Zaki Ahmed

  • Chelsea Fan View: Antonio Conte's men are suddenly looking over their shoulders

    Chelsea suddenly find themselves on shaky ground. A game against Manchester City on Wednesday will have the Premier League watching the league leaders very closely as they run the risk of losing their comfortable seven point gap at the top following this weekend’s loss to Crystal Palace. Chelsea were comfortably in the lead not two weeks ago and suddenly find themselves in dangerous waters and need to be in highest gear to escape.

  • Chelsea Fan View: N'Golo Kante would walk into any Premier League team

    Seeing quotes from certain players slating the midfield general for Chelsea, N’Golo Kante, struck a nerve with me and it should be noted that the Frenchman is the best defensive midfielder in the Premier League, and by as great a distance as he covers in a single half of a game. To be an effective defensive midfielder a player has to have stamina, bravery, foresight, and height – Kante fills all those duties except for height, which he relies on Nemanja Matic for. Kante’s greatest asset is his timing, however.

  • Chelsea Fan View: Antonio Conte must not let standards slip after Burnley setback

    By Chelsea, and Antonio Conte’s, standards anything less than a win now is unacceptable as the team have been playing nearly perfectly. Burnley are a good team, a strong team, but one that lacks technique – or so I thought until Robbie Brady put in the free kick of the season past the best goalkeeper in the league. A sweet left-footed curler that evened the tie up in the first half, one would’ve expected Chelsea to roar back in the second half as they have done all season.

  • Chelsea Fan View: Why there will never be another Frank

    The retirement of Frank Lampard is a sad one because it sees the iconic Premier League player drift off into the sunset, leaving behind a bevvy of imitators. There will never be another Lampard. Known for being the perfect box-to-box midfielder, and drawing comparisons with Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard, Lampard had a style his own that was exquisite on either side of the ball.

  • Chelsea Fan View: Diego Costa silences the haters after transfer wrangle

    An entertaining, and sometimes tense, affair between the Blues and Hull City resulted in Chelsea rebuilding the steam they lost momentarily to Tottenham in their march to the title. The opposition was not considered one of the best in the league but they made a good go of it as they came to Stamford Bridge, and had their turn at bossing possession in the second half much like Chelsea did the first. The murmurs about Diego Costa going here and there were put to rest by the man himself as his goal celebration was a confidence-inspiring mock of all the chatter once he smashed home the opener.

  • Amid Costa drama Chelsea dominate foxes

    Current champions versus champions-elect, and it was the old guard of perennial winners Chelsea that saw out Leicester in powerful fashion thrashing them 3-0 at the King Power Stadium. The past 24 hours have been inundated with rumors not worth mentioning here about star striker Diego Costa, and as a result he did not travel with the squad to Leicester. In his stead played Eden Hazard in a false nine role that he has been excelling at when asked to deputise for the Spaniard.

  • Chelsea Fan View: Blues stroll past Peterborough

    A first taste of the FA Cup for Antonio Conte went fantastically well, discounting a John Terry red card that left the Blues shorthanded for a fair amount of the second half. The biggest headline of the day was that Kurt Zouma has returned to first-team action after nearly a year out from his horrendous ACL injury. John Terry and Ivanovic got run-outs as well, and they performed pretty much exactly how you would’ve expected.

  • Chelsea Fan View: Irresistible Spurs stop winning streak

    Zaki Ahmed says there is no shame in the Blues being beaten by a better Spurs team, but have Mauricio Pochettino’s men identified a chink in Antonio Conte’s armour? An inevitable end to Chelsea’s 13 game winning streak came in fairly predictable but hardly avoidable circumstances at the hands of Spurs at White Hart Lane. The previous meeting was not too long ago and was a 2-1 comeback win made by opportunistic goals from Pedro and Victor Moses.

  • Chelsea Fan view: Lucky number 13 for Chelsea

    Stoke came to Stamford Bridge as one of the most talented and balanced sides in the Premier League and made a surprisingly challenging test for Conte’s men, but the Blues overcame in the end to notch their staggering 13th consecutive win. With the likes of Peter Crouch, Xherdan Shaqiri, Joe Allen, and others in their ranks, Stoke City have a bizarrely complete squad with dynamic abilities on all parts of the pitch. For large portions of the match it was tit-for-tat as the league leaders were staving off the attacks of the Potters, and hitting them on the counter as is the Chelsea way.

  • Chelsea march on without Costa or Kante

    A twelfth successive win in a row came in style as Antonio Conte’s Chelsea blew away Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge, even while missing main hitman Diego Costa and midfield stopper N’Golo Kante. Having lost the same fixture last year at what was arguably the lowest point of Jose Mourinho’s tenure, Chelsea knew that Bournemouth weren’t going to be easy opposition.