Franck Leboeuf is giving us the benefit of his advice ahead of our game against City tomorrow. Not that we’re already way behind in the league already or anything but the former Chelsea defender thinks we should look at it as a cup game.
I’m not sure whether he realises we’ve played them a few times already but Leboeuf says “Chelsea need to win to close the gap but Manchester City are flying right now in the Barclays Premier League so it will be very hard to catch them. Chelsea will have to approach this like it was an FA Cup game. City will try to get a draw. They will sit back and wait for Chelsea to make a mistake and get them on a counter-attack. Coming from Italy’s Serie A, Robert Mancini will be an expert when it comes to tactics and so he will do his best to ruin any chance that Chelsea have. City will be tough opponents for Chelsea to cope with because of the power and the strength and the skill of the Citizens.”
Straying a little wide of the mark, Leboeuf goes on to compare City’s David Silva with Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola, saying “David Silva has settled into the Barclays Premier League so quickly, he reminds me of what Gianfranco Zola did when he came to Chelsea and became a club legend. Everyone thought it would take Zola ages to make the transition from Italian to English football but he adapted really quickly. That is because as well as being very skilful and technically excellent players they are both tough cookies and that makes a massive difference. They never complain even when they are subject to man-to-man marking when their opponents try desperately to stop them and they work really hard for their team. On top of that, Silva really benefits from the help he gets from Yaya Toure who really works hard behind him. Silva can always be confident that he can focus on attacking and does not have to do too much defending because Toure and Gareth Barry are behind him.”
Blue is the colour
