Chelsea's current crop of players have soft underbellies. These players severely lack fighting spirit, guts and determination. There are no leaders in that squad that can stand up and drag the club away from the lower reaches. Once a trait of Chelsea teams now seems like a distant memory.
However, Droba's quotes on the current Chelsea team in his book is sadly true, I am afraid :
“I don’t like to compare things to when I was there, but there are some facts that you can’t hide. Chelsea we had a lot of leaders in the team, not only last year but during the previous seasons. There was Frank Lampard, Petr Cech, John Terry, Drodba, Michael Ballack, Michael Essien, Claude Makelele – big names, big players and big characters. They could take responsibility for a result and change the situation in bad moments such as when there was a change of manager or when we had bad results. There was always someone to step up and say, ‘Guys, we need to do something’ and everybody would follow. JT is still there but on your own it is very difficult, so other players have to come up with this mentality"
“But it’s not something you are born with – you build it within you. You have to make sure that it is the right moment to talk and to take the lead and, most importantly, the rest of the team has to accept you as a leader. When you stand up and say, ‘Let’s go and win’ you have to make sure that you produce yourself – you can’t be a leader if you are not the first to show that you have the determination to want to win. I think there are some leaders in this current squad and hopefully you will soon see that."
Though, Chelsea probably wouldn't appreciate an ex-player reeling out the old ‘I don’t like to compare things to when I was there but there are some facts that you can’t hide‘ line.
Not right now. Perhaps not ever.
Football clubs strive to retain their identity and their rate of achievement , but the reality is, that all clubs are wholly dependent upon the personnel that the club employs – and this is why no club stays at the very top, in a highly competitive league – for ever.
Chelsea are in a spot of bother, but Drogba is being unhelpful here.
Chelsea's Current Squad
posted on 26/11/15
IMO he does have a point though. There is something about this group that does seem to have the look of having a glass jaw about it. When things are going fine with a nice tail wind behind us and the lager's cold etc etc. then we can look like a very good team but when things are difficult and we need to dig deep and find strength of character, something sadly seems to be lacking, despite have people like JT, who exemplifies that kind of spirit.
The team that won the Champions League in 2012 wasn't as good as the teams that had preceded it in the earlier years, but it did have real character and big bollox when it was coming on top in the Nou Camp and Allianz Arena. They refused to lose in spite of overwhelming odds at times.
This current squad could maybe do with a bit more of that never say die spirit, although we did manage to grind out results without playing well for the second half of last season.
Hopefully they can withstand the sort of thorough examination of our credentials that I suspect that we will get on Sunday.
posted on 27/11/15
Ny feelings exactly Summer . It's a shame really, because they are obviously very talented players, but lack nous, guts and fighting spirit. One would hope that this will change soon. We're due a big performance from this team, hopefully it's on Sunday against Spurs
posted on 27/11/15
Beating Spurs isn't Big
posted on 27/11/15
Sorry, probably need to rephrase it better "We are due a performance from Chelsea that will give Spuuds a good hiding on Sunday"
posted on 27/11/15
Completely agree, This team is ok when things are rosey but when we really needed character against 10 man PSG they completely destroyed us, Ok it was 2-2 but they had men that night... Silva, Luiz, Maxwell, Motta, Cavani etc.