Knocked out of the Champions League by Man United on Tuesday evening, the only real battle Chelsea now have left this season is the fight for second place with Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal. Despite their European woes, the Blues have been picking up the points when it comes to league duties, although to accuse them of underperforming would be something of an understatement.
Carlo Ancelotti’s side have, nevertheless, recorded seven wins and two draws from their last ten league games and with an away trip to West Brom followed by a home game with Carling Cup winners Birmingham City, Ancelotti will be targeting six points as he looks to overcome the Gunners’ four point lead in the race for the runners-up spot and bring a positive end to a season that initially offered so much promise but, ultimately, delivered nothing.
The Prospects
As mentioned, Chelsea have dropped just seven points from thirty, but a look at their results shows that, during this run, the Blues have found it far easier to find the net on their travels. They have scored more than two goals in three of their last five away games, returning twelve goals and clocking up two clean sheets in the process. Roy Hodgson’s Baggies may be unbeaten in seven, but have been unable to keep a clean sheet during that run, a fact that offers hope for attacking returns for Fantasy Premier League (FPL) owners ahead of the Hawthorns showdown.
At home, things are a lot tighter; Chelsea have scored just seven goals in the last five games, have failed to find the net more than twice, though have chalked up three clean sheets. Ancelotti will be looking to avenge the 1-0 St Andrews defeat earlier in the campaign and there’s every likelihood, given Birmingham’s lacklustre away form; Alex McLeish’s side have five points from their last five on the road and have scored just four goals in that spell, though only once have failed to find the net.
The Likely Lads
With such a bloated playing squad, Ancelotti has a multitude of options and recent games have seen him spring surprises in terms of both starting line-up and team shape when perhaps least expected. Fernando Torres gets benched at home to Wigan then starts at Old Trafford in the Champions League. 4-3-3 is replaced by 4-4-2, which is then ditched for 4-3-2-1, as the Christmas tree gets rolled out once again.
The main issue for Fantasy Managers contemplating Chelsea coverage is, perhaps, what players stand the best chance of actually playing both games? As Mark has indicated earlier this week, Petr Cech and David Luiz top the Watchlist for Goalkeepers and Defenders respectively, with the latter’s Champions League ineligibility, coupled with league displays that have seen him average over 7 FPL points per start since his January move, making him the strongest candidate across the back-four.
Having played every minute of Chelsea’s league campaign thus far, Ashley Cole will be expected to start the two games as should John Terry, though the recent Wigan match showed Ancelotti is not afraid to leave his captain out, either.
Then there’s the issue of Frank Lampard. At £13.0m in FPL he’s a hefty price, but tops the Watchlist for Midfielders due, in a sense, to the uncertainty surrounding the Chelsea forwards. If Didier Drogba misses any minutes, Lampard will be on direct free kicks and corners, as well as penalties, making him almost too obvious a pick to ignore.
As these Average Position maps from the Champions League tie with Man United (above) show, Lampard (8) was high up the field when either Torres or Drogba led the line and, if Ancelotti opts for the 4-3-2-1 again, would stand a better chance of a decent points haul than if Chelsea go 4-4-2, as this Average Position map (below) taken from the Wigan game illustrates.
So…onto the forwards. It’s been an impossibility to second-guess Ancelotti’s team selections of late but, after the Man United game, there was a couple of quotes that perhaps, just perhaps, leaned more towards Didier Drogba being the best bet ahead of the double gameweek.
When asked if he should have started Drogba, Ancelotti replied:
Maybe. I thought a lot about the decision and preferred to start with Torres for this game. Didier played well second-half. I wanted to put more pressure up front. We needed to score and Didier was fresh and could use his power. This was the reason I took off Fernando.
On the subject of Torres, Ancelotti then added:
We have to believe in him, we have to wait until he improves.
Add in the fact that, over the last two gameweeks, only one player has had more shots at goal than Drogba (no irony that the player concerned is Daniel Sturridge, then…) and all roads point to the big Ivorian as the safest bet here.
Cheeky Punts
Florent Malouda has missed just over 20 minutes of action over the past three gameweeks and a look at the stats for midfielders shows he fired in the most shots last weekend in a performance that saw him grab Chelsea’s crucial winner. As this was only his fourth league goal since Gameweek 5, Malouda seems best classed as a “Punt”, regardless of the fact he is still third-highest scoring midfielder in FPL.
Salomon Kalou has played almost half the league minutes of Malouda, yet has still bagged seven goals and assisted five times, three goals less but one assist more than the Frenchman. The Chelsea shape could be crucial to his returns but it’s worth noting Kalou’s (21) positioning in the above Champions League second half map, which offers promise to any would-be suitors. His playing time could well be limited over the two games and Kalou is definitely a high-risk option but -as the above stats show- even with limited minutes, he does offer potentially decent returns.
For £11.4m, there’s little point in including Fernando Torres as a “Punt” here. That amount of Fantasy Budget demands something more concrete ahead of a double gameweek and while there is the school of thought that “He’s got to score at some point”, there’s no denying El Nino has done nothing in recent weeks that merits our recommendation.
