Not for the first time this season, Florent Malouda has noticed we aren’t exactly being given much in the way of credit for our start to the season. As if we had any control at all over the fixture list, in spite of our five wins from five so far, all we keep hearing is how we haven’t actually played anyone yet.
With everyone so focused on our season apparently starting next weekend, Malouda insists “We’re not focused on Manchester City. We have to play all the teams. People are thinking about Manchester City because they are not giving us credit for what we’ve done until now. But we have to stay focused. We know, as we did last year, we can achieve great performances against big teams, it’s not a problem for us. We have a lot of games to come and we play to win every game.”
Obviously, playing at home against West Brom, Stoke and Blackpool in our opening five games has given us an easier start than most but we have managed 21 goals out of it, so we’re hardly unconvincing. Take the game against Blackpool, we didn’t have Lampard, Anelka or John Terry, we only played for the first half and yet still came away with a 4-0 win. A bit more effort and we might actually get a bit of recognition from it.
Not that any of us assume it’ll be as easy from here on in, we’re not so arrogant we don’t realise tougher tests will come, personally though I’m just sick of hearing it said every time we get a win. It doesn’t seem to be bothering Carlo Ancelotti much though, with the Chelsea boss insisting “We wanted to start like last year, we had a good start last year, and we are doing that (again), now we have to look forward. It could be we had an easy start. We didn’t play against the top teams, but I think we are playing very well and this is the most important thing. It’s important to maintain the same level of play against the top teams and I think we are able to do this. We have confidence. We know very well the next game will be more difficult.
Last year we lost a big game against Manchester City and this year we want to do better. It is an important test. But it is an important test for them and not just for us. Man City is a new team and they need to have more time to play as a team.”
We’ll face City next week, with Arsenal to follow but whilst it’ll no doubt be harder to get points from them than it’s been so far, it’d be nice to think we’ll start to get the credit we’re due once they’re out the way. We may well have lost twice to City last season but it didn’t stop us going on to win the double and whilst they’ve invested heavily over the summer, it’s our stability that makes us stronger this time round.
So bring ‘em on!
Blue is the colour
