Chelsea 2-0 Fulham: Three points, top of the league - everything is OK, right?

Chelsea’s Nigerian midfielder John Mikel Obi (C) celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during the English Premier League football match between Chelsea and Fulham at Stamford Bridge

How many times did Gary Cahill, Mikel and John Terry touch the ball in the first half compared to our attacking three? For all our possession in non threatening areas, we could and should have gone in at half time a goal down if Darren Bent hadn’t made a mess of the best chance of the game. Credit Petr Cech for coming off of his line early and doing well to block his shot but let’s be honest, it should have been 0-1.

I spent most of the first half tweeting to my 18,000 twitter followers (and counting!) that I wanted us to play at a faster, higher tempo and to have some penetration of the Fulham back line. It never happened and I was becoming more and more frustrated.

Scott Parker and Steve Sidwell had it easy in the middle of the pitch because our tempo was lacking. We never moved the ball quick enough forward into wide areas to spread the play and stretch the two of them apart. If we had done that, spaces would have opened up in front of their back four and we could capitalise on that. It was too easy for them.

At half time we go in 0-0 and at that point, I said that I hadn’t seen anything different from the last couple of performances from Chelsea based on the coverage of our so called “crisis”. I wanted to see a positive reaction in that first half but if anything, it once again highlighted that our team misses the quality of Juan Mata!

I was calling for a change in our formation to be made at the time. I had suggested that Eto’o, Schurrle and Oscar should come off for Lampard, Kevin De Bruyne and Fernando Torres to come on and switch to 4-3-3. This would mean our back four remained the same but Lampard would play next to Ramires and just in front of Mikel with a forward line of De Bruyne, Torres and Hazard to really take the game to Fulham. It never happened.

Now for the second positive. Our second half performance won us the game and was better.

What I had been looking for from the start, finally happened in the second half. We played and moved the ball quicker and started to find gaps in the Fulham defence. As a result, they sat deeper, Parker and Sidwell struggled to get involved in the game in attacking areas and found themselves on the back foot and Chelsea started to create better chances!.

Oscar took one of those chances to make it 1-0 shortly after the break and Mikel (Yes Mikel!) scored to make it 2-0 and Chelsea had the game won and an important three points were ours at last!

It frustrates the life out of me as to why it took us 45 minutes to get going yesterday! We all saw the difference when we did, it was the exciting style of play we know we have in us. When we play at pace, teams struggle to cope with our movement and our tempo.

So, after all this, Chelsea sit top of the league ahead of the Premier League games today and we have put ourselves in an important position with the Manchester derby taking place later.

Without question, Chelsea are a work in progress and the Juan Mata debate still rumbles on. We have a trip to Swindon coming up on Tuesday ahead of a difficult trip to White Hart Lane on Saturday and we need to work hard if we are to take another three points next week.