And we are back with the second part of How Deep is Your Squad with the spotlight now firmly focussed on to Chelsea, last year’s best team by a country mile. As people criticised City for their distinct lack of fight in defending their title, Chelsea up until Christmas were truly sumptuous. As lavish and smooth as the velvet robe hung up on the back of the bedroom in the house you always dreamt of. Fabregas, the returning maestro, made old man Gepetto from Pinocchio look like the Punch and Judy show at the end of Margate pier as he pulled the strings of the Chelsea midfield with consummate ease. Drogba came back and Diego Costa came in, the master and the apprentice as Mourinho plotted his next title triumph. Between August and Christmas Chelsea played some fantastic football but signs of a demise were there, cracks were covered over with just how well they played during the first half of the season and the failings of Utd, City, Arsenal and Liverpool throughout the season too offer any great sense of competition. Continue reading “‘How Deep Is Your Squad?’ – Part Two”

I can imagine this being a perfect little section on perhaps SoccerAm, Calvin Harris sound-tracking the graphics (How deep is your SQUAD? Oh-oh-ohhhh), the kids would love it for all its gimmicky greatness. Alas the written word doesn’t quite convey the novelty of such a sound bite and a YouTube link just doesn’t have the same seamless quality it would have on the screen. In this particular instance though, sound bite or no sound bite, the depth of two squads in particular are both making the title race much more interesting in these early stages of the season that also provide the slightly more baffling question of where as the money been spent from two of the richest clubs in England? These two clubs in question are Manchester City and Chelsea, both with potentially endless funds (in the remit of Financial Fair Play). City from unbeaten in the opening five games and with the defeat of Chelsea at the Etihad already, seem incredibly more shaky after another injury lay off for Kompany and the loss of the much improved Mangala and Chelsea from being League Champions to something of a listless ship in 5 months, questions must be asked as to why they find themselves in this position? For Part One of this two-part extravaganza it seems easier to start initially with looking at Manchester City’s predicament of injuries hampering the fluency of their early season performances. Continue reading “‘How Deep Is Your Squad?’ – Part One”

The Editorial page will be the home for my longer pieces of writing, concerning anything to do with transfer policy, formation, players or managers. This Editorial page will be the home of more developed and researched pieces of work on The Sweeper Blog. Expect some words in the coming weeks! x Continue reading Editorial