West Bromwich Albion v Chelsea
The sudden and unexpected death this week of Chelsea legend Peter Osgood has cast a shadow over this match. The minute’s silence prior to kick-off will be deeply poignant for many Blues, particularly Chelsea Blog’s GJ who wrote such a touching tribute to the great man on Wednesday, a short extract of which was printed in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper.
The news that Frank Lampard hasn’t recovered from a minor hamstring injury picked up whilst training with the England squad earlier in the week is a worry given the proximity of our Champions League encounter with Barcelona. William Gallas is also expected to be missing today but is reported to be on track for Tuesday’s showdown at Camp Nou.
With Gallas being saved for Europe, Asier Del Horno could be reinstated at left back after the briefest of appearances against Portsmouth last weekend. Post-match it was said that Jose Mourinho substituted the Spaniard early for tactical reasons, but many believe Del Horno’s work ethic isn’t up to Mourinho’s high standards and his time at the Bridge could be coming to an end. His controversial red card in the Champions League match against Barcelona means he’s suspended on Tuesday so Mourinho may choose to play him today.
The ever-improving Joe Cole put in a virtuoso Man of the Match performance for England against Uruguay, and dedicated his winning goal to Peter Osgood. With Lampard out he will no doubt play an important part today and may well be switched to a more central role, although we’re not short of cover in that area. His assurance that he’ll sign a new contract this coming summer is welcome news.
Prediction: When considering the current gulf in class and Premiership table positions, and the fact that it’s 27 years since the Baggies last beat us, it’s difficult to envisage anything other than a win. There’s no doubt the players will want to honour Peter Osgood with a win — which incidently would be our 100th away win in Premier League history in Mourinho’s 100th match in charge.
The humiliating loss to fellow strugglers Middlesbrough demonstrates that these matches against bottom-of-the-table teams cannot be taken for granted. However, it’s very unlikely Mourinho will allow that to happen again any time soon so expect another relatively comfortable victory. 0-2.
Related links:
West Bromwich Albion 1 - 2 Chelsea · Update
Read Jonathan’s match report here.
See Drogba and Joe Cole’s goals here (downloadable zip files).
Match reports: BBC Sport; Sky Sports; ESPNSoccernet; Official Chelsea FC Website; The Observer; Independent on Sunday; Sunday Times; Sunday Telegraph; The Guardian; Daily Telegraph; The Times; The Independent.
Related links:
- Reaction: Terry lifts lid on half-time at The Hawthorns
- Away following do Ossie proud
- Ref chief issues warning to clubs
- Robson accuses Drogba of diving
- Uefa ponders use of two referees
- Mourinho rages at Robson insults
- Baggies deny being reported to FA
Chelsea appeal Robben’s red card · Update
Chelsea has lodged an appeal with the FA over Arjen Robben’s red card at West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.
Robben loses appeal · Update
The claim for wrongful dismissal against Arjen Robben following his sending-off at West Brom has been rejected by an FA disciplinary committee.
Chelsea charged · Update
Chelsea have been charged by the Football Association for failing to control their players. Unsurprisingly, West Brom have escaped punishment for their players’ reaction to Robben’s challenge and subsequent sending off.
- Posted at 02:47 AM · Permalink · Print · 1935 views · Last indexed by Google on the 15th May 2008
- Tags: Matches, Premiership
Doesn’t look really good at the moment (44th minute). And it’s a compliment… The way we are playing is dreadful. Hopefully half-time will bring a much needed improvement.
Didier scored an amazing goal! Poor defending by WBA, Drogba does a “Brazilian”-class first touch, easily loses his marker and bangs it into the lower left corner!
Nothing well can be said about the first half. As many times before our first half was anemic and strange to watch. The second half different story. Drogba well played, Joe Cole just as usual great game and character.
Robben did deserve the red card, whereas I think Drogba wasn’t simulating.
The referee punished Wallwork’s similar tackle on Maka with a yellow, so how do you work out that Robben’s deserved a red? Surely if you belive that then you also belive that Wallwork should have gone as well. It seems to me that Robben, ostensibly a clean player is being targetted for stupid refereeing decisions. And also, Kamara should have clocked a yellow for a baltant penalty box dive - but received nothing. I won’t dispute poor decisions as long as they are consistently applied and not as seems to be “one law for Chelsea players, one law for the rest”.
A strange and somehow low key game that blew itself up - abetted by Jose and Bryan Robson’s touchline spat over DD (oh and does Robson calling JM a f***ing faggot not constitute offensive language?!) - when we went down to 10 men: we looked much better and coherent as a team then even though I’d thought we were winning comfortably at 1-0. The Baggies steamed forward still more in hope than expectation but could not really make a good chance. JT was almost back to his best: Huth had kept Campbell quiet and JT just played a captain’s game getting the lines right, pushing Billy and Paulo on when needed.
The snding off? Hmm, seems that Arjen may have been a victim of is own recent background but, honestly, he did not deserve the red card: clumsy, lacked timing but he did not make contact: saw it again last night and know that it was not intentional. I hope that Chelsea appeal!!
Great team spirit after that. Claude looked ontop of it for the rest of the game - and JC took his goal so well. Carried on from Wednesday performance. Hope he starts in Barca and gives them a chasing!! Liked Geremi’s performance when he came on: shows just what a good team player he is; was exposed for their goal (Kanu loves scoring against us!) but we did hold on well.
Job done I reckon. Have to win however we do it. Worried about the red cards now but hey we can cope.
Onward!
Well, yeah, sure, they guy should have been sent off too, but I was speking from a foul - not foul point of view, the one every one applies to us. So there was foul. At least the intent was clearly there. And since Chelsea are targeted, we should be extra careful.
You didn’t need lips reading skills to figure out that Mr. Robson’s language on the sideline was foul to the extreme, a total disgrace. Maybe the 4th referee need a set of colored cards in his pocket, to be used in such situations. As far I’m concerned, the respect for Mr. Robson is near zero.
.. But the other good outcome from the day was the wonderful response from Chelsea supporters at the 1 minute’s silence AND the large scale photo of Ossie!! saw a pic of it - having been ‘underneath’ it - and it looked good. Great support all game - and thanks to the team for their appreciation of us!!!