The Chelsea Daily Drivel - Essien warns Chelsea, Carlo expects defeat and more!

The Chelsea Daily Drivel is a daily update of all the stories concerning our club, the rumours, the opinions and more....

So here are the Chelsea news updates on Tuesday 14th September 2010 including: Essien warns Chelsea, Ancelotti expects Chelsea to be beaten and tit bits of the build up to our first Champions League game against MSK Zilina tomorrow.

Morning all. First this morning to our two goal hero from the weekend Michael Essien. Essien spoke after the game and has warned Chelsea against complacency. He said:

"We still have a lot to do. The season is very long, but we have played some good football and are scoring a lot of goals - we have to keep going like that."

Essien has hit the nail on the head for me. It's an old cliche' but you need to focus on the next game and one game at a time and take it from there. I am sure Carlo and his backroom staff convey the same message to the players so let's hope we continue as we have been.

Now to Carlo Ancelotti and he has spoken of Chelsea's good start to the season but has warned the blues faithful to expect defeat at some stage in the season. He gave his reason and said:

“It is impossible!. When Arsenal went unbeaten there weren’t so many competitive sides. Now it’s not just the top four because we have the likes of Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Everton.”

I have to say first of all it would be nice eh?. Imagine going the season unbeaten in the League and to say that we have also done it just like the Arsenal. However, I think realistically any die hard Chelsea fans who have been supporting the club for years like I have, will tell you that you just never know with Chelsea so we do expect the odd defeat here or there. Still like I said, it would be nice though!.

So finally moving on to tomorrow's game away to MSK Zilina in our first Champions League tie of the new season. Some early squad news ahead of the game confirmed by Chelsea on the official website, John Terry has travelled with the squad for the game but Frank Lampard misses out after recovering from injury and Ashley Cole is rested. Carlo Ancelotti spoke of these three before Chelsea travelled to the game. He said:

"John Terry trained today and he will travel. The players we have out and unavailable are Bosingwa and Lampard. Jose still needs some time. Frank also needs some more time before he is ready to play, but he should be okay for the game on Sunday.

Ashley Cole will also stay out for the game on Wednesday because I want to give him some rest. He played two games with the national team and he also played on Saturday. There is no problem, but it is better for him to rest."

I have to say the decision on Lampard is sensible as it gives Lamps nearly three weeks recovery time since he had his operation. Its encouraging to hear from Carlo that he should be ready for the game on Sunday against Blackpool.

Also the news that Ashley Cole is being rested is also one I agree with. Of course as a Chelsea fan we want to see our best players playing, but as it proved on Saturday against West Ham our squad is good enough. The decision by Carlo to rest Cole just happens to coincide with the news that has reported on here of Yuri Zhirkov's plea to Ancelotti to be playing more football.

As you all know (if you had seen it on here) Zhirkov has been told that he needs to be playing first team football to be considered for Russia. Zhirkov should step in tomorrow and we should be more than capable. The only worry would be the fact that he hasn't featured yet this season so could take some time in the game to settle down. Let's hope he does get the nod and plays well.

Chelsea keeper Petr Cech has spoken ahead of the game tomorrow and has said Chelsea will be showing Zilina respect. He said:

"Zilina had to go through qualification and the fact they have made it into the group stages shows their quality, Underestimating any team in the Champions League can only damage you.

Matches against Zilina will certainly have a special atmosphere. But at the moment I am most satisfied with our winning streak and with the fact we have been doing well as a team."

I think Cech has got it spot on. Its our team play and working for each other than has really impressed me this season as well as the goals we are scoring obviously, but the teamwork is there for all to see.

Defensively we look solid and it was noticable especially on Saturday that Carlo is working hard on our shape when we don't have the ball. More or less every time West Ham got hold of the ball in the second half and moved forward into our area, they were faced with a line of at least four midfielders and four defenders all in set positions and found it hard to break us down.

When we attack teams on the break we have at least five players pushing forward, the three up front and two from midfield breaking forward and it is the threat we pose from all areas that teams find it difficult to deal with.

Zilina's manager Pavel Hapal has spoken ahead of the game against the blues and said:

"It's a great challenge for me and I'm really looking forward to it. On the other hand, we won't sell ourselves short. We want to show our supporters quality football and we'd like to get some points from our meeting with Chelsea.

We respect our opponents, they're a really big club. Chelsea are obviously superior to us, but football is about 11 players playing against 11 players and we want to walk off with our heads high after the match."

Also Zilina's skipper Robert Jez has also spoken about the challenge faced tomorow and said:

"Qualifying meant a lot, not only for the club but also for the town, This success put us on the football map. It's extraordinary. Of course, everyone knows Zilina are a small club. The progress we've made in the Champions League is a great success for us. I'm very proud of my players. This will go down in the club's history.

To play in England will be a massive experience. All of us are really looking forward to playing at Chelsea."

I have to say their manager has hit the nail on the head when he said its about 11 players against 11 on the pitch. This will become apparent tomorrow as we kick off the game. These trips away to these places we wouldn't normally have to go to can be potential banana skins.

let's hope we get the job done. My match preview will be on this site tomorrow!.

Carefree & KTBFFH!