Chelsea Vs. Wolves: Preview

Chelsea play at Stamford Bridge against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday, and this game matters more than your average home match against Wolves. At this point, I think we can say that we have a bit of a problem on our hands. Since the 5-0 home win at Genk, our results have looked like this:

• Queens Park Rangers 1-0 Chelsea
  
• Everton 1-2 Chelsea
  
• Chelsea 3-5 Arsenal
• Genk 1-1 Chelsea
• Blackburn Rovers 0-1 Chelsea
• Chelsea 1-2 Liverpool
• Bayer Leverkusen 2-1 Chelsea

One stupid loss is a blip; four in seven matches is a full-blown crisis, and despite the fact that I have no idea whose fault it is, Andre Villas-Boas needs to do something to fix it. I'm not going to pretend that I know any better than anyone else at this point, but the current scheme isn't working. Change it up. Whether that means switching to a new formation, playing the children or whatever is fine, but please please please please do something different.

Here's what Wolves will do to us: Draw the full backs forward by giving Chelsea the ball in the middle third, then immediately hit diagonals into the space between the centre backs and the touchline. How do I know this? It's because this is what every team does to us, and it's been working for months.

Wolves aren't a good team and they'll be missing both Stephen Hunt (he's not injured, sadly - he's suspended) and Jamie O'Hara, but the Blues are so obviously flawed at the moments that you really could see them getting a result at Stamford Bridge. That's not to say I'm expecting a tough match, but there's that nagging fear of embarrassment that comes with an extended run of bad form that making me hesitant to totally write them off.

Since everyone's been playing poorly, we should probably give time to the players who aren't. Oriol Romeu needs to get a chance. It wouldn't be insane to give Nicolas Anelka and Josh McEachran time either. Ryan Bertrand could make an appearance in place of Ashley Cole. Here's my slightly weird preferred XI:

Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Petr Cech; Ryan Bertrand, John Terry, David Luiz, Branislav Ivanovic; Frank Lampard, Oriol Romeu; Juan Mata, Josh McEachran, Daniel Sturridge; Fernando Torres.

It's not working with the veterans, and it's time to see if it will with the younger players. Let's do this.