Chelsea Musings

Once again, I am dreadfully failing to come even close to being productive. Time to write on the old blog again. Tonight's topic, sports musings.

CHELSEA MUSINGS

Wednesday is the second leg of Chelsea's Champions League Semifinal with Barcelona. Chelsea played the first leg at the Camp Nou in Barcelona determined to do just one thing: prevent Barca from scoring. They successfully accomplished that goal. Guus Hiddink, ever the tactical master, pulled a new trick out of his sleeve. Instead of picking two out of the trio of Michael Essien, Michael Ballack, and John Obi Mikel to man the midfield, he chose all three. The versatile Essien shifted to right wing and acted as almost a second right back, playing just slightly in front of Branislav Ivanovic. Meanwhile, on the left, Florent Malouda displayed a fabulous work ethic in tracking back to aid Jose Bosingwa who superglued himself to Lionel Messi for the whole of the match. That left Didier Drogba all alone up top and with very little support. He almost managed to nick a first half goal anyway, which is a testament to how well he is playing currently.

The night was all about defense, though. Barcelona had the odd dangerous moment. Bojan Kristic probably should have done better with a brilliant service from Dani Alves that provided him with a clear header opportunity. Nonetheless, the Catalan goal scoring machine was rendered mostly impotant. Chelsea tackled vigorously and often and Petr Cech produced one of his very best displays of the season to keep the leaders of La Liga out.

Predictably, the football purists howled. Pep Guardiola berated the Blues for refusing to play actual football. What did they honestly expect? There is an established tactic for handling Barcelona over two legs. You park the bus at the Camp Nou and pray that you don't concede before taking it home to win the decisive match. Playing free-flowing attacking football against Barcelona is a suicide mission. No club side in the world can go tit for tat with Barca in that way and have any prior of survival.

Now, Hiddink faces yet another tough task. How does he beat Barcelona at Stamford Bridge. The crowd will certainly be plenty excited for what will be by far the biggest match of the season for the Blues to date, but that can only go so far. Chelsea needs to win. That means that Chelsea has to attack. The time for sitting back is over. How do you attack without exposing yourself to deadly Barcelona counterattacks? That's the big question.

Hiddink experimented with one possible solution by finally debuting a 4-4-2 with Drogba and Anelka up top together and Lampard on the right wing. The experimented proved conclusively that the notion that the two strikers cannot play together is utter rubbish. They linked extraordinarly well. Drogba set Anelka up for the first goal. Anelka played Drogba in for the third. In between, they both played a role in setting up Florent Malouda.

However, the plan has its flaws. Fulham had far too many chances of far too great a quality during the Chelsea's 3-1 win. Erik Nevland scored Fulham's lone goal as the lucky benificiary off some soft defending and even softer goalkeeping. Without the usual midfield trio, Chelsea couldn't impose their physicality like they normally do. In addition, Lampard appeared lost on the right wing.

I would expect Chelsea to come out in their normal 4-2-3-1 formation. The left back will almost assuredly be assigned to man-mark Messi once again. Other than that, it's hard to imagine what Guus can do to outfox Pep Guardiola. This time around, Chelsea may just have to play it's game the best way it knows how.

While they do have to face the fearsome Barca offense, Chelsea does have some advantages of its own. Victor Valdes is not considered one of the world's top keepers. In front of him, Barcelona has an unsettled centre half situation. Carlos Puyol is suspended and Rafa Marquez is out with a season ending injury. Gerard Pique will thus be teamed either with usual left back Eric Abidal or infrequently-played Uruguayan Martin Caceres. Moreover, even when they are at full strength, Barcelona's defense can be beaten. Zeus knows that Dani Alves can only loosely be termed a defender as he does precious little defending. Certainly, height is not Barcelona's strong suit and they can be beaten aerially.

Real Madrid got clobbered 2-6 by Barcelona at the weekend but in the process exposed Barca's defensive frailities. Sergio Ramos figured in both goals. First, he served a perfect ball to a completely unmarked Gonzalo Higuain, who deftly headed into the net. Then, he found himself totally unmarked and scored off an Arjen Robben free kick. One imagines that Chelsea will be providing plenty of service to the noggin of one Didier Drogba. Even the sometimes uninterested Michael Ballack may be intrigued enough to steal a goal for himself. Heck, even Branislav Ivanovic, the two-goal hero at Anfield, is probably licking his chops.

If Chelsea don't get lured into a passing competition with Barcelona and instead use their superior physicality and aerial prowess, they have every chance to prevail at the Bridge with that most English of tactics, Route One football.