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CHELSEA FC: LOOK AT IT THIS WAY - POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES

/noticias.info/ Neil Barnett has been writing, editing and broadcasting for Chelsea for over 20 years.

Plenty of positives, nightmares of negatives at Wigan on Saturday.

Let's start with the positives.

The front three of Kalou, Drogba and Robben was the most mobile front three Chelsea has used since the original front three of Duff, Gudjohnsen and Robben.

In the original front three, we often saw the wingers linking up on the same side of the field. Jose Mourinho preached to them pure freedom when Chelsea had the ball.

That's how we saw away to CSKA Moscow Duff set up Robben's goal - his first for Chelsea - when both were on the right. That's how we saw that Boxing Day Robben set up Duff, again on the right-hand side of the pitch, for the only goal of the game against Aston Villa.

That mobility was still there later in the season with Cole, Drogba and Duff, but last season it seemed that the front three were too often playing separate games.

Drogba made no secret of the fact that it became impossible if the wide men didn't operate near him. No wonder he preferred it when played alongside Crespo, or Shevchenko this season. He seemed to prefer it with Shevchenko in the slightly ill-balanced 4-3-3 when the two of them rotated to fill the wide side opposite Robben or Wright-Phillips, depending on who was the third forward.

But with Kalou and Robben, we were back to the basic best. Have another look at Frank Lampard's opening goal.

A long kick forward was magnificently headed on by Drogba in the middle of the park. The ball fell at the centre edge of the Wigan penalty area. Immediately challenging, having flown in from the right-band side, was Kalou who blocked the central defender's clearance.

As Kalou had cut in, so had Robben, and as Kalou made the challenge Robben crossed from left to right and was first to the loose ball on the right of the area. So having started from the left, he was now able to cut in again from the right on his favourite left foot, and supply the pass for the charging Lampard to score the goal.

When Robben got the winner from the right - by now it was no longer 4-3-3 but 3-3-4 as Chelsea hungered after another late victory - he had crossed with Kalou through more freedom to search for openings.

Kalou needs goals, loss of naivety and time to become a Chelsea great. At the moment he is nowhere near it. But he deserves the time to find the first two requirements. There is much reason for optimism from his performance.

Robben was back to his best. His two assists - he took the corner for Kalou's goal - put him second in the assists list this season to Lampard.

Assists this season 48
Assists are judged not for last touch but by the subjective view of the author for a crucial part played in the goal Lampard 11, Robben 7, Essien 5, Drogba 4, Ballack 3, Bridge 3, Geremi 3, Shevchenko 3, Terry 3, Carvalho 2, Kalou 2, Mikel 1, Wright-Phillips 1.

By the way, add together Shevchenko's assists and goals, and only Lampard and Drogba are doing better. That is not an argument to say Shevchenko has been playing well. But it is evidence that not all has been as bad as has often been painted.

The nightmares at Wigan were the loss of momentum, and the conceding of two goals for the second Premiership game without John Terry.

No Cech, no Cudicini and no Terry, is obviously going to be very demanding on the rest of the defence.

Jose Mourinho, when we talked in his Chelsea TV post-match interview, praised the right-sided link-up between Essien at right-back and Kalou as one of the best features of the game.

But he was clearly disappointed with the way we are giving away free-kicks and goals from set plays.

Heskey's first goal came from a free-kick needlessly conceded by Boulahrouz, and it was a header when he was being marked by Drogba. With Terry in the side, both incidents would probably have been dealt with.

Boulahrouz is having a difficult time, and at the moment isn't giving the cover that Gallas and Huth have in the previous two years. But he has a history. Last season Hamburg had the best defensive record in the Bundesliga, conceding just 30 goals in 34 games to finish third, and he played in 32 of them. He has to rediscover that quality.

His wasn't the only below-par performance in the 50 minutes from the second Chelsea goal to the charge of the last ten minutes. There were several others.

But Robben won Sky's Man of the Match award, and Mourinho praised Carvalho as deserving it. Carvalho, for me, is now coming into the shortlist for Player of the Year to date alongside Drogba, Essien, Terry and Lampard.

However, not for the first time since arriving at Chelsea, the manager himself was Man of the Match for me. He made the outlandish changes to win the game when all seemed thrown away, and he made the brave decisions like playing Essien at right-back and playing Kalou from the start which gave us some of the positives to keep our optimism - our faith - intact.

At training today, Sunday, the mood was Christmassy and buoyant. It wouldn't have been but for that late goal. But with three late goals we have won at Everton, Newcastle and Wigan in six days. What an absolutely extraordinary achievement that is - one not really acknowledged in the media.

Now we have two home games. May we defend well, attack as we did yesterday and have two wins undemanding on the heart. notas_de_prensa_archivo