True Blue: Chelsea are not ready for the Premier League

Paul Lagan, London24’s Chelsea blogger
Monday, August 6, 2012
11:52 AM

The season is just six days away and Chelsea are not in any way shape or form ready to win the Premier League.

The poor results of the pre-season tour of USA continued at the Amex Stadium on Saturday when the Blues slumped to an embarrassing 3-1 defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion.

On Sunday, Chelsea will take on champions Manchester City in the Community Shield at Aston Villa’s Villa Park before the the opening league game of the season away to Wigan Athletic a week later.

It must be a worry for the Chelsea hierarchy but not for manager Roberto Di Matteo judging from his demeanour.

Nothing seems faze the former Chelsea midfielder.

Perhaps it’s because he still can’t quite believe his luck. Plucked from the ranks of the unemployed managers’ queue after being sacked by West Bromwich Albion, Di Matteo was brought back to SW6 to look after, advise and be number two to Andre Villa-Boas.

He took on the hot seat on a temporary basis in March, and, while he could not halt a disastrous league campaign, he steered the boys to an FA Cup and Champions League double.

If football had an iota of justice about it, Di Matteo would have been handed the the manager’s job the day after the Champions League victory.

But justice is not in football’s vocabulary, and Di Matteo had a few nail-biting weeks to wait before getting the nod to take Chelsea into the new campaign.

With his trusty side-kick Eddie Newton on one side and Steve Holland on the other, Di Matteo can take comfort that the squad of players he’s taken on are the best he’s ever had to manage.

But gone are the days at Stamford Bridge, when the manager has completed football authority.

Di Matteo, while, being consulted on in-coming players won’t have a veto on their arrival.

What Roman wants, as far as he has control over, he gets and Robbie is expected to work within that structure.

Roman buys the squad, Robbie creates the team from the squad.

While Jose Mourinho had vast experience of that in Europe, he hated it.

I’m led to believe that had Roman altered that philosophy, Jose would have being susceptible to a return to SW6.

But Roman did not want to change course, and winning the Champions League simply added weight that he was correct.

If he wants a certain player, he will give chief executive Ron Gourlay, the authority to negotiate.

If he wants to buy the full freehold of Stamford to include the pitch, or buy a new site in Battersea, he’s not fully in control and this has proven to be a less successful endeavour.

So what about the new arrivals and are there going to be any more?

The loss of Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou seemed to suggest that a new top-quality striker is high the agenda.

The likes of Hulk, and Edison Carvani are constantly being mentioned, but none has arrived.

It’s the midfield are that has seen the greatest influx, Eden Hazard, Ed De Bruyne, Marko Marin and Oscar have all arrived in the summer.

De Bruyne has being farmed out to Germany, but that still leaves the others and they need to be accommodated with Lampard, Merieles, Ramires, Mikel, Essien and McEachran.

The current thinking suggests that there won’t be a top-line striker coming into the club this summer.

Rather, Roman has decided to pack the squad with, albeit high-quality, support players for Fernando Torres.

Ron Gourlay made great play a week after the Champions League, that Torres was the number one striker this season.

However no season Chelsea watcher was expecting that that would mean that Nando was going to be molly-coddled to the extent that he would not have a major new rival to his single striker status.

Current forward Daniel Sturridge will be expected, along with the rest to provide the ball for Torres.

Come what may, Roman wants Torres, his £50m man to succeed, and he wants nothing to get in that way.

That is all lovely of course, for Torres, but, what if Torres fails to discover any goal-scoring form, or, gets a injury?

“We could be in eight place or worse by Christmas,” lamented a Chelsea fan I spoke to after Saturday’s defeat.

Even Robbie seemed resigned to the current scenario.

“I’m happy with this squad,” he said.

He highlighted that even the other supposed problem position, namely right-back would be covered by veteran Paulo Ferreira and, just back from injury, youngster Sam Hutchinson.

Di Matteo is desperate for his Euro 2012 and Olympic players get back to Chelsea as soon as possible.

Then he has to work miracles to forge a team into a formation that will survive and thrive the rigours of a long, long season.

The season’s start is running towards him with undue haste.

If the recent performances and results are e hoed come league time, Chelsea could easily find themselves out of title contention before Christmas.

That’s what happened last season and the axe fell on Villas-Boas.

Di Matteo is astute, he knows the parameters of his job.

“I said that I want to win and score goals,” Di Matteo responded to a journalist’s question about changing to a more attacking style.

Let’s hope for his sake, Torres gets the support he needs to score the goals that win games.

Judging from the last five matches, that is as unlikely as England or now even Team GB ever to win a penalty shoot-out.