Andre Villas-Boas Shows Chelsea Who is Boss By Dropping Terry and Lampard

 

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to rest players for a Champions League tie – even if it is just the group stage – so as to keep them fresh for the domestic league. Especially if it is your captain.

But that is exactly what Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas did against Bayer Leverkusen, keeping John Terry out of the squad altogether. In hindsight it looks like a brilliant decision, with three points and a clean sheet in the bag, ahead of Sunday's clash with Premier League champions Manchester United.

But Villas-Boas's reasons for omitting the England captain were curious. Sure, he wanted his veteran defender fresh and ready to face Sir Alex Ferguson's free-flowing side, but his decision to keep Terry out of the action and Frank Lampard on the bench was motivated by something else.

He wanted to keep them on their toes, apparently. Or as Villas-Boas put it: "It would be a mistake not to try and keep everybody motivated. That's the task of any manager. I don't see any braveness in it. I'm sure the players have not suffered from it as a result in the past."

Call us old-fashioned, but we would propose that a heart-on-sleeve defender who attempts to play on having been booted in the head and is only missing the Champions League in his laden medal drawer doesn't need much in the way of extra motivation.
But that may be just us. Villas-Boas clearly knows what his players need and more crucially, what he wants from them.

And in dropping two of his key men, he has succeeded in showing the world he is no pushover, as if there was any doubts in the first place. He may be only 33 – younger than some of his players – but he has made it clear he is in charge.

His display of authority was displayed in dropping the pair, but his show of strength was more evident in his explanation. He is a master at saying a lot of words while divulging little, so when he was asked about Lampard and Terry, he could have trotted out something like "in terms of the physicality of the team and the tactics, I opted for the most emphatic solution".

But he didn't. He went straight for the jugular: "to keep them motivated". As if to say, that's you told. And any other player around them – like a certain Fernando Torres, who escaped censure but got a stern talking-to after he publicly called his team mates old and slow – will have been under no illusions as to who is in charge. 

Arteta urges Arsenal focus Gunners' new signing set for Champions League campaign

Arsenal's deadline day signing Mikel Arteta has called on the club to focus on the UEFA Champions League following their testing start to the season.

The Gunners travel to Germany on Tuesday to take on Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund at the Westfalenstadion after recording their first Premier League win of the season.

Arsene Wenger's side secured a tight 1-0 home win against newcomers Swansea thanks to a goal from Andrey Arshavin.

And Arteta, who completing a £10million move to the Emirates from Everton, has urged the North London giants to forget about the 8-2 thrashing at the hands of champions Manchester United at Old Trafford and focus on the future.

Arteta said: "It was important for us to get the three points and forget about what happened two weeks ago (at Manchester United).

"We have got a big Champions League game on Tuesday, so no we focus on that."

Arsenal also face Greek outfit Olympiakos and French side Marseille in Group F.

Will Fabio Capello Find His Way to The Britannia Stadium This Season?

  

 

For a player who has admitted that he still has aspirations of playing for England again, it begs the question as to why Peter Crouch joined Stoke.

While he maintains that his time with the Three Lions is far from finished surely moving to the Britannia Stadium has killed off those hopes for good when you consider the damning evidence of the last 18 months.

Crouch only needs to look around his new dressing room at the likes of Ryan Shawcross and Matthew Etherington to discover that playing in the red-and-white of Stoke appears to render footballers invisible to Fabio Capello.

The England coach has continually overlooked Tony Pulis's clearly unfashionable club and probably has an excuse to never pick Crouch again after the striker moved from Spurs to the Potteries.Capello's visits to Stoke can be counted on the fingers of one hand and his comment at the weekend regarding Manchester United's Ashley Young was an horrific indictment of how he views English football and the clubs not fortunate enough to be in the elite.

His claim that Young's recent form was down to the fact that "he is now playing with a really important team" will only have increased the frustration for Shawcross, in particular.

The Stoke captain's continued exclusion from England squads will hurt more than the 'thug' taunts he has endured ever since the infamous incident with Aaron Ramsey in February last year.

Shawcross was excellent against Liverpool on Saturday but must know he is never going to get picked while Capello sees out his contract with England.

He has seen Gary Cahill move way ahead of him in the pecking order while United's Phil Jones also seems to be inching his way further into the reckoning.

Etherington was always a unlikely shout for Capello due to his age but even still, surely after a consistent last 12 months he was more deserving of a cap than, for example, Jay Bothroyd.

It will be interesting to see if Crouch ever does receive international recognition again after completing his club record £10 million move.

Stoke are fashionable all of a sudden and some pundits are even tipping them to knock on the door for a Champions League place so, perhaps, they might be seen as a "really important team" by Capello before too long.

But Crouch, who won the last of his 42 caps in November, will have to do more than hit the ground running to force the England coach into asking his chauffeur to navigate the M6 and find a route to the Brit.

Crouch reckons the best years of his career will be at Stoke. But will it be enough for Capello? 

Don't Rule out Asamoah Gyan Returning to Sunderland

 

To lose one record signing in a calendar year is unfortunate.

For two to leave in the space of seven months is the height of carelessness. Welcome to the anything but dull world of Sunderland Football Club.

First things first, the departure of Asamoah Gyan to play in the United Arab Emirates, in footballing terms at least, is no great shakes.

Certainly, it's nothing on the void left by Darren Bent's equally hasty and similarly unexpected exit to Aston Villa in January.

In a 12-month spell on Wearside where he has struggled for form and fitness, a modest return of 11 goals in 37 appearances suggests Gyan's departure, though ill-timed, is one from which Sunderland can move on. That's somewhat unlike the case with Bent, whose absence is one still being felt in the 'goals for' column.

Sunderland have plenty of things going for them. A fine stadium and training complex, an impressive fanbase and plenty of tradition and history.

But, just as the Bent affair proved, Gyan following him out of the door shows that in the grand scheme of things, the Black Cats are still some way down the pecking order in football's food chain.

For their inconvenience at least, they receive a loan fee approaching half the £13m they paid for the player just a year ago.

Asking why the Ghana international should want to pursue his career in a footballing backwater more used to offering players at the end of their careers one last well-paid hurrah is akin to the loaded question Caroline Aherne's character Mrs Merton once asked the lovely Debbie McGee. What do you see in the millionaire Paul Daniels?

In Gyan's, case, according to reports, he saw a pay packet in the region of £120,000-a-week. Or more than three times the remuneration he received at the Stadium of Light, where he had been denied a pay rise despite requesting one soon after his arrival.

"The offer from Al-Ain was too good to refuse," the 25-year-old confessed. We bet it was. But for all those who condemn him for greed, put yourself in his position. Tempting to take the cash and run, isn't it?

At the recent funeral of former Liberty Professionals President Sly Tetteh, Gyan insisted that he wanted to ensure he did something 'meaningful' in his career in memory of his former mentor.

This wasn't it. The words turning and grave spring immediately to mind.

The African forward added: "I didn't have a choice once Sunderland accepted Al-Ain's proposal. I am now looking forward to playing in the UAE."

There, he will lead the line for a side whose home crowds can be in the hundreds. Welcome to life outside the Premier League.

The literal translation of the club's name is 'the spring'. Gyan's departure could see a winter of discontent for Steve Bruce, but such a state of affairs is likely to play out regardless or not of his presence. In his season at the club, he'd hardly shown he was the go to guy to dig the side of out trouble.

After initially leaving the door open for the player's return at the end of his loan stint, the manager soon hardened in his stance towards his errant record signing. "I don't really believe he will have a future here," Bruce insisted.

Maybe not under Bruce, with the way he has treated the manager. But given defeat in eight of their last nine home games, a failure to win so far this term and the fact Bruce lost a whole heap of credibility over Gyan's departure 24 hours after he insisted such a scenario wouldn't come to pass, the genial Geordie is hardly on the most firm of footing right now.

In the ruthless world of Premier League football, the manager might not still be in charge in 12 days, let alone 12 months.

We may not have seen the last of Gyan in a Sunderland shirt, although clearly the player has surrendered his credibility making such a move.

If this whole unedifying affair teaches us anything about the volatile world of top level football in general and Sunderland in particular, it's that it's safer to never say never. 

Sunderland v Chelsea Preview: Andre Villas-Boas Looks to Increase Pressure on Steve Bruce

PREMIER LEAGUE: STADIUM OF LIGHT, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011. KICK-OFF 1500 BST.

They are impressive statistics in anyone's book. No fewer than six consecutive victories, seven games unbeaten. In fact, their most recent defeat arrived almost 11 years ago.

If Chelsea could hand-pick any Premier League venue at which to play an away fixture, with such a fine record on Wearside, it would probably have to be the Stadium of Light.

Add into the mix the fact that they come up against hosts who're yet to taste victory this season, and who are clearly in need of installing barn doors to replace goal posts for their so far hopeless forward line.

Given the circumstances, only those looking through the most red and white tinted glasses would predict anything other than Andre Villas Boas' side stretching their somewhat under-stated though nevertheless unbeaten start to the campaign.
Of course, such an outcome would only serve to further increase the pressure on manager Steve Bruce after what has been a largely miserable start to the season for the Black Cats.

Key Match-Up: Lee Cattermole v Frank Lampard: Only a few days ago, this had the makings of England past against England future. Scrub that. Lampard is well and truly back in the international fold, while the Sunderland skipper needs to up his game in order to fulfil the rich promise that once saw the young Teessider marked out as a soon to be regular with the national side.

Form Guide: Sunderland are without a victory so far this season, with a modest two points from their three Premier League games and a Carling Cup exit at the first hurdle to Brighton. Chelsea are unbeaten, with seven points from a possible nine.

Match Odds: Sunderland 7/2, Chelsea 9/5, Draw 15/2

SUNDERLAND:
It's safe to say that after a single goal in six-and-a-half hours' football, Nicklas Bendtner doesn't have the toughest of acts to follow as the Denmark international prepares to make his debut in the wake of sealing a season-long loan move from Arsenal.

Without a goal between them so far this season, neither Asamoah Gyan or Stephane Sessegnon could complain should they be the one to make way for the new man.

Alternatively, Bruce could accommodate all three players by pairing the former with the 6ft 5in Bendtner up front, and dropping the latter into his more preferred midfielder role.

Given their abject home record against these opponents, there's little doubt Bruce will use last season's stunning 3-0 upset win at Stamford Bridge as a motivational tool in a bid to help engineer a first win on Wearside against the Blues since October, 2000, back in the day when the Premier League was a very different animal.

"I remember watching last season's game at Stamford Bridge on TV, and Sunderland were fantastic," John O'Shea, the summer arrival from Manchester United recalls.

He added: "It was a fantastic display and the confidence and ability they showed against such a strong team means they should hold no fears coming into the game this weekend."

Strategy: It could be two up front for the hosts, rather than Gyan on his own and Sessegnon playing just off him, a formation that has failed to produce a goal since the opening day of the season, and that came from the midfield.

Injury Update: O'Shea is set to miss out with calf and hip problems aggravated on international duty. Phil Bardsley will be checked over for a calf strain sustained playing for Scotland, but the full-back is expected to be fit. Gyan has recovered from a thigh injury. David Meyler is nearing a return from a lengthy lay-off following knee surgery, though no firm date has been set.

CHELSEA:
Manager Villas-Boas is hoping to keep pace with both Manchester sides, but he is unconcerned about the way the Premier League's top two have scored so heavily in their first few games.

"Good for them," said the Portuguese coach. "They've scored a lot of goals and that's good for British football. We just hope to score one more than the opponents.

"It is not a common result (to win 8-2 like United did against Arsenal). It doesn't happen a lot. Manchester United played to perfection and managed to score a lot. Manchester City also lead and we're two points behind them. We want to get nearer. Our objective is shortening the distance."

Villas-Boas believes the title race goes beyond United, City and Chelsea. He added: "We've discussed this before. There are five teams challenging. I wouldn't be stupid enough to leave Tottenham out and it's not impossible they can join the group and challenge."

The clash at Sunderland could also feature Villas-Boas' new signing Raul Meireles, while David Luiz and Petr Cech return from injury.

"We spoke about wanting to fill a space in midfield and bring one more in," Villas-Boas said. "Yossi Benayoun could play in the middle, in the channels or behind the striker.

"We felt that towards what we wanted to achieve in terms of playing style, Raul will fit. It was an extremely good deal for us and we're happy to have him."

Strategy: There is likely to be an air of caution in the early stages as Chelsea know how dangerous Sunderland can be after their victory over them in the capital last season. They will look to control possession and hope to turn the home crowd against Bruce's side.

Injury Update: Didier Drogba is out for another two games with concussion. Cech (knee) and Luiz (thigh) return but Michael Essien (knee) is a long-term absentee.