Im guessing I wasn’t the only one to wince when John Terry buckled under the weight of Luis Suarez in the first-half of the Liverpool clash yesterday.
With an ear-piercing screech from Terry, thousands of Chelsea fans muttered ‘Please don’t be bad’ in unison, as we began to figure out that we would certainly need to finish of Liverpool without our captain. Which of course we failed to do.
Two points from our last three games, when we had a case for all nine, is enough reason to worry, despite our rampant start leaving us just three points off the pace.
We face in-form West Bromwich last week, and Di Matteo will be pressing to his players to problem, which is easy enough to see, as should the games have finished after 70 minutes, we would’ve taken 7 points, not two.
We can point at missed chances from Mata and Oscar as the reason behind yesterdays result, but looking at the bigger picture, the last game John Terry completed was the 4-1 victory over Norwich, and before that, we had kept four clean sheets from six home games, but in the four since then, we have managed none, conceding seven goals, which seriously hampers chances of winning games, despite our impressive scoring record.
Azpilicueta impressed, and the Ivanovic and Cahill partnership looked solid enough, which would persuade me to keep that, as with David Luiz, I believe we look a lot more vulnerable, as shown against Tottenham, when it certainly seemed like we was simply trying to outscore the opposition.
Di Matteo and co. will be sweating over the MRI results tomorrow, and despite knee ligament damage is most likely, we will all be hoping he can recover extremely quickly.
After our trip to the midlands next week, we face vital six-pointers against Juventus and Man City, as we look to both retain our Champions League crown, and keep up in the battle for the Premier League.
By Brad Smith
Follow @BrummieBrad