Left Back

In Ashley Cole, Chelsea have one of the world's top left backs. He's a major attacking threat while remaining defensively stout - the sort of player every other team wants to spend millions on acquiring and resources nullifying during matches. Unfortunately for the Blues, he's already starting to slow down and is somewhat prone to injury, meaning his backups will almost certainly come into play at some point this season. Cole will probably play 30ish league games this season (presumably very well indeed), but there are a couple of scenarios in which he goes down early and Chelsea have to struggle to replace him. These are very bad scenarios, because we've just sold Yuri Zhirkov.

Zhirkov's departure means that Cole's primary understudy will be one of Ryan Bertrand and Patrick van Aanholt. Bertrand is the choice if you're looking for a solid two-way player, and van Aaholt is your man should you prefer defenders who have the defensive ability of a dessicated stoat but can attack like demons. Personally, I find van Aanholt more fun, and we might end up with him anyway, because Bertrand sounds like a good bet to get some time out on loan.

Oh, and there's always Paulo Ferreira.

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If you're counting, that's seven wins from seven pre-season games for Andre Villas-Boas and Chelsea, with a combined score of 18-1. If you're not counting, I don't blame you. Pre-season games aren't really anything to get too excited about. Anyway, Saturday saw Chelsea play in their final pre-season friendly before things get all serious next weekend, the Blues wandering up to Glasgow to take on Rangers.

The Scottish Premier League season has of course already begun, and Rangers had a Champions League qualifying match against Malmo earlier on in the week (they lost), so the hosts fielded a lineup that mostly consisted of players nobody had ever heard of. Chelsea, meanwhile, started something approximating a full strength lineup, albeit one missing Brazilian centre half David Luiz, who is out with what's apparently a minor knee problem.

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Chelsea Lineup: Cech, Ferriera, Alex, Terry, Cole, Mikel, Ramires, Lampard, Kalou, Torres, Sturridge

Subs: Turnbull, Bosingwa, Chalobah, Kalas, McEachran, Benayoun, Malouda, Anelka, Drogba

It looks like we'll be playing a 4-3-3 type of formation, it will be interesting to see where Ramires and Lampard are generally playing.  I really like the Sturridge/Kalou wing pairing, the matchup issues they can create should be awfully fun to watch.

Rangers: McGregor, McMillan, Bartley, Broadfoot, Wallace, Hutton, Davis, Edu, Ortiz, Naismith, Jelavic

Subs: Alexander, Bendiksen, Fleck, Ness, Kerkar, Perry, Little, Hemmings, Beattie

It's hard to say how Rangers will approach this one, but they traditionally sit back in a very defensive formation when they reach the Champions League.  Hopefully they'll be a little more open for a friendly, but I suppose getting another taste of ultra defensive play will be good preparation for what we'll likely see in a week.  The games start to count after this one, so let's hope for a good showing today.

So, one more pre-season game to go before the real fun and games begin next week. Chelsea trade the heat of the tropics for something a little closer to home - they're heading up to Glasgow to take on Rangers, who are still reeling after being dumped out of the Champions League by Sweeden's Malmo. It's unlikely that even a victory against the visiting Blues would do much to cheer them up, although it probably would annoy Andre Villas-Boas a great deal, because his side has a nice little shutout streak going.

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Chelsea cruised to victory in the Asia Trophy final, winning their first piece of (irrelevant) silverware under Andre Villas-Boas' watchful eye. Despite their pedigree, Aston Villa didn't prove a significantly more challenging opponent than local side FC Kitchee - Chelsea were in imperious form throughout and simply brushed their Premier League colleagues aside, a goal in each half failing to fully describe the Blues' superiority.

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Who'd have thought Andre Villas-Boas would be leading his side to their first cup final within five weeks of joining the team? No, it's not as though the Asia Trophy is a real cup, but it's nice to be (so far) undefeated in the pre-season. Our reward, really, is not having to play Blackburn, whom were vanquished 1-0 in the semifinals/first round by Saturday's opponents, Aston Villa.

Yes, we're finally on an opponent that we know something about. So that's nice. Villa, of course, had something of a blip last season after seeing Martin O'Neill resign in August. They're on their fourth manager since, with Alex McLeish crossing town from arch-rivals Birmingham and attempting to institute some sort of revival despite losing Ashley Young, Stewart Downing and Brad Friedel this summer.

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Chelsea made it five wins from five in the pre-season with an easy 4-0 win over FC Kitchee in the first round of the Asia trophy, setting themselves up for a date with Aston Villa in the final. Frank Lampard found the net from the penalty spot before three second half goals put a gloss on the victory. It was only a friendly, of course, but it's always good to see the Blues playing well.

Despite declaring that the focus was on the 4-3-3, Andre Villas-Boas opted to field Yuri Zhirkov and Frank Lampard in a double pivot with Yossi Benayoun in the hole, a decision which turned out to be surprisingly effective. Ross Turnbull started, Slobodan Rajkovic and John Terry were paired in the centre of the defence alongside Ashley Cole and Paulo Ferreira, and the front line was the expected trio of Florent Malouda, Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou.

Unlike the previous match, which also ended up 4-0 in favour of Chelsea, the Blues never looked anything near second-best, imposing themselves on the match from the outset. Lampard, Zhirkov and Malouda each had genuine opportunities in the early stages before Kalou managed to hit the crossbar from a Didier Drogba cross in the 16th minute.

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I don't think I'll be awake for this one (will catch it on replay), but I'm putting up a game thread in case any of you are. Enjoy!