Chelsea beat Norwich 3-1 at Carrow Road. Oscar opened the scoring but Anthony Pilkington equalised. With the game looking to head to a stalemate Mourinho switched to a 3-6-1, bringing on two substiutes. The substitutions worked well, with Eden Hazard and Willian scoring with 5 minutes to go. Willian's in particular was lovely:
INTERNATIONAL BREAK
Andre Schurrle scored 4 goals in 2 games over the break. A goal against Ireland was followed up with a hat trick against Sweden.
Welcome to A Week in Chelsea FC, a weekly roundup of all the goings on at Chelsea Football Club, from Saturday to Friday.
Saturday, 20th of September, 2013
Chelsea hosted Fulham in a bid to put their poor form behind them. A bad first half performance led to a few jitters but Oscar and John Obi Mikel (!) got second half goals to put the game to bed. Oscar's goal was messy, but Mikel's first league goal in 185 Premier League appearances was a thing of beauty.
Oscar:
Mikel:
It's also worth watching manager José Mourinho's post match interview on Sky Sports.
Chelsea loanee Romelu Lukaku also scored for Everton against West Ham on his debut. Tuesday, 24th of September, 2013
Chelsea traveled to Swindon in the third round of the League Cup on Tuesday night. Marco Van Ginkel started but was subbed off after 10 minutes with a knee injury.
Ramires replaced him but then came off at half time with his own injury. Fernando Torres scored his second goal of the season halfway through the first half.
Ramires finished off the game five minutes later with nice chip, and the League One side were never coming back.
Chelsea were drawn away to Arsenal for the fourth round. Thursday, 26th of September, 2013 Marco Van Ginkel underwent surgery on his ACL, and was confirmed as out for six to nine months, almost certainly missing next year's World Cup. Chelsea play Tottenham tomorrow at Three Point Lane and Steau Bucaresti away on Tuesday in the Champions League.
Welcome to A Week in Chelsea FC, a weekly roundup of all the goings on at Chelsea Football Club, from Saturday to Friday.
Saturday, 14th of September, 2013
Samuel Eto'o made his Chelsea debut away to Everton, a game that was lost 1-0 thanks to a Steven Naismith header on the brink of half time.
Manager Jose Mourinho said that poor finishing was the problem as Chelsea had 22 shots, but only 6 were on target. Gareth Barry did particularly well to stop Samuel Eto'o from scoring.
Tuesday, 17th of September, 2013
Demba Ba revealed that he was looking forward to joining Arsenal, but as we all know the move fell threw at the last minute. Ba had completed a medical for his loan move but Mourinho decided not to strengthen his title rivals after their purchase of Mesut Özil. Ba then refused to move to a non Champions League club, forcing Chelsea to send Romelu Lukaku out instead. Mourinho described his squad as 'beautiful, young eggs who need a mum, or in this case, a dad'. Wednesday, 18th of September, 2013 Chelsea under 19s played Basel in the first game of the inaugural UEFA Youth League, a shadow of the senior Champions League. Chelsea ran out 4-0 winners at Cobham, with John Swift, Islam Feruz, Alex Kiwomya and an OG from a Basel defender. Unfortunately this did not lead to a win for the senior team in the same fixture, who lost 2-1 after leading at half time. Oscar got a goal minutes before half time, but Mohamed Salah and Marco Streller scored for the hosts halfway through the second half. It was a poor performance and Chelsea couldn't find the mental strength to come back. Willian made his debut and Marco Van Ginkel made his first start. They both put in decent showings. Goals are available here.
Thursday, 19th of September, 2013
Chelsea confirmed that youngster Nathaniel Chalobah would be loaned to Nottingham Forest for the year. Chalobah, who played under Zola at Watford last year, will wear the number 7 shirt. Chalobah has never made a professional start for Chelsea but played some part in the preseason friendlies of Asia.
Friday, 20th of September, 2013
Mourinho confirmed that the whole squad was available for the visit of Fulham on Saturday at 17:30.
Chelsea play away to Swindon Town in the League Cup on Wednesday evening.
EVERTON - CHELSEA Saturday, 14th of September 17:30 - LIVE on Sky Sports 1
The international break is over, and Chelsea travel to Goodison Park to face an Everton side who have made a lot of changes since their last game, a 0-0 draw against Cardiff City. Out went Marouanne Fellini and Victor Anichebe, in came James McCarthy, Gareth Barry and Romelu Lukaku. The latter is unable to play against us.
Chelsea will probably sit back as they are away from home and will look to hit Everton on the counter. Taking this into account, it is likely that André Schürrle will start. Eden Hazard is also likely to start, and considering Juan Mata stayed at London over the international break, he should complete the trio behind the striker.
Everton will hope to have the majority of the possesion, as they have had in their first 3 games of the season. They've averaged the highest percentage of any Premier League side this season (64.1%) but have drawn all 3 games, scoring only 2 goals.
In conclusion, we should see a repeat from the same fixture last season: a closely fought game that Chelsea edge out by 1 goal.
Thanks for reading and I hope you come back regularly.
INTERNATIONAL BREAK
