Well we have a 2 week hiatus from the prem, 2 cup competitions and a lot of pressure to win the 2 upcoming matches, but a welcome break from the disappointing new year to date in the league.
Last March Carlo won the Barclays Manager of the month gong, Chelsea after looking dead and buried started a remarkable run that would eventually land the team in 2nd place, a feat for which the double winning manager was promptly sacked for. Looking at the fixture schedules for Chelsea, Gooners, Toon & Dippers and despite all the apocalyptic postings that resulted from our 2 0 humiliation by Moyes men I do see hope to regain 4th.
Drogba & Kalou will be back, Torres will have to either find form very quick or be dropped. I've just had a look at the teams' schedules involved in the battle for 4th spot . It's not all doom and gloom, if the rot can be stopped as it was this time last year and bearing in mind the other 3 clubs also have some tricky fixtures and it is well possible for Chelsea to get back into the top 4. Only Spuds and City games for us would appear to be no hopers for points, and so far the team has shown up in most of the big games. The question is for me will AVB have enough in his locker to pick up this struggling team by the scruff and beat Bolton, WBA, Stoke & Villa and gain 12 big big points along the way ? Or should the Board take advantage of the cup break and send an SOS out to the obvious candidate Mr. Hiddink - a lot of posters seem to favour the latter approach to rescue what they feel is an irreversible downward spiral. I am on the fence although leaning to the latter, have 2 good mates over here , both from London, both longtime fans since the 70s like me, they both want AVB gone the sooner the better . You can argue that in sacking AVB its more financial woes, but in the words of Roman himself to my mate Danny at the Hollywood Hills Chelsea & misc celebrities US pre season tour party in 2007"it's only money", and boy oh boy does he have very deep pockets.
It might look like a hopeless situation, but apart from the top 3 clubs its been a well mental season with upsets all round, so lets keep the faith, the blue flag flying high and hope AVB can man up and match Carlo's feat of a year ago.
Unfortunately, like most things in life, what you hope for and what you expect are very different things.
However, I am still leaning on the side of hope.
When a team is fighting for the title at the top, or big nights in europe the pundits often talk about experience and I hope we can use our experience of getting ourselves out of this mess last season to our advantage, even if it gives the players some faith that they have recovered from this sort of dip before.
My only concern is that there were signs of improvement towards then end of last seasons 'mid-season dip' but after saturdays performance that did not seem to be the case.
Its nice to see people like frank come out saying that the players need to shoulder this responsability as much as the manager, especially as some had frank as one of the leaders of the pack in this so called revolt.
Getting JT back into the team has to be a priority as no matter how good the manager is, once the team is on the pitch it needs leaders amoungst it rather than shouting from the sidelines, and as we saw against UTD were we devout of any time of leadership.
As you mentioned, there have been some odd results this year, and assuming liverpool or Arsenal are going to do any better than us over the next 12-13 games is assuming a lot, and that newcastle will stay the course and challenge for a Champiopns league is a push for even a geordie.
Even if we kick on and put a run in like this time last year, I dont think anything above 4th is realistic as the top 3 are showing no real signs of declining but you never know what this england job thing will do to Harry and the atmosphere in that dressing room. Fingers crossed on that.
What is the most disappointing is the stories in the press saying about HAzard going to Tottenham and his supposed comments about it. My heart breaks to think players would rather be a spud than a blue, but getting out of this rot is the only way to put that right once and for all!!
