If someone at the beginning of the season were to tell me that twelve matches into the the English premier league that the former champions Chelsea would be placed 16th in the table, Arsenal and Manchester City would be on top of the table tied on points, Leicester would be third and West Ham sixth I would have laughed so hard I would have fainted, woke up and taken that person who told me such madness to the mental hospital and have him/her admitted there for life.
To be honest the Man-city Arsenal part isn't so unbelievable and neither is the Leicester and West Ham part as they did show a little bit of form last season before going back to their position. Leicester finished the season with a bang running away from relegation and they also have a young man named Jamie Vardy who cant seem to stop scoring. West Ham begun with a mild bang beating Man-City and Liverpool early in the season and also managed to finish twelfth. The only bang Chelsea is getting is banging their head on the dress-room wall trying to figure out what is wrong with the team.
Chelsea's run is so bad even the haters are tired of hating and have now turned into sympathizers.There are a lot of reasons that people have put out there to try and understand Chelsea's form and here they are below together with my thoughts on them:
(If I say we in this blog I mean Chelsea fans)
1. Hazard is not so hazardous any more.
The man who was everyone's player of the season has become everyone's scapegoat of the season. He is said to have dragged Chelsea to the championship with his glistering form with 14 goals 9 assists and being an amazing play maker on the pitch.
In some sense it is true that without him Chelsea would not probably have finished champions but he did not do it on his own as is said the people around him were also in glistering form its just that Hazard was shining so bright that we could not see them.
Willian is said to be in amazing form but he is just the same way he was last season except his free kicks which are just out of this world. According to me Willian and Oscar's form are the reason Cuadrado (Who is in amazing form at Juventus by the way)did not get enough playing time because (according to me) he was brought in January as back up in case anything went wrong and nothing did.
John Terry, Gary Cahill and Ivanovic had 10 goals in total, TEN from defenders. If that is not form I do not know what is. They also were solid as a rock in the back as they let in the least amount of goals in the premier league. (33)
Fabregas had 18 amazing assists and 3 goals. Some of those assists were given to Hazard so he also has to share the credit.
Diego Costa had 20 goals. ... I could go on forever showing the form that everyone else except Hazard had. Everyone wanted to score and everyone actually did except Courtois, Cech ( who can't really be blamed as they are keepers) Azpillicuetta, Loftus, Traore and others who cannot really be blamed as they did not have as much opportunities.
The bottom line is that people should not blame the poor performances on specific individual players but you can however blame it on all the players dipping in form.
2. Firing Dr Eva Carneiro.
For those who do not know. Dr Eva Carneiro was Chelsea's team doctor from 2009 but at a match vs Swansea she went out to give Hazard treatment and that left us with ten men on the pitch as Courtois was sent off earlier in the game. This infuriated Jose Mourinho who ended up firing her for it.
Personally I believe the dismissal was a huge mistake as she was just doing her job. What I don't believe however is that her absence is the cause of Chelsea's performance. She was loved by all Chelsea fans and players but I do not believe that lack of her presence took that much of a toll.
3. The keeper.
When Cech left we almost cried but when we heard he was going to Arsenal we actually did cry. Petr Cech was like a father to Chelsea. He speaks Czech, English, French, German, Slovak, Spanish, and Italian. He can also speak basic Russian, Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian. That means he related well with most if not all the players. This means that he was someone to turn to for the young inexperienced players in the team although they are not very many but he was still able to advise the experienced players as well. I do believe that he is part of our dip in form but not a very major one.
Although in my books he is the greatest keeper in the league I do believe Courtois is a close second. His injury was a major blow to Chelsea but the blows' impact was reduced by the fact that we had Begovic. Begovic to me has done amazingly well. He has made one or two mistakes but its not that Courtois and Cech never did. To me we are fine in terms of keepers and we did not even need Marco Amelia as we have had Blackman for too long without using him. This brings me to my next point.
4.The defenders.
This is one of the more valid and believable reasons for Chelsea's slump in form. In my opinion Kurt Zouma and Azpillicuetta have been putting in a fair effort in terms of defense. But the rest of the lot which consists of Ivanovic, Cahill and Terry really need to step up their game. I will not talk about Baba because I do not think I have seen enough of him to start judging.They have their positioning all wrong and they lack confidence. There is no justification of a defense that was the best in the season that accrued a total of 10 goals to be running around like half blind ninety year old men.(no offense to the old or the half blind) But what I am trying to say is that their playing is just unacceptable and they are 85 % of the reason Chelsea is where it is. This brings out the question why Chelsea bought Papy Djilobodji and always has Traore on the bench if they are not going to use them.
5. The strikers.
A lot of criticism has been directed to Diego Costa who seems to be more interested in beating up people in the pitch than scoring goals. At first I was on his side but the critics are looking more and more correct as more and more matches are passing without him finding the net. He does seem to be trying, but according to me he is trying less harder than he did last season. When he gets in the box he seems more focused on winning penalties than putting the ball in the back of the net. Remy to me should be our number one striker until Diego finds his form again and Falcao...(I do not know what to say about Falcao.)
6. The special one.
Jose Mourinho. In my opinion the best manager in the world and an interesting character. This season has really shown that greatness does fade and that which goes up must come down. He himself has said that he predicted this slump eleven years ago. But nobody in the football world would have predicted his slump to be this low. The defining moment that convinced me that there was something severely wrong with him was when he double substituted Matic during the 3-1 loss to Southampton. A substitution is not something to second guess. It is a major chance to change the game around. Substituting someone in the game and then later taking the same person out is a major statement of how confused and how disorganized you are. Jose just needs to calm down and maybe talk to a psychiatrist to help him with this tough period of his managerial career.
I am sure there are lots of other reasons that are out there but they did not hold enough water for me to focus upon them. If you disagree with me or agree or just want to add something. Feel free to do so in the comment section.
Other than Chelsea's woes, it would also be good to note that arsenal have had a good run in the season and Aston villa did well to hold back Manchester City. Newcastle are also starting to climb out of relegation and Liverpool and Tottenham are starting to wake up as well.
The season so far is looking as interesting as ever and I am sure none e of us can wait to see what drama it will pop out next.
