Champions league: Rosenberg vs. Chelsea

After Rosenberg’s shock victories over Valencia, they go into this Group B clash full of fire and determination to seal their pass to the next round. There’s only one problem. They aren’t facing a Valencia squad full of doubt but Chelsea. Still, in the first game between these two teams Rosenberg did earn a draw at Stamford bridge which in turn resulted in the dismissal of Jose Mourinho. Rosenberg’s Norwegian league has finished and they haven’t played a game since beating Valencia in Spain two weeks ago. Not the kind of thing you’d want before taking on mighty Chelsea but still, they will have the weather on their side. No one in their right mind would want to go to Norway in November and play a game of football, and it will be interesting to see how the Chelsea players react to this, especially those who come from more temperate climes.

Chelsea are without a number of key figures, most notably keeper Cech and Ivory coast international Didier Drogba. His place is probably going to be taken by Ukraine striker Andriy Shevchenko, which might be a good idea owing to the weather.

Chelsea should be very careful going into this match. Valencia went there thinking it would be an easy game against the minnows of this group and ended up being comprehensibly beaten. All their players will be fully rested after finishing their domestic league almost a month ago, and I don’t see why the Norwegian side can’t earn a good draw. While Chelsea are getting the right results in the Premier league, their football hasn’t been as impressive as those above them, especially Arsenal and Manchester United. Some of the players look tired, and this will have an adverse effect on this match. Also, they haven’t really been playing nearly as good in this edition of the Champions League –two wins and two draws- when they really should have been runaway leaders.

I’m going to stick my neck out on this one and go for a one-one draw. Not the most exciting result and I doubt if it will be an exciting game, but one point for each side might well be enough to put them both through to the knock out stages.

Prediction: Draw (1-1)