Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Papering Over Cracks

No, the title above is not slang for a type of hobby usually done in men's prisons (that's for another type of blog). 

It is instead an English idiom meaning "hastily covering up some fault or weakness with makeshift solutions", a situation Chelsea currently find themselves in danger of doing. 

2 wins in 2 matches, one against a top-4 contender in the BPL and one more against a Danish side in the Champions League, what the hell are you talking about, I hear you say.

Well, that is exactly what may happen if Chelsea get carried away with the scoreline (and 3 points each) rather than taking a cold, hard and objective look at those games (and the underlying problems present in both).

Whilst a 2-1 victory against Arsenal at the Emirates and a 4-0 trashing of Nordsjaelland away at their home turf sounds great on paper, only a fan watching those games with Blue-tinted specs would not notice that they did not play well.

In summary: Torres could have had a hatful of goals over those games but only scored 1. Both goals against Arsenal came on a gift-plate when the Gunners momentarily forgotten how defending against set-pieces work. Despite playing against a team from a relatively weaker league, Chelsea could only muster 1 goal and made to sweat 79 minutes before getting their 3 more in the last 10 minutes of proceedings. 

Admittedly too, they seem to be still enjoying their slice of last season's good fortune, as Lady Luck appeared in both games wearing a Samsung kit. But as history has shown, Lady Luck is a committment-phobe and a serial polygamist. One minute cavorting in your bed, the next she could be frolicking happily with your neighbour. 

When that happens, the fear is that Chelsea's inability to close down a game and dominate it may prove to be their undoing. 8 games into a season with fresh faces brought in is still considered the "adjusting" period. However, RDM must seriously work at getting over this period as fast as he can and weave the Blues into a dominating, fluid unit capable of winning games with or without Lady Luck

Let us hope they find that rhythm and click sooner than their luck runs out. Only then can we look back and sigh with relief that the damn piece of paper has covered the crack quite well. 



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