I doubt Milan will be selling any of their players. Perhaps Kaka, not sure. But also look for them to be buying up some of Juve's players too.
Craig Bellamy scores on his debut in front of a Welsh crowd. I'm liking this signing more and more, and he may turn out to be Rafa's shrewdest buy of all.
Chelsea don't have it in the bag. Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool are all capable of playing at and sustaining Chelsea's level of play, and they all have the squad to do so. One, maybe two of them won't keep it up, but one or two of them WILL, and I predict Chelsea will not win this year, it will be Liverpool or Arsenal, and never count out Man U. Spurs could even have a good run, or Newcastle.
Chelsea have had two years where they didn't encounter any or many Premier League bad patches. They won't do that again for a third. Like any other team, they will go through a bad patch this year and lose a few games, and it is up to one of the other big teams to avoid bad patches, get a few points lead over Chelsea, and maintain it. Arsenal, Man U and Liverpool are all capable of beating Chelsea home or away, or losing. They all must really raise their game and get something off Chelsea. I think they will do it.
Also, Chelsea's new squad may not gel. I like Ballack, but he's not as good as people think and won't fit at Chelsea. Shevchenko's absolutely class, but what of Drogba and Crespo and young star Soloman Kalou? How will that all work? Robben at his best could win the league on his own, but will he fit into the system? Will Lampard regain his form after a horrible world cup? Will Gallas play well, esp. if converted back to left back, knowing he wanted to leave and Mourinho wouldn't let him (same with Drogba)? Will Petr Cech finally make a few errors? So you have Joe Cole, Michael Essien, Frank Lampard, Maniche, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Claude Makelele, Damien Duff and Arjen Robben... that's just the MIDFIELD not the starting eleven. How do half of those guys deal with being one of the top 20 players in the world in their position and yet not starting for Chelsea? Squad rotation works really well... not! Chelsea won both their leagues by having a core 11 players. They just can't do that this time. And unless they loan out their stars, there is going to be some severe unrest. Wait and see how much Lampard whines the first day he is left out...
What will win Chelsea this title if they win is probably their defence again. Their bloody rock solid defence that seems to keep a clean sheet against anyone on any day unless Yakubu or Crouch happens to be on the other side
defence will be key to this championship, if Arsenal can replicate their Champions League clean sheets, if Man U can get it together at the back (unlikely), if Liverpool play defensively as they did last season, with their new wing backs as good as I am told, then all three will be challengers.
So what is Chelsea's best 11 now?
It's like a fantasy football team.... I'd pick:
GK Cech
DEF Gallas, Terry, Essien (he has played df for Ghana and I hate Carvalho)
MID Makelele, Robben, Maniche, Joe Cole, Ballack
FWD Drogba, Shevchenko
That's really unfair to Lampard (who obviously would replace Maniche) and Carvalho (who I hate) and Kalou and also pathetic in that there are no wing backs and this team would lose, but it's more of a "people I couldn't leave out". I love watching Chelsea cause of all the stars and I love it even more when they lose. Like Real Madrid and Juventus, there's no-one I dislike more in football than Chelsea, even though I think individually, they have some of the best talents and the best manager in the world.
Enough about Chelsea.
Fox
