Offensive Who? Lampard Vs. Ballack

With Chelsea transferring both Andryi Shevchenko and Michael Ballack during the summer, the Chelsea fans keep on wondering how their favorite team's offensive will look like. It's no surprise that the club's officials wanted to bring offensive player on Stanford Bridge. After all, they are the one that sell tie-shirts and bring advertising money for the club.

Still, when buying all those stars - one better than the other - Jose Mourinho will have to make a decision on the starting line-up. Who is he going to start? Who is going to see the match on the bench? Can they all play, but on different positions? The latter brings up a pretty controversial issue. In terms of offensive midfielders, Chelsea has 3: Lampard, Ballack and Cole.

That leaves only Makelele with the responsibility to stop Chelsea's opponents on their counterattacks. And that is surely not what Mourinho wants. And, since Joe Cole is a winger, the only players who will have to adapt to new playing strategies are Lampard and Ballack. One of them will have to pair Makelele in the back.

Still, both the German and Lampard have offensive profiles. Both of them are scoring lots of goals and may be decisive for the team at some point. And, unless one of them will have to watch the other one on the bench - almost impossible for that to happen - they'll have to find a solution pretty quick.

Ballack himself stated that he will play wherever Mourinho considers as necessary. "Frank is a great player but just like at any other team I have really enjoyed playing with my team-mates. This is not going to be a problem for me and we both want to be successful which is what will drive us on. It doesn't really matter where the manager plays me in the team because we all want to succeed", stated Ballack.