What we learnt from the first 10 games of the EPL: Part 1/3

SWANSEA, WALES – NOVEMBER 03: Cesar Azpilicueta of Chelsea applauds the fans during the Barclays Premier League match between Swansea City and Chelsea at Liberty Stadium on November 3, 2012 in Swansea, Wales.

It started with a cracker, which included jaw dropping results like Liverpool recovering from a 3-0 drubbing to draw City, which I think they should have won and the Chelsea‘s 4-2 victory over Spurs. Mata made Spurs look like a bunch of headless chickens and there were those two exceptional goals.Well, looking at the table, we know it is going to be a three way title fight between the Manchester clubs and the Blues, unless one of them is going to suffer a severe dip in form to make it like last year. I will discuss one team in each segment, what they more likely to suffer from and what they will have to do to avoid such a crisis?

Chelsea:

Seven wins, two draws and a sole defeat to United. A fine start to the season, and they look great under the leadership of RDM (He is reportedly suffering from “Pep” blues). They have recorded some impressive victories over Stoke and Arsenal and the two draws came from matches against QPR and Swansea.

The real problem has come from the draw with the latter, RDM fielded a fairly different team and they took the lead through Victor Moses from a set-piece and then concede a late goal from Hernandez (Pablo, this time) and succumbed to a draw.The problem is that RDM has used his best players in the start of the season and now that the fixture list is tightening up, he is unable to field the same 11 all the time and an additional problem to this are the second string players (Marko Marin and Victor Moses can hardly be called so but, this is Chelsea we are talking about) who have lacked game time and look like they lack match sharpness.

Even Hazard and Oscar looked tired and fatigue could take over the squad. The problem is the lack of rotation and the absence of need another centre-back. They can’t rely on John Terry forever. Cahill is good but Luiz is really error prone with his defending and if Ivanovic is moved central, then they have to put Azpilicueta at right-back, something RDM is not looking to do.

They need another striker as well, as Torres is flying solo with Sturridge not finishing his chances as was illustrated in his performance against United in the league cup. But I think he can do well if given a consistent run of games.

Need to do:

1) Rotate his squad and give a break for players like Mata, Hazard and Torres.

2) Buy a centre-back.

3) Buy a striker or start pushing Sturridge into first-team before he calls it a day at Chelsea.