Getting out of the blocks fast is a term usually reserved for athletics however it applies just as well to the English Premiership. Chelsea have proven to be the undisputed masters of this technique over the past couple of campaigns exploding into action as soon as the first whistle blows leaving challengers eating their dust.
This opening weekend the Blues once again showed that they have the class and the killer instinct as Manchester City were toyed with despite Jose Mourinho fielding a below strength team. Heaven knows how they’ll look once Michael Ballack, Joe Cole and maybe even William Gallas rejoin the team.
The only sour note for the Stamford Bridge mob must be the continued loss of confidence and form of Shaun Wright-Phillips. The adopted son of Arsenal legend, Ian Wright, looked a world-beater when playing for Sunday’s opponents, Manchester City, a few seasons ago but since his $46 million dollar move to the Blues the kid’s got two left feet. It was painful watching his every attempt to make something happen explode in his face and when Mourinho changed him for Salomon Kalou, you felt it was to save him from further embarrassment. I have a feeling we’ll not be seeing too much of SWP this year and wouldn’t be surprised if he moved on to a less pressured environment.
Other than the Blues clinical dismantling of City, the other aspect of the game that interested me was Mourinho’s body language. With City’s rivals, Manchester United having played earlier in the morning you could sense that the ‘Special One’ wanted to throw down a marker of sorts. There was a hint of impatience about the Chelsea gaffer that even Didier Drogba’s wonderful goal could not dispel such are his high standards.
In a way the reaction of Mourinho reminded me of Sir Alex Ferguson when the Scotsman was riding high in the late 90’s. Ferguson’s displeasure when his side displayed anything less than the absolute killer instinct was legendary – and that is what has been missing from the Red Devils over the last four years.
With losses and ties littering their 1st ten EPL matches over the last two seasons, United have left themselves too much to do in the closing stretch, which is why I believe the performance against Fulham was of vital importance to the momentum of the team. Remember this side will be missing Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes in the coming weeks and unlike Chelsea they do not have a squad filled with as many impact players.
In a league filled with huge egos’, one-upmanship is the name of the game and SAF will be secretly pleased that in this opening weekend that United scored five while Chelsea ONLY got three.
On the other side of the ego train, Mourinho and Ferguson’s two biggest rivals were left moaning and scratching their heads.
Arsenal and Arsene Wenger laid the big egg at the opening EPL fixture at Emirates Stadium. In all honesty the smart money should’ve been all over the tie because the pressure to get the win was just too much for the Gunners youngsters – while the Villains were desperate to impress the new boss, Martin O’Neill, with a performance of character and will.
This was achieved in startling fashion with the end result being two massive points dropped by Arsenal to a side that they have not failed to beat in their last 16 Premiership encounters.
The final member of the established challenging quartet, Liverpool, also had their own problems and like United will be missing key players for a number of weeks after crucial opening day injuries. John Arne Riise and Jamie Carragher will have given Rafa Benitez gray hair as the Reds boss saw both players depart in the space of eight minutes before even a half of football had been played.
One can’t be sure if these knocks unsettled what is an experienced team but to drop points to new boys, Sheffield United is unthinkable when their stated goal is to win the title.
Top teams just do not let this sort of thing happen. Cast your minds back to the opening match of last season and Chelsea eking out a decision against Wigan in the 93rd minute. That’s what Championship teams do against the rookies.
Every game in the Premiership is precious and a fast start has become the key to success and failure at both ends of the table. Will Arsenal and Liverpool regret these dropped points – we’ll revisit this in a couple of weeks and find out.
Nick l am surprised about how you come up with these assesments after one week.First of all it was a full strength chelsea side and all the players in their midfield would walk into most teams.as for swp l just feel he is paying the price for poor judgement and l can not see him at the bridge next season, he has the talent but has the pressure of fearing to lose a place everytime.l know you might be a chelsea fan Nick but to call their perfomance great is just falling short with reality.Man city were just unfortunate to concede those goals due to lack of concentration and lack of luck.The chelsea perfomance against an attacking side willing to use their wide players might struggle.I do not like united but if this week is to give an indication of how the trophy is to be contested then l have to #### my pride and point towards the red devils they had a great perfomance and made the most of a poor fulham side.You arsenal assessment is extremely poor because you have to notice that if we play the way we did yesterday you usually win 90% of your games and yesterday that was a 10% of them just like the united sunderland game last season.you should know that an aston villa side under martin o'neal is always going to be tough to beat and yesterday l will be the first to admit that our finishing was poor but l think we have a strong chance of gunning for the tittle and l would say apart from the unfortunate injuries that liverpool had they are still going to be as good as chelsea or manu .
Last edited by henry14 on August 20th at 12:08 PM.
Henry, optimism is the name of the game at this stage in the season, but maybe you're getting too defensive here. Full strength Chelsea side? 'Full strength' is an interesting term. If a player is out and his back-up is another class athlete, is the team still full strength? Can any team be considered full strength at this stage of the season? Up to opinion I suppose. As for Arsenal, I agree that they were unfortunate, but Nick did nothing more or less than tell the truth: Arsenal dropped points here, not Villa. Arsenal will be the ones regretting this draw, not Villa. He wasn't slamming your team and honestly he didn't in any way say that this means doom for them. Your assessment of Chelsea is no less speculative than his assessment of the Gunners. I for one thought it was a great review. My only thoughts at the moment are (a) way to go Ronaldo and Rooney, way to shut these trash tabloids up, and (b) I hope Stevie doesn't continue this diving trend. Hungary v England was the first time I ever saw him do it. I fear that if he continues, he will end up losing some of his sterling rapport with his fans.
I am of the opinion that Nick's assesment of chelsea is too glorifyed and above all there is need to be cautious when ruling other teams out, yes you don't win two EPL tittles and buy ballack and sheva and suddenly become weak there is no doubt they are strong, but people should consider that they need to adapt whether they are champions or not as much as a new player from any other country needs to do.they are going to be tough but don't rule any team yet.
The best part of the weekend was Reading, how can you not love that team? They play a fantastic style of play and those boys run their #### off. Looked like a less pressurred arsenal side, i loved it, and that korean kid looked spectacular, was he in the wc, i dont remember?
ManU played beautiful football. Chelsea did great, but, thanks to Nick's pointing out - you could see by Jose's body language that he wanted the team to answer appropriately to the ManU game. I think Nick's assessment was fair enough - Chelsea deserves a pat on a back after performing so poorly in the pre-season friendlies, as well as at the Community Shield a week ago. The other voices had good points as well - it is, after all, going to be a compilation of 38 games for every single time. Consistency is extremely important. I think that all that Nick was trying to say was that MU and Chelsea did a good job of "getting out of blocks", unlike Liverpool and Arsenal. 5-1 and 3-0 victories are a lot better and profound victories than 1-0 would have been.
I though Chelsea looked very good, vintage Chelsea in fact. They simply get things done and as the commentator in that game said, the biggest difference between Chelsea and the other contenders is that Chelsea wins the games they are supposed to win, unlike Arsenal on Saturday. I am a Gunners fan but did not see the game so my comments are lacking some info. I did see that they had 18 corners in this game which suggests a lot of offensive pressure. Although I'm disappointed with the draw, I don't think it's time to panic and I think Villa is going to be tough for a lot of teams this year with O'neil in the fold. I also think the Gunners had additional pressure being the stadium opener and remember, it will take time for Emirates to truly feel like home-field advantage. I was surprised by Liverpool's draw as well, more so then Arsenals result. Man U won as they should of, but Fulham is very weak and I've tipped them for relegation this year. All in all, it was an entertaining first weekend and I'm looking forward to the next fitures. Go Gunners!
Nick, why is Fox Soccer Channel not showing any Manchester United games this season???? I was pretty upset to hear this. I am cancelling my subscription to Fox Socccer and will advise my friends to do the same. Showing Chelsea every week is a joke!
Just subscribe to Setanta as well as FSC (assuming you can get it) and watch both. It saves $100 over last year on DirecTV, when many of the ManU games were on Fox PPV. Setanta gets first choice of games and has ManU-TV (Lou Macari was cool yesterday) and Chelsea TV which has great Inteviews. (+ championship). Fox's revamped SuperSaturday (Thanks Nick) and the excellent FSWR, together give better coverage than we ever had before. Actually you need to add the cost of a second TV so can watch 2 live games at the same time!
I think you need to bear in mind that we are benefiting from what must be a financially challenging business operation, so enjoy it while you can.
Meanwhile I thought it was a great start to the season and to early to judge anything. Arsenal didn't that play badly, except they're still trying to walk the ball into net. At Chelsea there's pleny to work on as the integration of Ballack hasn't started, SWP and the whole right side doesn't function. I would say that if Liverpool don't get cracking they could be 10 points adrift by Sept 18th.
Last edited by LosAngelesChelseaFan on August 22nd at 5:15 PM.
Setanta does not have exclusive rights to Manchester United games for this season but they will be showing quite a few of them. They have acquired from Fox Sports International games based on the following formula:
FOX Sports International (FSI) has sublicensed US and Canadian TV rights to an average of approximately 4 2006-2007 English Premier League (EPL) matches each week to Setanta Sports North America.
In the United States, FOX Soccer Channel and Setanta Sports USA will divide the 2006-2007 EPL season as follows:
· Saturdays at 7:30am ET: Setanta Sports USA
· Saturdays at 10am ET: Setanta Sports USA has the 1st and 3rd picks, FOX Soccer Channel has the 2nd and 4th picks
· Saturdays at 12noon ET: FOX Soccer Channel
· Sundays at 8:30am ET or 9am ET: Setanta Sports USA
· Sundays at 11am ET: FOX Soccer Channel
· Mondays at 3pm ET: FOX Soccer Channel
· Tuesdays-Fridays: Setanta Sports USA has the 1st pick, FOX Soccer Channel has the 2nd pick
Seeing as they have the 1st pick on Saturday's and weekday's you can bet they will be Man U games. Setanta Sports USA is the same channel that you get via your $200.00 monthly subscription. For example the Charlton v Man U game is on the Setanta Sport Channel (aka Setanta Sports USA) tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. ET.
An honest summation Nick based on one game day's results.
As I have already asked Bobby McM and Jeremy StL what price for Chelsea to finsh 3rd or 4th?
They were just 3 wins (equiv) better than liverpool last season so a slip up is very possible. 9 months to go so cheers!!
Henery reign in gunners should end is fresh up for winning way. Never end loose wenger insist ever.
Henry never have counter nerve for soccer.
No good for faced good team I never saw, paper player. The most he deceived wenger for instance getting not worth potencial of skill for much money
doubt for fixed.
Who will break into the 'B4' and who will avoid the drop. So many questions will be answered over the next nine months because it's back - the greatest show on earth - The Barclays Premier League.
