machine...not one for fancy tricks and flicks (even his passing & ball control is off key sometimes) Lamps too is effective looking at his goal ratio...but the butt of flairplay rests on him for the most part and he's not living up to it...

As stated earlier, I really think we may lose some key part of our game if we go for flair given the way the team is currently structured. For now, effectiveness is the object of our game...

Clive,
I am not missing Chelsea game since 1997. Some of them live some on tv. Frank is very efficient in front of the goal without any doubts, but he is not the guy who sets up strikers and creates combinations. Now the last season was dreadful for Lamps and if you take out of his tally penalties there will be not so many scored goals.

Do you mean like the the set up and combination he played with Drogba to win us the FA Cup?

How you can slag off the bloke that has so far earned us 7 points with his goals this year is beyond me?

There are eleven players in the side and they each have a part to play.It isn't Lampard's responsibility to be the creator and the goalscorer, we have 10 other blokes on the pitch to play other roles.

I agree with the comments above from Southside Bucky. The problem stems from the slow build up play, and as I commented on last week, Terry is at the heart of all of that. (And before anyone starts, no I am not asking for JT to be axed).

It is no coincidence that we looked far more lively in the first couple of games when Terry was injured. If we are going to play with more flair, weneed to switch the play from defence toattack far quicker and give our wingers and wing backs the opportunity to get in behind players before they get back and settled

The reason the Mancs looked so good last season was simply that they were devastating on the break against the average teams in the league.

Not sure what to make of these reports of a Jose Vs. Joe bust up on the training ground. Also reports of a SWP vs. Defoe swap.

I agree that the Ronnie stories are pure rubbish but as the Robben saga shows - there's no smoke without fire.

Now please understand I am not saying I want Jose to leave - but I have a bad feeling that he is going too soon. This is why. He is selling our young "star" players and replacing them with older ones. Robben for Malouda, Johnson or ferrera for Belliti. SWP for defoe is about like for like - but I would much rather keep SWP. If J.Cole get's frozen out and we buy Queresma that would be horrific!!

It's as if Jose is building a team to last 1 or 2 more seasons (sheva and ballack included) and then he leaves. When he does we are the new AC milan in terms of having an old squad and he goes off to a new club and brings in the likes of Pato the duck etc.

Why is SAF beinging in young blood like Nani, Anderson and Tevez while we go for Pizarro (although I like him) Ben-Haim etc. Ok Alex is young as is sidewell but I would rather see us either buy young or blood our youth team memebers.

I remeber Kenyon saying we wanted to build for the future, but recent signings go against this philiosphy.

Have I lost my marbles or is anyone else thinking the same?

God Bless Roman's Blue Army

SWP-Defoe denied, but stories of a row between Joe Cole and Jose. Sounds plausible, although I think Joe would understand why he's being left out and his reaction (extra training) sounds like the sort of things Jose would love.

LINK

Given the general slowness of our approach play, we're better with SWP than Joe, but we certainly miss the latter's instinctive creativity.

I'd like to see a bit more of Joey Cole that's for sure - he's our most creative player. The question is - who do you leave out? Malouda or SWP? Or do you change the formation?

Let's face it, we're winning games and only the Pompey game has been dull. That could be down to the heat and the international week. I also think we missed Ricky Carvalho's creativity in bringing the ball out of defense quickly. How long is he out for?

There's now bollocks talk in the Sun again today about £25m for Queresmo of Porto. Like you said yesterday JD - they are getting all the silly talk out before the transfer window shuts!

chelsea - valencia - schalke - rosenborg.

Not a bad draw, I doubt we'll be having any troubles qualifying as leaders.

Blue Will Always Be The Color