Bet Chelsea

Be afraid. Be very afraid. The influence of the great Luis Felipe Scolari on Chelsea was manifest in the opening minutes of the new season and as Portsmouth found out carried on through the full 90 minutes of glorious soccer. Nor was this a flash in the pan. Suddenly this team had been told what to do, just as they had when Jose Mourinho took over and in that first season had Damien Duff and Arjen Robben dancing down the wings.

Instruction one: Let the ball do the work. One touch and move. Be in place to support the man with the ball. Know the man will be in the space.

Instruction two: Hunt in packs so you can win back possession on the run and harass opponent’s attacks

Instruction three: Do not give the ball away by trying to dribble into opponents. Play into the space

Instruction four: If you are attacking you don’t need to defend

Instruction five: Use the wings

Item five was especially a weakness with Chelsea under both Mourinho and Grant, where tatacks arrived from an angle of 45 degrees at speed in the hope of wrong footing an opponent instead of making the byline and crossing from 90 degrees, the more so with a centreforwrad still to come back in Didier Drogba.

This was a stunning victory and achieved without Drogba, Michael Essien and Michal Ballack who went off early, who many might say are Chelsea’s three best players

Bet Chelsea

Frank Lampard is physically an exceptional footballer. Until last season the 30 year old barely missed a game. His coverage of the picth in a normal 90 minutes exceeds nearly every player in the Premier League. But the rub is that he is 30. Chelsea’s capitulation in giving him a five year deal is an odd call. the more so as he is not the only thirtysomething around Stamford Bridge these days. Deco is 30. Didier Drogba is 30. This is a good team but as Sir Alec Ferguson has pointed out you don’t win championships with old players, especially considering the intensity of Premiership football.

Euro 2008 was a clear pointer to the fact that youth can prevail in the likes of Holland and Russia. across town Arsene Wenger, that most intellectual of football coaches, has plainly committed the club to youth. And it makes good business sense. Today he sold right back Justin Hoyte to Middlebrough. Hoyte is 23 and has been with the club since he was 11. Arsenal also received a percentage of the money that Spurs spent on David Bentley. Wenger’s policy is good business and produces good football. And he has not been scared to pay the money for teenagers like Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsay.

Lampard’s deal values him notionally at £30million which is rather more than Jose Mourinho would have paid to take him to Internazionale Milan, although Chelsea perhaps consider that anyone else they might have brought in would have cost similar in wages plus the transfer fee. Lampard said he was very happy. You bet, Frank. There a reccession on the way, unemployment is rising and you just trousered £30million.

Lampard has always been a lucky player for Chelsea. A great many of his long speculative shots have caught a fortunate deflection. He almost plays for it. This is the luck that deserts him when he puts on an England shirt. Roman Abramovich better trust he bought the lucky Lampard and that as has happened with England and Steven Gerrard the Chelsea midfield is not now so crowded he will get shunted out of the play.

Crystal ball time. The first Saturday of the football season is the hardest weekend to call. Last season was last season, everyone is pumped up, some fitter than others, the sun is shining and it is all very unfootballing, unseasonal and so are the odds. There are historically two things to watch out for if we are going make money betting on football matches this season. This weekend because there is no form at all to go on, it is probably the least predictable of any weekend to come. For the last couple of years you could have kept yourself in beer and sandals by doing a double on Chelsea and Manchester United each week A double at £10 would return £17.20, make it a triple with Liverpool would return £29.74 and pop in Arsenal for a quad and your money might harvest £36.28. That may be a bold bet for a first Staturday.

 The other unknown is what kind of season is it going to be in terms of goals scored. Towards the end of last season Aston Villa were popping goals in for fun. Is that the way to go? Portsmouth have invested in a very sharp looking new attack with Jermaine Defoe and Peter Crouch and reportedly Shaun Wright Phillips on his way and he could make a differernce. United reputedly have a £20million bid in for Spurs Dimitri Berbatov possibly, surely, only if Cristiano Ronaldo is off to the Madristas. Otherwise a forward line of Berbatov, Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez could be falling over each other like drunken ballerinas to actually put the ball in the net? Too much artistry, perhaps or maybe the master Scottish plan is to withdraw Rooney into mdifield, though probably not as far as full back. Nor has Felipe Scolari as yet shown his hand although for sure he must conclude that the only area of genuine improvement he might bring to Stamford Bridge would be on the wings…that is if he has not got so many fullbacks flying up and down the touchline he does not need anymore wingers?

It is interesting that Chelsea play Portsmouth on the first day of the season. A Pompey victory is beautiful odds of 8/1 and maybe it could be that Chelsea are well up themselves coping with some fancy Brazilian system while Harry Redknapp’s boys do the basics and steal it. The end of Jose Mourinho’s unbeaten home run might be just the kind of cathartic, purging experience to launch a new era and genuine attack minded football on all fronts. Look what happened to them at Barnsley in the FA Cup last winter. Hardly looked back.

Another curious tie is the mystery of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal hosting an optimistic West Bromwhich Albion. Is there maybe a draw in this for the Baggies? 9/2 are tempting numbers. 11/1 for a win sounds a little far fetched but any more departures from north London and it could all go boing boing boing.

Aston Villa host Manchester City which says goals if Mark Hughes new striker Jo is as good as reports and City sprung up the league apace in the sunshine last year.

Bolton could destroy Stoke, Hull might surprise Fulham but there is nothing in the astrology that says the Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle can get anything at Manchester United.

Tottenham have a nasty game at Middlesbrough and don’t appear to currently have a forward line or certainly in terms of the rumour mill they have all been sold. Juande Ramos is too shrewd for that to happen, so probably too earkly to bet. Liverpool won’t like a trip to Roy Keane’s Sunderland either and in a reverse sense the West Ham Academy of Footballing Arts won’t get any bursaries out of Steve Bruce’s Wigan who finished very strong last term.  

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Felipe Scolari opened the transfer wheeling dealing bagging his Portugese general Deco for the Stamford Bridge from Barcelona. The 30-year old-could do what Cesc Fabregas does for Arsenal and probably signals Frank Lampard’s departure to his old boss Jose Mourinho at Internazionale Milan. The fee is reported to be £7.9million.

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The big man Felipe Scolari arrives at Stamford Bridge this week and who knows what he and Roman Abramovich have cooked up? First he inherits a good team, a team that missed out on winning the European Champions League by one penalty miss. A team that tracked a rampant and very fine Manchester United side to the last minutes of the 2007/8 season. However good or bad Avram Grant was as a manager, this team knows what to do. They still have it instilled in them from the Jose Mourinho era. A bit of man management to get the best out of one or two underperformers and they could be an outstanding team taking everything that moves. How quickly Scolari can get things moving is critical but the English players at least will be fresh from a summer by the pool. On the other hand knowing how capricious Abramovich could be the stable ship could be unsettled by multiple comings and goings just to please the owner who wants a new train set.

At the back they don’t have problems although the flying Portugese right back Jose Boswinga is a luxurious addition. Claude Makele’s age is not an issue with either Michael Essien or John Obe Mikel more than capable of being the enforcers. Indeed when Grant bought Nicolas Anelka in the transfer window many wonderered if he could even risk playing 4-2-4 with Drogba and Anelka up front, two wingers and the African hard men in the middle. It would have been brave, but it would have been electric football. The question is more to do with those wingers. In Mourinho’s first season it was Arjen Robben and Damien Duff, both now sold. Although they got good money for Robben to Real Madrid, as the Dutch found out in Euro 2008 he does not always turn up fit enough to play. But Florent Malouda was no substitute for them, Nor was Shaun Wright Phillips who flattered against the lesser teams and against the big teams just passed the ball straight back to the opponents. Joe Cole as other managers have noticed is not really a winger and has never quite found the best position for his talents.

Strangely in midfield Scolari could afford to let Frank Lampard go which would free up the shape of the team. In Michael Ballack he has a class operator going forward.

So does Scolari stick with what he has or twist on a few fancy purchases? By general assent there are too many players at Chelsea and some have to go. The big decision must be Didier Drogba who annoyed the faithful by getting sent off in the Champions League Final, but he is 30 and maybe only has one more year at the top level. Unfortunately for him the Milan rumours have it that Mourinho’s new Internazionale are well endowed with strikers where it is the other Milan club AC that need a strike force to team up with Kaka and the young Pato.

But there is another factor which in football terms runs deep. It was Lampard’s goals from midfield and Drogba’s explosiveness on which much of Chelsea’s success was based. Losing two such talismen sounds like a bad omen. Portsmouth are 8/1 to win at Stamford Bridge on the first day of the season. Stranger things have happened. Let the samba begin.

Bet on Chelsea to win the the Premiership

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