Chelsea cruise but are uncharacteristic at the back

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: Chelsea 3 Fulham 1SWEET DREAMS are made of this. If Nicolas Anelka, Didier Drogba and Florent Malouda reproduce against Barcelona on Wednesday the form that befuddled Fulham here, Guus Hiddink's nocturnal scheming could have its reward.

“The second leg against Barcelona is going through my mind all the time,” said the Chelsea manager. “I think about different formations. This week I’ve always had a pen and paper by my bed. I couldn’t sleep after (the first leg) so I was writing things down on the table next to me.”

Against Fulham he began with a plan that had long been advocated but never before tried. Anelka and Drogba started in a 4-4-2 together for the first time and in less than a minute suggested the ploy was long overdue.

Fulham boast one of the best defences in the Premier League – arguably better than the makeshift one Barcelona will bring to Stamford Bridge on Wednesday – yet they were carved asunder by the instinctive passing and movement of Drogba and Anelka.

With Malouda adding a revelatory third dimension on Saturday, each of Chelsea’s offensive trio scored and proved they can dismember defences with the same elegant ruthlessness of Thierry Henry, Lionel Messi and Samuel Eto’o.

“We are really happy to play together – there was a lot of movement and we all scored, so it was a great boost to our confidence,” said Malouda.

Perhaps the only downside to the trio’s interaction – in addition to the fact that Frank Lampard was uncomfortably superfluous to it – was that unveiling it against Fulham saves Barcelona from the element of surprise. The switch to 4-2-3-1 in the second half could have been intended to keep the Catalans guessing, but Hiddink insists it was more about sparing his own team from nasty shocks.

“I like to have a flexible team and think about different formations because I don’t want them getting surprised that we have two strikers playing together,” said Hiddink. “A negative scenario could happen and I don’t want them panicking if we decided to use a different system.”

The manager reckons beating Barcelona would be “a huge achievement” and, perhaps inevitably, hinted that his tactics, not Chelsea’s perceived physical superiority, will be decisive.

“They have good fighting players, and we have players who can fight – that is not enough,” said Hiddink. “At a high level you also have to bring tactical discipline in an area where you are not comfortable.”

The area where Chelsea were least comfortable against Fulham was, paradoxically, the one in which they had most impressed at Camp Nou. Defensively they were brittle. Erik Nevland’s fourth-minute equaliser came after Mikel John Obi stood off Danny Murphy in midfield to allow the renowned passer to pick out the mysteriously unmarked Norwegian striker, who strode forward and shot underneath Petr Cech.

The half-time substitute, Branislav Ivanovic, soon caught the bug, blithely sending an intended back-pass straight to Bobby Zamora in the 68th minute. This time Cech’s intervention was firm.

Jose Bosingwa began to join in the fun with Anelka, Drogba and Malouda and, as time ticked down, a free-kick on the edge of the box following Hangeland’s crude curtailment of another Malouda burst, finally gave Lampard a chance to get involved. Schwarzer palmed over his drive.

A fourth goal would have vindicated the offensive vibrancy but not glossed over deficiencies that, unless eradicated, could gift Barcelona an away goal on Wednesday. That would be torturous for the sleep-deprived Hiddink, and there is a clear sense that the Dutchman has made his players aware of that.

“We have to be disciplined against Barcelona,” says Malouda. “In the first leg we had to focus on the defensive side of the battle, but Wednesday will be different because we need to score. But we know that Barca will be happy if we go crazy and give them a lot of space. That’s not the plan.”

GuardianService