I'm not sure about that.
It's all about the blend. Hard to say yet whether Chelsea have got it right. All that is certain is that, now that Di Matteo has to do with what AVB was tasked with doing last season, he will have a far, far more difficult job. He won't be able to keep all the old players in the team, defend in numbers and hope to nick a goal against the run of play week in week out.
I think that, with a fair wind, we'll be up there with Chelsea next season.
Which just shows what an amazing job Levy has done to put us up there even though they have Roman money.
I agree though. Without wanting to sound too RAWKish, even though I think it's a lot more realistic to say what I'm saying, I don't think we are too far behind Chelsea no matter how many attacking midfielders they sign for £25m+.
We'll get a new goalkeeper, and I would imagine he would be of sufficient quality to stand up to Cech.
A defence of Walker, Kaboul/Caulker, Vertonghen and Assou-Ekotto stands up to any in the league. With Naughton, Kaboul/Caulker, Dawson and Fryers we are wells stocked in terms of having depth there.
We will probably play a slightly different system to them, and I think we are still to make signings, but in midfield is Modric/Moutinho, Sigurdsson, Bale, Sandro etc any worse that what they have? They have some excellent players especially in attacking midfield positions but so do we, so we should have good enough quality to match them there. They will probably have a lot of depth, but with the signings we make, so could we.
And upfront, we can probably expect one more signing, but Ade stands up to Torres.
If we get the bounce of the ball going our way this season, we can definitely challenge Chelsea regardless of how much money they have spent. We have good quality, good depth, and a good manager. They won't be as brick as last year and it will be very close, but it certainly doesn't look like they will be miles out in front.
