The Pit of Despair

By: Jamie | February 19th, 2011

How unlucky can a team be? Tim Howard had a blinder, and our penalty curse strikes again. My reaction to watching Chelsea’s sinking ship was like going through the seven stages of grief – I think I’ve stalled on depression for now, but which one have you hit?

Feeling a bit listless?

These feelings have been building up for a while. But the loss today really drove them home.

1. Shock and Denial – How can this be happening? Our season started so well, nothing could stop us. Well, except ourselves. We should have won today. Frank Lampard finally got his well-deserved goal after so many shots on goal. We were about to win. Then it all completely turned around in the space of a minute.

2. Pain and Guilt – Well, this hurts. A lot. For me personally, I wanted the FA Cup. I know a lot of fans think of it as one of the possible “consolation” trophies along with the Carling Cup, as if we’re too big a club to be worrying about such a tournament, but I truly love winning the FA Cup. To know that we could have made history again by winning three consecutive trophies in the competition and to see the club throw it away… ouch.

3. Anger – Oh boy, was I feeling this one for a long while. I went quickly through shock, denial and pain and right on to anger. I am sure that the team does care about their results, but the fact that it doesn’t come across when I am watching them on the pitch truly does piss me off. You can tell me all day long how hard they work and how well they do in training, but I’m just not seeing it on the pitch. Then the anger about how unlucky we were – how unlucky we seem to have been for the past three months. How can you be so unlucky for three months?

4. Bargaining – Who can we blame? Phil Dowd, for allowing Cahill to chop away at Mikel’s heels repeatedly, for booking Rami for a dive instead of giving a penalty, for watching Fellaini rugby tackle Ashley Cole on the edge of their box and then calling a foul on and giving a yellow card to Malouda immediately afterward? Nobody but ourselves? Ancelotti? Abramovich?

5. Depression and Sorrow – We’re facing pretty bleak prospects – from Champions of England and FA Cup Winners to being knocked out of the Carling Cup, the FA Cup, panicking about making fourth place in the league and our prospects for the Champions League looking quite bleak considering the way we’ve been playing. I’ve hit this stage hard. Seeing the club you love going through hard times; of course that’s not easy. Seeing the look on Frank Lampard’s face after Ashley Cole missed his penalty. We know we can play so much better than this, but it has just all fallen apart.

6. Testing and Reconstruction – You’re supposed to now distract yourself from the bad and seek realistic solutions. For the past few months, we’ve been searching for solutions to our problems with no answer. Yes, we had a brief good spell in January, but it’s quickly all back to doom and gloom. How can we get our spirit back? How can we get back to scoring goals freely like we did earlier in the season? We’ve got some bright prospects in Torres, David Luiz, Young Josh. Ramires just seems to keep improving. If we can find the right formation, the right combination of players – maybe we can’t quite salvage our season but we can make a good fight for one of the Champions League positions and get back to winning ways.

7. Acceptance – Acceptance that we are an absolutely dire position at the moment. Acceptance that, if things don’t improve, we won’t be playing Champions League football next season. Maybe this is our reconstruction year. Think back on our history (why, yes, we do have history!). We are so lucky to be in this position at all. We struggled through relegations and promotions and so many trophyless years. Some of our young and new players show promise, and if we can get other players back in form and back from injury, maybe things will start to look up. By cutting our squad down during the summer and trying to rely more on youth players, there was always the strong possibility that something like this could happen.

I can accept the fact that we might not play in the Champions League next year. I’m going to support the team no matter what, whether we win trophies or not. It’s just painful seeing the double winners going down in a ball of flames like this. I vent and criticize because I care, not because I plan on immediately jumping ship, burning my Chelsea scarves and revoking my True Blue membership. It pains me to see our downfall giving other football fans so much pleasure. But we still have a few months to salvage some pride. Let’s do it.

Keep the Blue Flag Flying High, my fellow Chelsea fans!

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Category: FA Cup, Opinion

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pfelds

The thing that bothers me, more than anything else, is the fact that there doesn't seem to be a glimmer of hope or a hint of change in chelea since this collapse occured back in november, i mean, this is like the perfect storm of everything the other teams hate about us coming to bite us in the arse.
for example:
chelsea's lack of depth, lack of homegrown youths- our lack of depth meant that losing critical players left us wholly exposed to opposition. when we lost frankie, we had no filler(bennayoun=worst purchase ever) we never really had a true right midfielder at the seasons beginning, and this became obvious as essien, ramires, anelka all cant fit the bill. sturridge was never given a chance at striker, drogba's fall from grace was inevitable and we were on borrowed time, same for Nico, torres is 2 little 2 late for this campaign. all of our academy prospects were both never given a chance and not at par. and it is those academy boys that can bring a club the fresh-air and fervent pride that will persevere thru times like this, but our collection of aging mercenaries(thats not how i always saw them, but now i am beginning to feel this way) fail to show up and dont seem any bit urgent in thier response, outside of condemnation of club.
Our terrible staff, and lackluster manager Carletto are not helping things. i feel like carlo wants out after this season, regardless of us somehow winning the CL crown and a top 4 finish. he looks dejected, and worn as if the strain of chelsea is too much and he is not happy within the role. we ousted ray, who seemed the last bit of true chelsea humanity left in the staff, and that killed us. it has seemed like, ever since scolari, that our biggest and best players were always teetering on the edge of unhappiness at chelsea. drogba always seemed only a string of losses away from re-declaring his unhappiness at CFC, a. cole hasnt seemed happy since last may, JT hasnt been happy since losing the england arm bad, or maybe even moscow. anelka never seemed happy. lamps seems just tired, essien looks half the man he used to be, kalou is the same, but has a worse eye for goals, outside of Cech and BANE i see little positive results on the individual performances scale.

And i dont think this is an issue of us axing JC, deco, or ballack, its just a result of our lack of depth and the loss of heart since the world cup, it feels like an individualized issue, but its hitting the team collectively, and there doesnt seem to be any hope for change or resilience that was synonymous with chelsea teams of the past...

i know im just pisssed and fully in the "FML" moment, but W T F CHELSEA get it together and save some sort of face this season, and if you pull this $hit next season im gonna going to fly to london, track down every last member of the squad, and punch u right in the balls
Rohan Kapur

I have given up. Yesterday just showed how unlucky we can get. This is just bullshit.
I got more pissed when I saw Anelka's disregard at missing the penalty. . . They are not playing like champions now. It's like they've given up completely. 12 games left. 36 points can only do the job. They NEED to save the champions league spot. They just NEED to.
Champions league 2011, well looking at their condition looks a lost cause. But if they play more like a team they can achieve success
Seth

"We're only mostly dead", to quote "The Princess Bride."
It feels like a decade ago i was watching Drogba pound in that free kick at Wembley.
It's all spun away rather quickly since then.
This post is spot on. I went through just about every one of those watching the Toffees celebrate. The only, ONLY bright spots I can find in this season:
-Our defense, while shady at times, has been solid. Ivanovic is a Player of the Year candidate, Terry is playing well again, and Luiz has been everything we hoped for and more.
-McEachran is a gem. A fantastic player with (hopefully) 15 years worth of growth and 'brightness' at the Bridge.
-Cech.

That's all i can salvage, really. Torres could be a bright spot, but we'll see how he fits when he clicks.
Jamie

"We're only mostly dead" - that's perfect, Seth.

I agree with your bright spots, but I will add the fact that Ramires has started to look promising as well. And he's young. So that's good.
Seth

agreed, I missed the Brazilian. I'm also glad Yuri is back -- he's one of my favorites, Yuri the Great.
MarkhamArmsDan

It's that bit of red round the neck on the strip. We are the "Blues"!! We have been cursed and until we remove it......... Same thing happened with the "Weather vane" remember?
Chelsea

I am no longer shocked when we lose nowadays. I have come to expect it so I have resigned myself to it. It's a buffer mentality so as not to feel too much pain, anger, depression and sorrow.
That said, I wonder how long we can keep on going with Ancelotti? I have lost so much confidence in him given all that he has at his disposal. And if this season ends up being for the worst, I want no part of him to lead us into the "reconstruction era" and beyond. For he has he lacks that "leadership" mentality necessary to right the sinking ship and inspire the player to be better.
If this is how the season will end, the only bright light of hope would be seeing Ancelotti out.
arn00b

The summer garage sale backfired big time. The person(s) who made the decision has to admit that, take responsibility for that and refrain from making such decisions in the future.

The youth project failed. Not only has Chelsea screwed up the season by not replacing the departing players, but the club has shown that the youth are not high on the agenda. Why should Borini sign knowing that there's clubs offering him playing time, whereas Chelsea are offering him a spot on the reserves bench. He's the 5th or 6th ranking striker, after Drogba, Torres, Anelka, Kalou, Sturridge. He needs to wait for a Togo-bus type situation in Cobham to get a chance to play in the first team.
Everyone's raving on Wilshere and the future of England. McEachran is not even a footnote in that story, even though he's a great talent. Unfortunately, he's not Brazilian, and never played in the Premeira Liga and has never met Joorabchian or Zahavi, so he's probably not good. He is currently midfielder number 5 in a midfield of 3, after Lampard, Essien, Mikel, Ramires, and is most likely going to be midfielder number 6 when Benayoun recovers.

It's funny how, in a midfield of Nasri, Fabregas, Song, Abou Diaby, among others, Arsenal found time and a place for Wilshere to become a player to play and defeat Barcelona. And in a midfield of injured-Lamps, no-Benayoun, Mikel, Essien and Ramires, we can't even find enough time for Josh, not even for games like this or against Wolves.

Ancelotti seems to want to leave and it's affecting the players.

The coaching staff... what coaching staff?

This is not a period of construction, no matter how you spin it. It's destruction. Construction is when you build on what you have and carefully add important elements, slowly. What we have is panic buys on deadline day (hour?), firing important staff and a manager that wants to leave, if he doesn't play in CL next year, which looks like the case.

What are we constructing here?
Mateo

the good news is that we reached rock bottom... so the only way we could go is up.

note: i really cant get over anelka's penalty shot it wasn't even amateur level... just terrible
arn00b

Yeah? It's better for him to run and hit the Everton bus in the parking lot? A miss is a miss. No one complained when he walked it into Marseille's goal. If they trained, according to Ancelotti, then that's what he was going to do.
Dav

Cant wait for the Man U game to be honest... this will make or brake Chelsea!
linfieldfc

The best we can seem to do at the moment is draw the game. Thank the lord the we are playing an away leg of a European tie on Wednesday then. Carlo needs to find a way around the park the bus tactics most teams employ against us. That's our main issue. Getting a goal, the forcing more. Midfield is too slow at the moment. Can't believe i'm saying this put we need benayon back ASAP
Graytrubshaw

You sound like us Evertonians last week but never mind we hope you win the big one in Europe. Best of luck!