QPHa Ha Ha ... But This Time the Joke is on Chelsea

"I don't know how it happened either.
I just told them to go out and run around."

Hindsight is twenty twenty and all that, but no one needed hindsight to realise the team that the interim manager had selected was not going to be up to the task - even against bottom feeders QPR. It was remiss of said interim manager to look at QPR’s points tally only - as it wasn’t even half the picture.


The reality is Chelsea do not have the depth of squad they once possessed and do need to rotate if they are to remain competitive. Brilliant. But when you’re taking on a team that have only conceded eight goals on the road this season, it might have made some sense to consider an attacking minded lineup to get past that parked bus. Call me crazy, and I know you often do, but it seems pretty simple.

Combine that with the fact that Chelsea have a FA Cup match against a team that concedes loads of goals, and therefore could field a defensive team with some fresh faces .... And if the interim manager didn’t want to quite go that far, surely Mata or Hazard should have started while the other was rested. All thoughts and possibilities that surely would have had an outcome better than last night.

Chelsea faced a team who’s supporters sang to Liverpool ‘You’re nothing special, we lose every week’. Poor. Poor team selection. And poor performances on the pitch. I’m almost getting used to some dodgy first half performances - Everton and Leeds both had a dodgy start but the players pulled their thumbs out and got it together. But you can’t play like that every week and not get found out.

Of course, it was nice to see Shaun Wright-Phillips appreciation for irony. After a couple misplaced shots he tolerated ‘we’ve seen it before chants’, so he only went and scored a cracking goal. Well played Shaun Wright-Phillips - we have not seen it before. But after only 3 years at Chelsea, SWP did not celebrate the winning goal against his former club.

So rather than remind ourselves how embarrassing it is to lose to the club that’s bottom of the league - and remain there despite the three points ... at Stamford Bridge  .... where QPR haven’t won in top flight in over thirty years ... I was going somewhere positive with this... hold on.*

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Chelsea are doing the neighbourly thing by doing whatever they can to ensure QPR stay up despite themselves. And its good to be a nice neighbour, no?

OK. No. QPR are dead last, and no matter what kind of mysterious effect Redknapp is meant to have on players, it hasn’t kicked in yet. They will be relegated. The wheeling and dealing he’s about to partake in this January will resemble the wheeling and dealing he’s done throughout his entire career by trying to resign every player that has ever played for him. Joe Cole and Tal Ben Haim are the latest ‘fresh’ ideas that Uncle Harry has brought to the table. With Cole off to West Ham to try and relive his glory days, its only a matter of time before Harry asks di Canio to give up management and join the revolution. Who wouldn’t want the chance to play alongside Ryan Nelsen and Shaun Derry?

Who will Benitez select on Saturday? The squad Rafatation rumbles on ...

jb

* the extra ellipses may have come from the extra G&T, not that there’s anything wrong with that