Birmingham v Chelsea - All eyes on our team sheet!.

Before I preview the game tonight, I want to take a direct quote from the match preview that appeared on the Birmingham site "Joys and Sorrows" last night.

It reads:

There are few cliche's in football more reliable than ‘New Manager Effect’. The recent dressing room squabbles will be forgotten and players who weren’t going the extra yard will suddenly be going two. Unhappy players under the old regime will now have a spring in their step. Even Wolves got a good result at Newcastle after changing manager and they really are hopeless. Why could you not have waited another couple of days Roman? You could have beaten a poverty stricken Championship side like us even with AVB. The effect only lasts a couple of games so why not save it for Napoli.

So hopefully those that have bought a ticket will enjoy the night and it won’t be too cold. I’d like to see us having a good go at them even though the odds of an unlikely victory have lengthened. For those who can’t go it’s on ITV from 7:30 although I wouldn’t bother tuning in until kick-off time as they are unlikely to mention us at all in the build up. At least we’ll have the TV money to help pay a few bills whatever happens. My prediction,

Blues 0 Chelsea 4 – Two for Lampard, Two for Torres.

The question is, will it really be that simple as they are predicting? I hope so. I hope our players do have that extra yard of pace in their step, I hope we get back to playing to our strengths with power and pace and we score some goals. The thing is, it's only been two days since the manager was sacked, do we expect the players to respond after a short period of time and if they do what does that say about the previous manager?

I have written that we need to get behind RDM and Eddie now until the end of the season and that starts tonight. The question remains, who will start the game and what will the formation be?

When asked about the game tonight, RDM said:

'I have a good idea of the team I want to play in the replay, but I am still uncertain about one or two positions and there might be a few changes. In terms of injuries, Jose Bosingwa (hamstring) is still unavailable and Ross Tunrbull is out with an ankle injury. We will have to see how Ashley Cole is.'

So a few changes to the side that started against West Brom. In that game what looks like on paper (apart from JT) started the game:

Cech, Ivanovic, Luiz, Cahill, Cole, Essien, Ramires, Lampard, Mata, Drogba and Sturridge.

Who will RDM decide to change? We have to remember that we have to take any chances for tonight with a pinch of salt and it will only be the Stoke game at the weekend where we will see his plans revealed for the remainder of the season.

Will Lukaku come in from the cold? Will Torres get another chance? Will Romeu come back from the cold for reasons none of us understand? Will some youngsters like Bertrand and Hutchinson get given a start?

Come 7pm tonight we will have the team confirmed and then it's onto the game. Chelsea need to be focused for tonight and give Birmingham the respect they deserve. This season has been about Chelsea slipping up against sides we should be beating and tonight is chance to take a step in the right direction.

We are all looking for a positive response and after rumours of a dressing down directly from Roman Abramovich himself on Sunday, some of these players could be playing for their Chelsea futures.

Let's hope we see the reaction we are all looking for.

Come on Chelsea!

KTBFFH

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