We might have enjoyed a fair bit of success since Roman Abramovich arrived at Chelsea but we’ve also taken our fair share of criticism around our style of play – and not without cause a lot of the time.
We might have been a bit of a machine in Mourinho’s first couple of seasons but let’s face it, it was more about efficiency than entertainment. The less said about Grant, the better because I’ll never be convinced he actually did anything apart from move a few cones about in training. And Scolari didn’t exactly introduce the Brazilian style we all wanted to see either. So, whilst we’ve still been there or thereabouts, it’s fair to say it hasn’t always been easy on the eye.
Strange to find our football suddenly earning us praise then – particularly seeing as our latest boss didn’t exactly veer away from the Italian way in his former life, but then, as Ancelotti says “This team is the owner’s, it’s not mine. It is the team of Roman Abramovich and I am honoured to train this team. He likes to see Chelsea play like we did against Sunderland. If we give enjoyment to our fans it’s good, it’s one of our aims. We want to play for the whole 90 minutes. The people pay the money for their tickets to see the game for 90 minutes not just for 45 minutes. There is a different culture here to Italy but I would have told the Milan players to play for 90 minutes. Every team I train, I ask them to play 90 minutes of football. I would like to see Chelsea play every game like this. I don’t know if it’s possible but we want to try. Yes it’s what I have wanted. My dream is to see my team play like this every game.”
Obviously that’s what we’d all like to see every game too, and Florent Malouda really believes we’re heading in the right direction, saying “Sometimes people are speaking about boring Chelsea, but we are changing their mind and showing we have quality too. You hear comments about Chelsea but I would say that, even last season, when we were playing teams like Barcelona, we were not boring at all. Sometimes people speak about our physical strengths but we have quality too, and we are trying to show it. I think Chelsea have been performing over the years. We are regularly challenging in the Champions League and the Premier League, so maybe we deserve some credit for that.”
Well, whether we’ve always deserved it or not, being the highest scorers in the Premier League this season certainly seems to be bringing a bit of credit our way and Malouda says “We always want to play with a positive ambition, trying to play football all the time and taking risks. We are improving our passing game in the last third of the pitch, so it’s all good. In this period, with the discipline we are showing, we can achieve great things. We are a good team, we know that, but we are still trying to improve and hopefully we will get the titles.”
And that’s definitely what we want.
Blue is the colour
