In this week's column, Pat Nevin discusses the past, present and future of a very important area of Chelsea Football Club.

There is usually a conundrum at the end of my articles, but this week I can't help but start with one and it is the one that has us all scratching our heads.

Why are Chelsea still dropping points at home in the league when we are all-conquering on the road?

Surely it is supposed to be easier when you are on the turf you know so well? Well the statistics say apparently not so far this season.

Six points dropped and they have all been at the Bridge. Just as surprising there have been less goals scored and more conceded in West London than there have been on our jaunts around the nation. Now clearly we all know some of the reasons, firstly to recall a José Mourinho line, teams are parking the bus in front of their goal when they turn up at our door.

That is understandable to some degree if a shade annoying, but of course it does make it more difficult to score in comparison to the away games. Newcastle at the weekend was a perfect case in point. I wouldn't be surprised if many of our fans at the game had to go and visit the doctor with stiff necks after that one, the first 45 minutes was spent looking one direction, the entire second in the other.

The 'Toon' hardly got out of their half for such long periods that I expected Petr Cech to call for a big woolly jumper to keep him warm, just like the goalies from the 1930s used to wear.

This is all very well, but we know this already and it is not only Chelsea that have to endure this extreme defending, though I would add that Newcastle did set up with a 4-4-2 system and at least they would like to have attacked more often if they could have managed it.

Now this may seem as though I am clutching at straws but as an ex-player who was expected to create chances, I am talking through some experience so stick with me if you can. I tried to be a bit like Deco as a player, I was not as good as him of course, but my stock in trade was to make goal opportunities in crowded areas.

One thing that I can promise you is that it is much harder to create when there is less space available for you and for the striker you are trying to find with the ball.

Obviously this is why defences are packed, but why does it seem a little easier for visiting defenders to pull this ultra-negative play off at Chelsea than let's say, Manchester United.

Up there as the games draw to a close, the Reds always seem to find some gaps and their strikers get a sniff of something. Well part of their advantage is, I believe, the size of their pitch.

Now, not having measured out the dimensions of both playing areas myself, I always just thought this was a small difference, a difference that was accentuated by a trick of the eye.

Maybe our playing surface looks a lot smaller because of the architecture of the stadium. But no, a little bit of digging (on the internet, not the pitch ) and the size of the grounds are reported as follows.

Old Trafford's actual playing surface is 116 yards long by 76 yards wide, while Stamford Bridge is 110 yards by 75 yards. Not a great difference I hear you cry, but multiply those out and suddenly 8816 square yards to 8250 is a not to be sniffed at.

Think of an area of 566 square yards extra that United have to use when looking for space and defenders have to cover at the end of a long, hard game. No wonder they use the space well, they have got a hell of a lot more of it to use.

Now I know I will get e-mails in about this, especially when I suggest that most of the extra space is in the midfield, i.e. the gap from the goal line to the 18-yard line never changes, though the gap to the touchline to the 18-yard line uses up some of the space. So most of the extra area from box-to-box helps the likes of Ronaldo, Giggs, Tevez and Rooney, their creative players.

I certainly know that when I played in big pitches, Man City was always the biggest and still is, even though they have since moved grounds, I always found it much easier to create in these big areas. When I played for Scotland at Hampden Park or in finals at Wembley, they in particular always seemed enormous in the last 20 minutes of a game, and I can tell you that was great for me.

It is something worth thinking about anyway, something that might just be making just a little difference. That is not to say however that we do not love our pitch. I do, so much so that I have an honorary position on the board of the Chelsea Pitch Owners (CPO). The picture above is from last year's inauguration.

This organisation was set up before the club changed hands from Ken Bates to Roman Abramovich and was to ensure that Chelsea lovers owned the actual playing surface so it would not be sold to developers at any time in the future.

Ken needn't have worried as I suspect our current owner appears pretty dedicated to the cause of the club and any subsequent owners would have to somehow prize that dear green area from us in the CPO if they wanted to move the bulldozers in, not a very likely scenario I can assure you.

The CPO is a pretty unique organisation and this Friday (28^th November), we have our annual lunch at the Hilton on Park Lane to raise money for CPO and the Past Players' Trust. It is quite an event with what is always an incredible number of players and ex-players from all generations in attendance.

This year you could meet anyone from Bobby Tambling and Johnny Hollins to Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Marcel Deasailly who will all be there along with around 100 other former players.

And when I say you could meet, you actually still could, there are a few tickets left apparently because we have moved it into a much bigger hall this year.

Last week I asked which club Michael Mancienne first went out on loan to and just about everyone correctly noted that it was QPR. The winner picked at random was Irene Johnston from Barnes in west London whose prize will be winging its way through the early Christmas mail.

This week to win a copy of the Deep Blue collection of old Chelsea photos, could you tell me what is the smallest pitch, by area, in the Premier League. I wouldn't have needed to google this one as it always felt tiny to play on. Answers as ever to pat.nevin@chelseafc.com and lets hope it is a large and expansive surface in Bordeaux on Wednesday.