Premiership preview: Wigan Athletic v. Chelsea
In recent seasons the busy Christmas schedule has proved particularly fruitful for Chelsea. Since Jose Mourinho’s arrival in 2004, the Blues have taken maximum points in all of their holiday fixtures.
The current campaign’s festive feast of football kicks off with a difficult away game against Wigan Athletic. Last season’s trip to the JJB Stadium saw a memorable last gasp goal from Hernan Crespo nick all three points for Chelsea, but that was cruel on Paul Jewell’s side who had outplayed the Blues for the majority of the 90 minutes. Today’s game is likely to prove equally as challenging.
Chelsea’s squad is unchanged from that which travelled to Newcastle in midweek. Captain John Terry is out with a recurrence of the back injury he sustained earlier in the season, while Carlo Cudicini is absent with a leg muscle strain suffered at Bolton. Khalid Boulahrouz is expected to take Terry’s place and Henrique Hilario will continue in goal. Ricardo Carvalho is also struggling for fitness but is set to start at the centre of defence.
Wigan are without Henri Camara and Lee McCulloch, who received a three-game ban for punching Chris Morgan during last weekend’s defeat to Sheffield United. Paul Scharner, Ryan Taylor, Antonio Valencia and Steve McMillan are also out.
The Latics are facing Chelsea for the third time in a Premiership fixture. The Blues ‘doubled’ Wigan last season with two 1-0 victories.
In other news, Chelsea will travel to Wycombe Wanderers for the first leg of this season’s League Cup semi-final. The game will be played on Wednesday 10th January with the second leg a fortnight later at Stamford Bridge. The other semi-final sees Tottenham play either Arsenal or Liverpool.
- Posted at 01:50 PM · Permalink · Print · 2065 views · Last indexed by Google on the 15th May 2008
- Tags: Carlo Cudicini, Chelsea, Henrique Hilario, JJB Stadium, John Terry, Jose Mourinho, League Cup, Matches, Paul Jewell, Premiership, Ricardo Carvalho, Wigan Athletic, Wycombe Wanderers
If the regular contributors could report in please - I’m seriously starting to worry about our collective health in these days of late winners…
Alive and well here in Melbourne!
You have to love it……..Fergie must be absolutely gutted…..Press will be full of lucky Chelsea stories, and they were much better than us for the second half. However…..we had a perfectly good goal disallowed, they had a blatently offside goal awarded, and we still dug deep to get the points.
Keep the Blue Flag flying high this Christmas!
Chelsea games should come with a warning at the start!!
“This game could seriously damage your health”
It certainly is causing havoc with my bowel movements!
We should have cruised to victory today, 2-0 up and we relaxed and let them get back in it.
We need to play well for 90 mins, not just the last 10 mins and then grab a winner.
Boulahrouz once again looked awkward. Doesn’t look to dominant in the air and gives away needless free kicks, usually by grabbing people when there is no need.
The sooner we have JT and Cech back the better, we don’t look as strong at the back as we used to, I think we should buy a quality CB in the january window.
Robben and Kalou were on fire today, even if Drogba was relatively non-existent.
United fans must be getting really worried; they’re playing their absolute best game, we’re mostly playing dire and yet we’re still getting results and are only two points behind.
If we win this Premiership, then we will truly deserve it. BELIEVE!
Hi all, JD hopefully you regard me as a regular contributor - therefore to help you in your request here goes…controversially…
The first half was good, comfortable, warm, snug and hence we fell asleep and let a sucker goal in just before half time. We may as well have invited a nurse on for the second goal to administer warm milk and cookies to help us defend that free kick. A free kick derived from Maka losing the ball stupidly two thirds of the way up the pitch.
For the second half I thought we’d come out guns blazing, but no…I refer all you honourable gentlemen and women to my earlier article about the Everton game with the caveat changing “first half bad, second half good” to “first half good, second half…absolute pony”. We got out of jail tonight my friends (and yes I HAVE been drinking) and the reason why we were so poor?
Here’s the controversy…Claude Makalele! He’s been rubbish for a few games now, and in TV/Movie terms he’s “jumped the shark”. He’s over the hill, gone, needs to be put out to stud. He’s been great and on his day he can still be inspirational like Teddy Sheringham, but like Teddy, this is becoming rarer and rarer. Today he played like I would after copious amounts of Guinness or Magners, in fact even worse. He lost the ball more times than SWP would on a bad day, and second half his efforts were truly abysmal. I was screaming through the medium of TV for JM to remove him. For once he seemed to agree. Whilst Boulha is no replacment for JT, and Ashley looked like a freshly caught cod flapping on the pier side, Maka looked simply out of his depth and out of his league. Essien needs to be moved into this role, Geremi need to be trusted at right back, Ballack needs a rocket up his arse and we need JT back asap. Sorry guys and gals, but Maka is a spent force in my view and is increasingly a liability. Yes, we won but tonight at the pub everyone knew we’d got out of jail big time. Even Mr Chelsea agreed with me (and that NEVER happens!)…it’s time for some big decisions and the first has to be where Maka goes in the summer. He now has to be a utility player coming off the bench and nothing more. Harsh, but true…discuss?
By the way, having just had one “Tony shaped hole” repaired in the patio doors, I now have another in the other side after Arjen’s stunner at the death. My insurance bill is gonna be really high later this year! Cheers all, Tony
The game today showed that Terry is vital to our back four, Boulahrouz still doesn’t look right yet. Would signing a CB in January help? Or do we get Micah Richards?
The Robben-Kalou combination could be a strong one in the future.
This was one of the worst Chelsea performances I have witnessed since Jose took over. It was complete injustice to Wigan that they got no points out of this game. I thought Wigan very well deserved to win. Twice in two years, in the JJB stadium, we have managed to win despite being outplayed by lowly Wigan. I feel really very sorry for Wigan Athletic, their fans and Paul Jewell.
To the fans’ delight, Jose started off with 4-3-3 and to more delight, he started with Essien as the right back. I for one, was very pleased to see Kalou start. We started off very well, looking ominous with the kind of tempo that is typical of 4-3-3. A great assist by Robben and a smooth finish by Lampard got us the lead. Kalou was very much alive and kicking. He got his first premiership goal with an easy header. After 30 minutes we were 2-0 up and just when my expectations were coming true, we let Heskey score without too much difficulty. The stoppage time was only 1 minute but when the free kick was taken, it was well past 1:45 minutes. Anyway, they deserved their goal.
After we went 2-0 up, we started playing poorly. May be complacency set in. Hilario’s nervousness and Khalid’s half-minded defence did not help us. In the second half when Lampard wasted a beautifully set up opportunity, I thought we might just kill the game soon. How wrong I was! After the poor first half ended with a goal conceded in a stoppage time set piece, I hoped that Jose would rip the players apart in the half time and we would see a reaction. Second half was worse. It was getting poorer by the minute. Our defence was shaky and running around with no teamwork, our midfield gave the ball away too easily and our forwards could get the ball only in the air and Wigan negotiated us very easily. Heskey’s equaliser was clearly offside (considering Cole’s position too). But that didnt matter. With the way Wigan were playing, they would have scored anyway.
With just 15 minutes left for a possible winner, Jose brought on Sheva and Obi. Good thing about the subs was that erratic Khalid was out and Maka, who was unimpressive today, was also out. Finally, we played ‘good’ football in the last 10 minutes. May be that too was because Wigan was playing for a draw and allowed us to push forward. They were prepared to sit back and defend for a few minutes. Once again, we got out of the jail, so late in the match, this time in the third minute of the stoppage time. How later are we going to react, in the matches to come? May be, against Reading, just when the referee pulls the whistle out of his pocket?
If there was one Chelsea player who deserved praise in this match, that was Robben. He set up Lampard’s goal, he delivered a very good corner to Kalou and he smashed home a brilliant winner in the dying moments. His first goal of the season happens to be a stunner worth all three points. I’m very happy for Robben. Jose persisted with him for full 90 minutes (93 mins!) and he did justify and showed why he is special.
After the match Robben said: “It’s not good for the nerves - for the fans or ourselves. We got three points and that’s all that matters. We have to be honest with ourselves, that was a terrible way to play and we didn’t deserve to win. We were 2-0 up in the first half, we were comfortable and confident. But we let them get back in the game. We were sloppy and just not awake. We have to forget this quickly and go on to the next game. You just have to keep focusing and concentrating in these games, we made too many mistakes.”
Robben, just like his matchwinner, is spot on target here. It’s not good for the nerves. And yes, we were ’sloppy’, he used the right word.
Look at the match statistics. Not even Barca managed this against us! I’m certainly not proud about this undeserving win. I wish I had not seen this game at all. Wigan made us look like we were a man down from the first minute. I dont know why we succumb to lethargy and how do we allow this to happen match after match. Allright we have the quality to pull a stunner anytime but dont we have the quality to finish off the match too? If I were Jose, I would watch the whole match with each of the player involved, in a big screen. That’s enough punishment.
After winning his 100th match for Chelsea, Jose reflected exactly my views. That’s why I like him. He thinks and reacts just like any other Chelsea fan: “I’m not proud, I’m very sad. We don’t deserve to win this game. We won because we had a good reaction in 10 minutes. This was our easiest game to win. After the way we started we had control of the game. It looks like the team is comfortable in difficult situations.”
May be for the first time, I’m very upset even after winning an away game!
I think the thing that annoyed me most yesterday was the way we let Wigan back into the game. The majority of the team were to blame as Jose put it “their attitude” was not right.
It brought back memories of the game at the Bridge a against Leicester in ‘98 we were 2-0 up and switched off and they got a draw. The only saving grace yesterday was, we got the win.
On saying that there were two key decisions where we had a perfectly good goal ruled out for an offside, which if allowed to stand possibly would have caused Wigan’s heads to drop.
And of course the Pesky Heskey (why does he save his best performances against us) goal which was clearly offside was allowed.
So perhaps in some ways we were slightly unfortunate, but I take nothing away from Wigan, they were superb in the second half and were worth the draw. Lets hope they can turn in a similar performance against Manure on Boxing Day
Having just watched the opening segment of Jimmy Hill’s Sunday Supplement, I’m no longer in the festive mood.
Why Sky give airtime to the fat obnoxious TWAT that is Steve Curry is beyond me. The bile that spewed from his unintelligent gob is beyond belief.
Chelsea should ban him from any home matches and refuse to give the WANKER any interviews.
There, I’ve said my piece, now I’m going to have a lay down and calm myself before Santa’s visit tonight
“Chelsea have changed the face of the Premiership. Previously, to win the League, you had to be great. But now, to win the League now, you have to be great all the time. If Manchester United want to win the League this time, they will have to play great all the time.” Alan Hansen on MOTD Saturday night, suggesting he still favours us to win the title for a third season running. In the face of negative press and media opinion - see current crop of articles circulating in a newspaper near you regarding the impending Reading game - it is nice to hear some positive comment. Hansen was summing up after highlights of another incredibly absorbing win, where, even with our propensity to give away goals to crap opposition, we gained another three points. The Liverpool of old did this. The great old Milan team, to whom we can be most be compared, did this. But another team that floats into my mind whenever I live through another ninety minutes with our team in their current mood, whether down their on the pitch or up on a screen, also played in the all-blue strip. And also gave me moments of despair and ecstasy in a single, breathtaking package. That was the 1969-71 incarnation of Chelsea that finished 3rd in the League and won the FA Cup in two epic games with the great Leeds team of Don Revie, and beat Real Madrid in the Cup Winner’s Cup the following season over two more highly emotional games. In those games we had a team I several times thought had been beaten only to find them come back again. As Peter Osgood said of Leeds: “After we equalised the last time, their heads went down. They thought: we can’t beat this team.” At some point this season, if we keep this up, Manchester United are just going to have to say: “We can’t beat this team. We can’t be great all the time.” And we will overtake them, start playing smooth football, and pull away through March and April.
i just finished reading that ruddy ferguson is ‘taunting’ jose by recalling jose’s promise to be on top at xmas…
if thats the best rudolph can do, then Chelsea had better get in a festive mood come the final month of the season
Hmm, wasn’t Khalid way closer to our goal than Heskey? You know, he was, like, behind the goal altogether. So how can you say there was an offside?
Anyways, I of course agree with all of you - that’s no way to win games.
BUT! I think that’s an excellent way to fight MU off the pitch (ok, of THEIR pitch). I bet they are getting more nervous every game because of our incredible comebacks. They’re gonna slip, I’m sure.