Big Ears Cup: Chelsea v Olympic Marseille Preview
By dixon9
September 27 2010
French champions Olympic Marseille come to the Bridge tomorrow evening having already lost their first match to Spartak Moscow. Like us, they also lost at the weekend in the league and judging by quotes from manager Deschamps, they will be looking to pack the midfield and focus on closing us down as quickly as possible.
Bus parking and congestion charge?
"I did watch the game against Manchester City, who did a lot of good things that hopefully we can repeat,” said Deschamps.
"We need to close the space down and impose ourselves physically. These kind of games are settled in the finer details and let us hope it is settled in our favour.”
Deschamps for Chelsea...er...against Marseille...and Pires!
French counter
Marseille are also known for hitting opponents very quickly on the break so they will almost certainly sit back during the early stages of the match. Of course, if we score early this would force them to open up and avoid another tough chess match similar to what we experienced at the City of Manchester stadium at the weekend.
Treatmeant table
Drogba serves the last of his two-match ban so will miss playing against his old club (that said, I’m sure the really special match for him would be the return match in France at the Stade Velodrome).
Lampard and Benayoun are both still out but Ashley Cole returns and Kakuta has recovered from his back injury after being kicked 6ft up in the air against Newcastle last week.
Kalou is also injured so we are again, a bit thin on the ground for senior player options, but at least it gives Ancelotti more possibilities in further blooding some of our youngsters.
Judging by media information, Marseille should be pretty much at full strength although some pundits claim they are not as strong as they were last season.
We do it our way
Ancelotti will not take anything for granted of course:
"Marseille are a good team, with good organization. They use attacking play and they are quick.”
"My players will know everything about the opponent but the most important thing is our play. If we play our best, we will win."
(I like his philosophy of concentrating principally on playing our game rather than obsessing about opponents tactics).
Young Josh - Modest yet confident
Team from: Cech, Ivanovic, Terry, Alex, Cole, Ramires, Mikel, Essien, Anelka, Borini, Kakuta, Malouda, Ferreira, Bruma, Zhirkov, Sturridge, Turnbull, Van Aanholt, McEachran.
(Wouldn’t it be nice if both Kakuta and McEachran both got some playing time?).
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Makes a change from reading Chelsea: 'Corrupt cup' flashing across the top of my screen when I'm on the Arsenal section
"It is born out of hypocrisy and fundamental insecurity. There have been two kids on the block for the past 12 years. Suddenly, there is a third and that one is threatening to be more successful than the others and they don’t like it." P Kenyon.