Premiership: Reading v. Chelsea
Seventeen Chelsea players were on international duty during the week and Jose Mourinho is likely to rest one or two as he prepares for Wednesday’s Champions League group game against Barcelona.
Ashley Cole returned from England’s Euro 2008 qualifying debacle with an ankle injury which rules him out, while Michael Ballack will complete a three-match ban. Joe Cole came through 90 minutes of a behind-closed-doors friendly in midweek and is available for selection.
Andriy Shevchenko recovered from a virus in time to play for Ukraine and scored a 90th minute penalty as they defeated Scotland 2-0. Mourinho travelled to Kiev to watch Shevchenko play.
“I went to see Ukraine against Scotland, or to be more accurate, to see Sheva. I was there to bring him back after the game and to give him some support like I do with everybody else … Sheva played a good game and scored a goal so he comes back with some happiness,” Mourinho told Chelsea TV.
Reading have doubts over skipper Graeme Murty and striker Kevin Doyle. Neither were able to play for their respective international sides during the week.
The Royals will be defending a 14-month unbeaten record at the Madejski Stadium. Their last home game ended 1-1 when Manchester United came from a goal down to earn a point.
Chelsea will be playing the Royals for the first time since winning a fourth round League Cup tie 1-0 in December 2003, when Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink scored the winner.
- Posted at 12:54 AM · Permalink · Print · 1818 views · Last indexed by Google on the 15th May 2008
- Tags: Jose Mourinho, Manager, Matches, Players, Premiership, Reading
Well Sorry for this, but Fooking HELL, what a game!!!! Im buzzing for some reason after that win, was soo tough and i am soo proud to be a chelsea fan, love this club more than anything. Adrenaline rush or what.
JT In goal!!! WTF, was parying they didnt get a shot, and what happened at the end??
But now for the down side, Peter Cech - out, Carlo - Out. It has to happen to us with barca round the corner. Bloody crap.
probably the hardest 0-1 we will have to get this season.
Good to see JC back aswel. Wished SWP would have started in front of Mikel.
Mikel derserved to go. This game reminded me of that one away at blackburn, rough, but we proved why we are champions.
In a way it also reminded me of that game against Newcastle where Bridgey broke his leg, and we ended up with Glen Johnson in Goal and like 8 Fit players. Crazy
Well I am CHelsea til i die, with that kind of toughness Bring on barca!!! With Ballack back JC, Robben i think we will have a good chance of beating them.
ONLY downsides are THe goalkeepers and Sheva, he seems disintrested atm, not sure what to think. Just really want him to be on fire. Hope its soon.
Oh and P.S Riley was Poor, i thought. I know both goal Keepers were “accidents” but BLOODY HELL is it really ok to go in for the ball and twat the keeper??I mean we should do it, if it was us, we would have got sent off for sure, Drogba On barcas keeper anyone??We do get hated on by refs i think.
I’m pretty sure that I have just witnessed the match that defines our season, like the comeback against West Ham last season and the win at Blackburn the season before. The show of togetherness of the team after the final whistle almost brought me to tears. John Terry deserves knighthood. Best wishes to Carlo and Petr. Mikel is young, Sheva is old, but both will learn. Extremely happy to see Joe Cole back. Boulah looks an extremely good replacement for Gallas; definitely a rival for Ricky.
This is the conclusion: We are Chelsea FC and we WILL triumph over adversity.
Fantastic result. Had all the hallmarks of Blackburn two years ago.
However despite our dominance possession wise, I thought we played poorly. Plus, dare I say it, JM overreacted post match, It was profoundly unfortunate that both our keepers were hospitlialised, but I genuinely believe that there was no malice in either of the challenges.
Just let it lie.
The club behaved (unsurprisingly) brilliantly after Ballack got sent off against Liverpool, but tonight they lost it a bit. I really don’t think that Hunt deliberately set out to harm Cech, and alleging that he did was just over the top.
Up the Chels.
Up Blues!
I am so happy that we got the 3 points we deserved and we did what exactly made a champions consecutive seasons ago. Blackburn and Westham respectively. The officiating is quite bad and thats what led the match into a tough game instead of pure football game. Hunt should have been sent off immediately fouled Cech, i believe it was intentional because cech’s got the ball before him, Mikel deserved ben sent off and Shevy didnt play well maybe because of the formation been used by JM since he came to Chelsea.
I want to see Hunt get fined and banned by FA for the dangerous foul on cech and Sonko should have got another card for running too heavily to hit cudicini after ball. I watched the play back of the incident and i see clearly it was after ball and not by accident or just collision, it was done intentionally by Sonko to knock Cudicini out . I hope both keeper recover from the malicious fouls on them as soon as possible so we can have them back on wednesday against Barca.
We did not play quite alright in the first half and we allowed them to gain possesion too much and gained so much confidence. At the midfield, Mikel and Lampard were so poor. No hard marking and couldnt compete with the speed annd hard tackling of the match, so we get pressed on so much and we looked weak. In the second part of the game after one had been sent off, I think we defended very well and deserved to win after Joe Cole has been introduced and Shevy was removed. I know very soon things will be changed to better but when, maybe we should revert back to 4-5-1 and shevy should be starting on the bench and we will be able to use two wingers. Refs hate chelseafc and we need to carry on with that. we will be more stronger if we get to play this kind of matches always.
I believe strongly that we can top champions league group table if we can earn a point or three point against Barca at home on Wednesday.
Blue till I die.
I have changed my mind about what I wrote above.
Having seen it again this morning Hunt should have hurdled Cech, and instead colapsed his knee into Petr’s head.
Sounds like he has had a very serious operation and I wish him all the best.
He is the greatest keeper in the world and we are going to miss him sorely.
Get better soon Big Pete.