The Week That Was
Jose Mourinho has signed a new four-year contract with Chelsea pic.twitter.com/6Hf3y4EbrX
— TheSPORTbible (@TSBible) August 7, 2015
The Barclays Premier League finally got underway after a long boring summer transfer window. There were occasional hopes of Chelsea chasing after Antoine Griezmann, Paul Pogba or even Arda Turan but nothing came materialized. Instead Jose Mourinho declared that Chelsea has the best players in the League as they are the champions and that no player should expect to walk into this Chelsea lineup. The writing was clear on the wall. For whatever reason that we don’t know Chelsea had decided to skip reinforcing their team this window.
My @MailSport column – Over 250 million spent this summer & not one of those players would get into Chelsea's team. http://t.co/W3Aj4YU2lb
— Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) August 7, 2015
After a mediocre preseason came the Community Shield game at Wembley. Jose Mourinho had already picked fights with Pellegrini, Wenger and Rafa Benitez’s wife by this time. And he went into the game in a bullish mood. Even though Chelsea did well in patches Wenger had the last laugh as his Arsenal defeated Mourinho’s Chelsea for the first time!
Still everything was being downplayed. After all Community Shield is just a glorified practise match they said. And that Chelsea will be ready with all guns blazing for the opener against Swansea.
Chelsea haven't won any of their last 6 games inside 90 mins. (including pre-season). #CFC pic.twitter.com/Uq1mrZMkyS
— Squawka Football (@Squawka) August 8, 2015
But that did not happen either. You don’t give away two goals at home, don’t get your goalkeeper sent off and don’t defend to grab a point at home. Doesn’t matter how Mourinho spins it, the bottomline was that it was a sad sorry performance from the Champions and they have a lot of work to do.
FT: Courtois' red card allowed Gomis' penalty to level the score 2-2. Catch up here: http://t.co/0n7BWBE24k #SNF pic.twitter.com/H43kApS6pj
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) August 8, 2015
I do not buy the argument that if you are a man down you have to go ultra defensive to just walk away with a point. Last year Manchester City were a man down and yet they kept attacking us and scored a goal in the end. You don’t ever see this Chelsea team do that. But it’s Mourinho’s pragmatism they say.
But worse, what I do not like is the way Mourinho has started this season. He seems to be in a very grumpy mood most of the time. What’s the point of picking up a fight with your own team in public? He could have replaced the medical team at the bench without making such a mess in public.
A truculent over-assertion of his managerial power: Mourinho's demotion of Eva Carneiro, who was just doing her job http://t.co/T3xsDJ1TPi
— Sam Wallace (@SamWallaceIndy) August 12, 2015
So here we are. A point from the opening weekend. And a game against Manchester City next, who played really well in their opening game. I know season is not decided by the first two games, but another dropped points will give media more ammunition to attack and destabilize the Chelsea dressing room. And with an agitated Mourinho we don’t know what’s going to happen next.
WhoScored Chelsea Ratings
Not a pretty picture at all. Oscar was our best player in the game against Swansea and Begovic made lots of saves. Courtois languishes at the bottom because of the Red Card and Falcao because he didn’t get enough game time to have an impact. Let’s see how things pan out in the next few games.
Chelsea Squad Ratings:
Chelsea Formation Summary:
WhoScored Premier League Summary
Needless to say Chelsea doesn’t do too well in the league summary. It’s down in the 13th place in terms of WhoScored ratings and none of it’s players feature in the top 10 or the team of the season.
Premier League Team Statistics
Premier League Player Statistics:
Premier League Best XI:
