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On the pitch, Chelsea are flying. Having won 19 points from a possible 21, the Blues are sitting pretty in the Premier League, but all is not rosy at the Bridge. John Terry and Ashley Cole may have served Chelsea well on the pitch down the years, but with serious FA charges currently hanging over them, the club has to decide what to do now. The negative headlines just won’t go away, and the Life’s a Pitch panel debates whether this has taken the gloss off their encouraging start to the season.

Cutting to the chase, the Mail on Sunday’s Ian Ridley insists the Blues haven’t done enough to keep their players in line. “This has been going on for a decade at Stamford Bridge. They’ve almost been out of control, some of these players, allowed to get away with certain things because of a guiding principle at certain clubs [that says that] as long as you’re doing it on the pitch, we’ll let you get away with pretty much anything. Terry and Cole have benefitted from that down the years. Chelsea may well feel that their great start to the season is being overshadowed but they’ve brought a lot of that upon themselves.”

Dominic Fifield of the Guardian believes Chelsea are desperate to be given credit for their football. “I think there’s a bit of frustration at Chelsea that their fantastic start to the season has been overshadowed by this, quite understandably. They’d like to be talking about football matters but these are bigger issues. I don’t think anyone expected all of the creative players to gel as quickly as they have done. It’s staggering, really. As a football team they are great to watch. They’re not even that watertight at the back any more so you get proper games of football when they play. It’s now really entertaining.”

Despite their impressive form, footballer-turned-journalist Adrian Clarke believes the new era is yet to really take shape at Chelsea, and predicts that one or two major departures could soon be in the offing. He says: “Things are changing slowly at Stamford Bridge. They’ve put their foot down with senior players, where Roman Abramovich is saying that he won’t give out longer-term deals to the likes of Ashley Cole and Frank Lampard, and this suggests a sea change is happening. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Lampard go overseas as he has good offers on the table, and Cole has the riches on offer in Paris [with Paris St Germain] to fall back on.”

Watch the full video discussion by clicking on the play button in the image above. 

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