Chelsea v Tottenham Hotspur
Tuesday’s exit from the Champions League still smarts, but what better way to ease the pain than with a customary victory over Spurs, who last defeated us in the League back in the heady days of Bobby Campbell, 16 years and 31 matches ago.
It’s remarkable to think that there’s a whole generation of Spurs fans who have yet to see their team beat us in a League match. Since Gary Linekar and David Howells scored in a 1-2 triumph at the Bridge on 10 February, 1990, Spurs have lost 20 and drawn 11 League clashes.
The reverse fixture back in August was marred by Spurs striker Mido’s red card for elbowing Asier Del Horno, who headed the opening goal soon after. Damien Duff sealed the win late in the second half, to give us the opportunity of recording an eighth Premiership double over our not-so-close rivals — currently 23 points, 10 Premiership wins and 3 places behind… a good season for Spurs (Champions League next year?).
In team news, Jose Mourinho yesterday reported a clean bill of health for all 24 squad players: “Everybody is fit. We don’t have one single player injured. We had 24 players on the pitch training this afternoon. At this moment of the season that is important,” he said. The only player out of contention is Arjen Robben, who starts a four-match ban for picking up two red cards this season.
As this is the first home match since the untimely death of Chelsea legend Peter Osgood, there will be a celebration of his magnificent career and a minute’s appreciation just before kick-off.
Prediction: You can back Spurs at 7/1 to win this match. Don’t. 2-0.
Related links:
Chelsea 2 -1 Tottenham Hotspur · Update
It’s difficult to put into words what I felt when William Gallas scored the winner. Much the same as every other Blue I would imagine: beyond euphoric.
Read Jonathan’s match report here.
See Essien and Gallas’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: My best goal agrees William the Conqueror
- Stamford Bridge remembers Peter Osgood
- Kenyon: This could be club’s greatest season
- Drogba hails Jose’s genius
- Clarke: No complaints from versatile William
- Lampard accuses Mourinho critics
- Posted at 02:20 AM · Permalink · Print · 3712 views · Last indexed by Google on the 12th May 2008
- Tags: Matches, Premiership
I demand a trashing. At least a 3:0.
I’ll be there, propping up the bar, contemplating Henry’s anti-JM stance and Gleb’s interesting theory on losing to Spurs today. And as for Rupert… oh yeah, there’s some egg-chasing on today so I guess he’ll be watching that from the rowing club bar.
I think we’re due a big performance today, on some lovely new grass and Tuesday will have stung the players. They know they owe us and themselves a good result today. Expect Crespo to start and this would be my team:
Cudicini, Terry, Huth, Ferreira, Gallas, Makelele, Essien, Lampard, Cole, SWP, Crespo, subs Eidur, Glen Johnson, Cech, Drogba and Duff.
I hope I’ll get to watch it tonight…
And I hope the lads trash Spurs. Not another lame 1:0, please.
Cudicini;
Geremi(freekicks please)*, Terry, Huth, Gallas;
Cole, Lamps, Makelele, Maniche, SWP;
Crespo;
subs:
ADH, Eidur, Duff, Drogba,Cech
Grocerjack It would be interesting to hear your opinion on Lamps & freekicks.
“Cudicini, Terry, Huth, Ferreira, Gallas, Makelele, Essien, Lampard, Cole, SWP, Crespo, subs Eidur, Glen Johnson, Cech, Drogba and Duff.”
Give Carlo a chance and Robert deserves a first team place.
Well, what can I say I was the happiest man on earth, shouting so loud that the whole building woke up, when Willy scored. Too bad all those rumours about him joining Juve at the end of the season might be true.
As for the game… Well, we, as usual, weren’t particulary impressive, but still played well enough and definitely deserved the win. SWP was very impressive for the first 20 minutes, then he somewhat fainted.
I think Huth was awesome, but that was his mistake when Spurs scored.
Cech saving everything he should, as usual.
Terry - no comments, he’s always great. Maka - same.
Essien - pretty good, but not his dominative self.
Crespo - not better than Drogba judging by this game.
Lamps - somewhat quiet.
Cole - definitely worse than usual.
Drogba - very good, amazing chance to score: great control and shot.
Duff - not really much better than everyone else, but active. Gallas - can’t comment on my favourite player, can it?
Ferreira - wasn’t better than Keane but nevertheless kept him and everyone else quiet.
Still not the result I wanted but the way we played was good enough for me.
Go Blues!
Honourably they have done it in grand style……..As the saying goes give honour to whom honour is due!!! I think out of all the Chelsea players Essien mourning was heard by P.E.T.E.R O.S.G.O.O.D.(R.I.P) That is why he scored his first and begining goal. Kudos( RUSSIAN MAFIA)
Just back from the Bridge. I’m covered in bruises, most of my shins are somewhere on the back of the seat in front of mine and I can’t speak as I’ve screamed myself hoarse.
Now THAT is what football is all about. Barcelona? Fuck ‘em. Ossie, hope you enjoyed that mate - we certainly did.
so 2-1 with a galllas professional shot! nice! only downside is said on tv he doesnt know if he will be here next season, i pray that he is because to me he is the best defender in the world along side JT, and its not just coz of this performeance every1 knows it and we have all been saying it for gaes, there will not be another gallas, just like there sint anyone with as much heart as JT, but i really want him to stay, BIG player for our team!
See the difference Duff makes. You won the game thanks to his introduction. Didn’t he wisely lay the ball off to Galas for the winner and how many free kicks did he get to keep the pressure up on the spurs. Never should have taken him off against Barca. You can also thank Martin Jol for removing Robbie Keane for that offside-prone, goal hogging Dafoe who couldn’t track back if his life depended on it. If you still want to get rid of the Duffer we’ll gladly take him at Man U. I really thought we were going to pick up a couple of points from you until I saw Duff take to that nice pitch you have installed. That would have actually played to your key players’ strenghts in the first half of the tie against the Catalans. Oh well, I believe after today we have to concede the title to you and the Galas goal was like a knife through my heart. Congratulations champions. You turned on the style when it counted. slalayedhetakeie lidaDhieves
What a goal by Gallas, shouted the house down when he scored it!
Bloody awesome that goal, I hugged total strangers next to me, and screamed until I went hoarse. That’s what it’s all about, FUCK OFF ROTTENHAM!
Ossie’s Requiem, funny that no strikers scored…
Toni / Shev / other ? any preferences?
I drank far too much Guinness last night thanks to Billy. I had just moved from my seat for the post match “ground exit race” when it went in, almost in slow motion from the MHL. I virtually had no voice at that point anyway but I did manage a small run with arms outstretched.
I’m going back to bed now as everything hurts.
Gleb, Lamps is like Becks - some free kicks are wild, some are exquisite. Better that than nothing in my view.
fantastic goal, simply nothing to say can be compared to the one scored by Crespo to Wigan at the begining of the season.
Great win and really good game.
Where is Rupert? Anyone seen him anywhere?
Gallas brilliant goal…
Drogs shot if had entered would have been equally as sweet…
Lovely game will be watching it again later….
Oh and the icing on the cake Barca lost and got a bit of their own treatment…Two red cards…lovely
Well now we have to keep winning and my prayer here is that Airline FC does not make the grade to Champions league next season…
Would love to seem them play only local matches in their new “airport”…Now that would be nice…They should finnish eight at best seventh…
God please!!!!!
Domestic duites meant I wasn’t at the game on Saturday after all “F$@&*(&^$ BALLACKS” never the less I did get to watch it on Pay per view. It is one of the few times I’ve strained my voice in the confines of my living room watching football. The goal was deja vu all over again. A few years back I shudder to remember a certain Nigel Winterburn striking a ball from a roughly similar position. The result ofd that shot left me deflated for around 2 weeks and I think the opposite will be true this time… All the disappointment of the previous week erased in a single moment of genius.
A great shot to finish the game, and made up for the loss of 2 points to my fantasy football squad from Chelsea conceding the goal.
There must have been something in the water at the weekend - it was goal of the month all in one day!
Rarely, if ever, does the rubbish written by The Daily Telegraphs David Miller ever move me to even raise an eyebrow, however in todays article in the Telegraph he plumbs new depths in bias and myiopia. How does a supposed quality newspaper allow its sports journalists to publish that kind of article. It does not represent reporting in any sense of the word. Dating back to the Days of Mr. Bates, whom Miller detested with such passion that the bearded ones departure must have left a hole in his life that it was almost impossible to fill. Judging from recent this drivell he has been allowed to publish he has filled this void with the current Chelsea ownership and management.
Miller talks of Abramovich’s money “destroying a level field of competition”… which level playing field is he referring to? the one on which for the last 14 years either Manchester Utd or Arsenal won the league and 60% of cup competitions? I suppose it was a level playing field if you were an Arsenal or Utd fan but for the other 90% of football supporters it most certainly was no such thing.
Good journalism should provoke debate - this kind of jouranlism betrays the kind of bias more usually associated with internet chat rooms and says a great deal more about its writters agenda than it does about Chelsea’s currently dominant position in English football
Could not agree with you more, Peter.
I too noticed the quite obvious anti-Chelsea sentiment to Miller’s ‘match report’. He was so focussed on attacking Chelsea that minor facts like Robben’s 4-match suspension escaped him - instead he reported Robben as “injured”. Not a big deal, but not what you would expect from a ‘professional’ journalist.
And apparently you’re only allowed to celebrate winning wonder goals in injury time in the manner the team did on Saturday if you’re fighting relegation. According to Miller, Gallas and Mourinho’s celebration was “gross”.
Full of sh*t.
On a similar topic, I wrote an email to Paul Wilson criticising his terrible piece about Mourinho in yesterday’s Observer and suggesting that if he really wanted to write an interesting article that distinguished him from the tabloid hivemind he should separate Mourinho’s words (for instance, about the ref after the Barca game) from his actions (his subsequent treatment of Del Horno).
I also asked why Barca’s disrespectful behaviour before the CL game (and the previous season) and West Brom’s cheating in the match last week were both utterly ignored by those very members of the press who are so eager to rush to judgment about our ‘complete lack of class’.
His reponse was illuminating: ‘Thank you for your observations. I’ll try to bear them in mind the next
time I want to write about how wonderful Chelsea are.’
And people wonder why newspaper circulations are in such decline…
I do not bother with the papers anymore..I take it as their opinion… and they seek to get as much input from us as possible..so just ignore them
Jose Musumba–why in the world would you pray that
Airline FcArsenal don’t make it to the Champions League next. They are representing EPL right now and why all this malice. And Barca loosing, What does all that have to do with being a Chelsea fan? What happens with those teams has nothing to do with us, and if you watched Arsenal play Liverpool on Sunday, they were awsome. And we need a Fabregas to be passing Drogba and Crespo just the way he passes Thiery. If we get a Fabregas kind of passer alongside Lamps, I think we would become invinsible. Am sure Drogba can also benefit from through passes of Fabregas. But still I don’t understand why being a Chelsea fan explains why you should wish death to teams that have nothing to do with us. Isn’t this why they think we are arrogant? Leave God out of your malicious intentions.Miller talks of Abramovich’s money “destroying a level field of competitionâ€?…
If we don’t keep some of the best EPL players on the sidelines e.g SWP, that statement would be unfounded. We don’t have to defend everything just because we’re Chelsea fans.
If we release all our fringe players then the Millers will have no case against us.
{Cech,
Cudicini,Ferreira,Calvalho, Gallas, Huth, Terry, Bridge, Geremi(Cover for Gallas),Johnson(Cover),ADH,Duff, Cole(cover for SWP), SWP, Robben, Ballack|Fabregas(need his passing at least), Lamps,Makelele, Essien(cover for Makelele),ManicheEidur,C. Cole, Crespo(Cover for Drogba), Drogba }This would throw all those fringe players to other teams that could have use for them.
It’s just so difficult to know where to start, so I’ll leave it to someone else today. I’m off for a lie down…
Henry,
Words escape me.
Clearly you’re not from England? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Were you an
Arsenal(this HTML lark is fun, isn’t it?) Airline FC fan during their 49 game unbeaten run? I have my suspicions. Or was itMan Utd(fun, fun, fun!) Manure before the Glazers put a spanner in the works? Or Liverpool during the second half of last season’s CL?Is there not another Chelsea website you can frequent?
Mark-t took you the whole day on Google figuring how to strike words, well done!, at last! You seem to have lost your venom lately.
What’s to do with being or not being from England? I am a Chelsea fan thanks, but I am troubled with your determination to chase me from this blog. I’ll be grateful if you can give a other Chelsea links I can visit instead. For the record I wasn’t their fan but I was happy to see them rival ManU when Ranieri couldn’t do it. It was only a relief. Besides why don’t you stick to the football issues and leave everything else out of it. Your contributions quite often have nothing to do with football. On Sunday I had the opportunity to watch Arsenal , I’m sure you watched them as well, nothing is Airline FC about them to be honest, I was apalled that we do not have somebody that passes like Fabregas at all. All we have to do is judge Drogba and Crespo on 50-50 passes, and for that we need a good passer just like Fabregas.
For some reason you sound like Jonathan, Are you him in disguise?
Cudicini? Why on earth would be release our second keeper? Cech is not a robot, you know. Who will be the GK if Cech gets an injury or a Soll-like mental shit? Fabregas?
Ferreira? Best right-back in Europe a could of seasons ago? He’s a class player. If he has some problems now, it doesn’t mean he’s shit. Johnson may be good, but not as good.
Carvalho? Ok, maybe Gallas is a better CB with Terry, but again - surely you know what happens to teams without sufficient cover?
ADH? Again, maybe he has some problems but he’s definitely an awesome player.
Duff? Simply LOL. But then I’m biased…
Maniche - he’s on loan anyway and he’s your Fabregas. Except he’s a bit shit now, but he’ll improve.
Eidur? No fucking way.
C.Cole - Ok, here I agree.
Chelsea are a successful club BECAUSE we have so many good players. Look what happens when clubs don’t. They get trashed. Any injury for us - we can handle it well. SWP is still young and needs to improve. Chelsea and Jose have a much higher standard. So in order for SWP to play (and he did against Spurs, BTW), he has to improve. Training at Chelsea is better than playing at some middle-table club. If Jose had a different view, he wouldn’t have bought him. We need all the players. Every one of them is important. We BUY, not sell.
No offence against you personally, just that post of yours.
Henry, for the record I can happily confirm to you that I only ever post here under my own name. The fact that I don’t bother to use a pseudonym should make that quite clear really.
Your response to Mark is interesting. On various occasions now you’ve suggested that other posters either sound like me or are me in disguise. Those who agree with me, you’ve suggested are all my mates. To clarify - one person I know posts on here regularly, and you could write a fairly sizeable book about the football related topics that he and I have disagreed on over the years. Believe me, he certainly isn’t a ‘yes’ man.
When I’ve asked you to justify an irrational reaction to comments I’ve made, or indeed to point out where I’ve supposedly made comments that I haven’t, you’ve disappeared into thin air.
I’ve genuinely seen you praise Arsenal on this site more than you’ve done with Chelsea, for instance suggesting that you’d be happy to see Chelsea lose if we played like Arsenal. You’ve described Jose, for whom you seem to have an unnaturally irrational hatred, as a ‘terrorist with a nuke’. You’ve suggested that we all boo the players that don’t pass to Crespo. You’ve suggested that we dump half of our squad in the interests of competition. You’ve suggested that only my bank manager knows why I defend Jose.
Bearing all this in mind, is it such a shock to you that it isn’t just me that thinks you talk utter nonsense 99% of the time?
I appreciate that we all differ on a number of issues, which is ultimately what this blog is for, but please, drop the conspiracy theories and the constantly anti-Chelsea stance would you? By all means, criticise rationally but praise the team and Jose when they get things right (as they do quite frequently) and people might take you more seriously.
And to end with, to prove that I’m happy to talk football on a rational level with anyone, Fabregas is indeed a superb player and could well be one of the best midfielders in Europe in 5 years time. But at present, we seem to be doing pretty well without him.
Henry,
I can assure you that I do not know, and have never knowingly met, anybody that posts to this blog, or that comments on this blog. And I’m definitely not Jonathan! (I would hope that’s obvious from the quality of Jonathan’s writing!) I happen to agree with a lot of Jonathan’s views but that doesn’t make me him, obviously.
Do you really expect me to enter into a debate about football issues with somebody as irrational an unobjective as you? No chance. To me you seem to have a number of problems with Chelsea, a team you purport to support! I just get the feeling you’re looking for a ‘fight’ - I think the term is ‘flaming’.
And I’m not trying to drive you to another unsuspecting Chelsea website, although I do sometimes wonder why the guys behind this blog keep publishing your rubbish. ;-)
I did watch Arsenal on Sunday, and they were good. But I too hope they come a cropper against Juventus and fail to get into next season’s CL. That’s the tribal nature of English football I’m afraid.
Quite a mouthful there! You sure needed a ‘lie down’ beforehand.
I have to say I only post when I see something I am not happy with, especially the things I do not like about JM’s approach to the game.
I am not sure about us not needing a Kaka/Veron/Fabregas-kind-of-a-passer, I have a feeling even if we sign a Shevshenko in the summer he’ll be another Crespo, simple because our midfield doesn’t create goals in the same manner that Fabregas does. All the time we’ve had Crespo he’s yet to get a pass the kind of which Thiery gets every matchday. So perhaps instead of shipping out Crespo and Drogba, first we ought to address the reason why they aren’t good to us. I think we would struggle with any striker if this issue isn’t resolved. This isn’t just about going out there and buying an kind of a player. Unless we address that, Heskey might as well be our top priority this summer. Good players can seem bad just because our kind of football doesn’t suit them.
One more thing, i might only be critising the team but don’t you only praise them all the time. I haven’t heard you complaining about some of the boring games that we have. How come you don’t criticise when criticism is due?
But once again this is my opinion(or ‘my arsehole’-according to Mark)
And Gleb most of those players are awesome but if we have so many good players we end up with many unhappy players.
I’m sure some of our players are unsettled by this, Gallas, Johnson, Cole, all these guys are undicided about contracts because of unneccessary competition, well I don’t think there’s competition for places in JM’s approach. If you look at the player stats and the players that are chosen, it just doesn’t seem so.
er..its not anti-Chelsea stance, I am only anti-JM(propably only against a handful of his decisions). Its not just about halving our squad, some of these costs are unneccessary, we can’t just top the wages bill in European Football for players that are not useful to us. If I was Kenyon I would bring that wage bill down and start investing on a 80000-seater, we’ve got to be self sufficient one of these days. People like Roman will come and go, but while we still have him we ought to use him wisely. Investing in players only is a risk.
We’ve done the striker debate before, and I’d agree that it doesn’t matter who we buy - the way we play currently utilises the lone striker as far more of a team player that helps us to win games without over-reliance on one goal scorer. All the while that works, I’ve no problem with it.
I’ve never found Chelsea winning boring, to be honest. There we clearly differ. Functional, hard-fought wins are part of a title defence - ask Man Utd. Arsenal may play some fabulous football, but they’ve never successfully defended a Premiership title - I’m sure in private even a purist like Wenger might admit that he’d have swapped any one of Arsenal’s 10 (?) league defeats this season for a ‘dull’ victory or two. Until points are awarded for artistic impression, it’s three for a win and nothing for a loss.
And I’ve raised criticisms on plenty of occasions Henry - just not in the manner that you do. Read the articles.
Agree that we’ve got to become self-sufficient. To do that, we need to bring money in. As a football club, you do this by winning and being successful. To win and be succesful, you need great players, and not just 11 of them.
To fill an 80,000 seat stadium should we ever shift to one, we would need world-class players, playing top-class opposition week in, week out. A smaller squad with no quality back-up wouldn’t do that and it certainly wouldn’t get us there in the first place. It’s a vicious circle, I’m afraid.
Yes, we have to develop players rather than keep shelling out for them. Which we will hopefully do - as I’ve said, building for the future will take time.
F**king nooooooo!
And Henry - one point which I missed earlier. If our midfield isn’t creating goals in the manner that Fabregas does, given that we’re the top scorers in the league this season (and last), then just who is making them?
The point is that if you cut off the supply to Henry (that’s the French chap, not you), Arsenal are in trouble. Our gameplan doesn’t rely solely on the service to the strikers.
And “f**king nooooo” part two:
Chelsea, supposingly, are ready to make a 35m pounds bid for Zlatan Ibrahimovic. And while the Juve president will most likely reject the money, Chelsea, supposingly, are also ready to include non other than Billy Gallas, our hero, a world-class defender who can play anywhere, into the bid to persuade Juve to accept it.
Your thoughts? I think with the kind of money we have we really shouldn’t lose a world-class player to buy some overrated sh*t.
Henry, you can start cheering.
I ain’t saying anything but you know what they say: there ain’t no smoke without fire.
If he’s already thinking about some other team…
To be honest with you Gleb, I’ll be relieved if he gives in to all the stick he’s getting from the British media(mostly for the wrong reasons though) and is unveiled at Barnebeu in the summer. I am sure there’s some manager out there that would nurtue(sp) talent, entertain, win(the EPL) and buy wisely(Your Special One has spent more than Ranieri but 90% of his starting XI is Ranieri’s buys)-and for that I’m restless looking forward to a ’summer shopping’ spree in his hands–and of course he’s ‘learning’-but that’s £110+ million lesson.
There’s one problem, though. We don’t need some other good manager. We already have one. It’s like those stupid clubs who sell their best player to buy another good player. They simple exchange players, they ain’t winning anything from it. Same here. We let Jose go, we start looking for a new coach (except Hiddink and Capello, I’ve no idea who can be our coach), we maybe find one, and then what do we get?! Same! So why all the hassle?