Premier League: Blackburn Rovers 0 - 1 Chelsea
Match reports
The Times, Matt Hughes: “If he could bring himself to tune into a freezing English winter from the sunshine in Setúbal, even José Mourinho would have been impressed with the resilience that Chelsea showed in holding out for three points against Blackburn Rovers yesterday. However, they will need even more fortitude in the coming weeks as a hard-fought win came at a huge cost.”
Daily Telegraph, Mark Ogden: “Having lost John Terry and Didier Drogba to injuries that will sideline them until well into the new year, Chelsea will wait to discover whether goalkeeper Petr Cech faces an equally costly spell off after limping out of this crucial victory at Blackburn with a worrying hip injury.”
The Independent, Nick Harris: “A goalkeeping crisis also appears to be looming. Peter Cech was forced off in agony with a strain to his side yesterday, and Carlo Cudicini is unavailable as his deputy for the moment after injuring his ribs in training. Both players will be assessed in the coming days. Their absences meant Chelsea played the last half an hour with a man between the posts – Hilario – who had not featured at all since January.”
The Guardian, Stuart James: “Hilario’s fingertip stop came seven minutes after he had supplanted Cech, the Portuguese diving full-stretch to turn Roque Santa Cruz’s header behind. It had been impossible to visualise such brilliance moments earlier when Hilario, making his first appearance in more than 11 months, came off his goalline to punch clear David Bentley’s corner and made no contact with the ball.”
The goal
The good
- A well-earned win to start the Christmas period. With our closest rivals all picking up 3 points (Spurs proving that losing their bottle is almost a way of life for them), the win was crucial. And even Avram didn’t mind about the method - graft and endeavour above all else made this one possible.
- Carvalho - with Terry and Cech out, his influence in defence will be crucial over the next few games. See his part in the goal for how important he can be further up the field too. Welcome back.
- Joe Cole - having tipped him as the man ‘due a big game’ in yesterday’s Observer preview, I thought I’d probably scuppered his chances of a decent game but thankfully not. Hard working, well taken goal, not too many attempts to get himself on board the ‘Showboat’. A crucial player for us when he’s on form.
- In general - Blackburn have some serious problems at present but Ewood Park is no easy place to get a result (although we have a good record there in recent years); despite the lack of some key players and a hammering during the first 20 minutes, we rode the storm and put in the kind of performance that the title wins were built on.
The bad
- The injury to Cech. No Cech, no Terry - it must be Christmas then. Hilario’s introduction immediately made the defence a little more jumpy (although his superb save from Santa Cruz kept us in the game), but he isn’t the man you want between the sticks for any length of time. Quite who will be on the bench as our second keeper for the Boxing Day game with Villa is anyone’s guess.
- The first 20 minutes. A less profligate (and arguably luckier) team would have been out of sight after the opening quarter of an hour or so. Had Mark Hughes started with a front two instead of leaving Santa Cruz on his own, things could have been somewhat different.
- Not much else really - it is Christmas after all…
Man of the Match
Ricardo Carvalho. Joe Cole gets an honorable mention.
Final thoughts
Hope you all enjoy the festive season - thanks for all your contributions this year; never a dull moment around here, that’s for sure…!
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- Posted at 11:59 AM · Permalink · Print · 1358 views · Last indexed by Google on the 16th May 2008
- Tags: Avram Grant, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Henrique Hilario, Joe Cole, Jose Mourinho, Petr Cech, Premier League, Ricardo Carvalho
I’m surprised you thought so highly of Joe Cole - I’d have taken him off after 20 minutes because he kept giving the ball away.
That was a stressful match since I thought we’d be giving a goal away at any minute. Virtually all the team seemed intent on passing to an opponent, particularly our 2 fullbacks.
For me our best player was Frank. He’s mastered the art of side stepping opponents and he had a couple of excellent shots.
As for injuries how often to goalies come off injured? And yet it happens to us on the one day our reserve keeper is missing! I think Jose is sitting in Portugal sticking pins in a voodoo doll.
Ho Ho Ho, Hilario! Santa ain’t Joe Cole! What a goal!… Merry Christmas! :-)
Did I hear our away fans chanting Jose Mourinho? Or was I just hearing things. Personally I think we have been playing bad for the last few games. Hope it picks up soon…
Despite being dropped to the subs bench for the review (and not being good enough to be quoted in the Guardian - just teasing JD!) :-) I decided to watch the game from behind the spiked mask of a hangover from 2 consecutive nights of Christmas drinking. That’s OK when you’re twenty-something and the recovery period is measured in 2-3 hours with coffee , breakfast and drugs, but very different at 40-something when the recovery period is set at any point between 18 and 24 hours away with added nausea, pain, and a general desire to turn ones toes up there and then. Oh…I can still drink the youngsters under the table, I just can’t get out from underneath it the next day like they can.
Anyway, as I have a houseful of In (Out?)-Laws including several teen and pre-teen nephews and nieces, plus my own two teenage female “boys, rap, X-Factor, America’s Next Top Model and make up mad” horrorbags I’ve come out to the “study” (the room with a PC in it to drool over Kylie in the Dr Who trailer, play some Faith No More at too high a volume and give you all the benefit of my player ratings! Here goes
Cech - 8.5/10 - Made a save from Santa Cruz which was as good as anything I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen Gordon banks!
Ferreira - 7.5/10 - A right back dilemma? Can you imagine such a thing a year ago? Might still prefer Belletti, but paolo is looking like the right back we had when we first won the PL.
Alex - 8/10 - Honestly..what was Jm thinking when he refused to bring him over last year. Solid, reliable and gaining in confidence every game
Carvalho - 8.5/10 - welcome back Riccy. A class defender who would walk into any team anywhere.
Ashley Cole - 8/10 - looks permanently annoyed as if he wants to prove a point. So go on then…prove it. Combative, sparky and improving.
Essien - 8/10 - Boy are we gonna miss him - showed exactly the sort of class we missed last week.
Lampard - 9/10 - best performance for a couple of weeks. good passing and unlucky not to score. Possibly looked like a Captain for the first time ever
Obi - 8/10 - cool, calm, composed, classy.
Joe Cole - Showboated a bit too much for me but boy when he strikes a ball can he do the job. I’d like to see so much more of him in the goal attempts stakes. Superb run and strike for a goal that had Arsenal scored would have had the papers salivating….maybe even orgasming (does that word exist?)
Kalou - 7.5/10 - not bad, but not a striker and needs to stop kidding himself and us that he is.
Sheva - 7/10 - why does he insist on wandering to the wings when what we need is a striker in the box? aworse performance than we seen lately and he missed a sitter just before Joe showed him how to lash one in.
Hilario - 8/10 - dodgy on crosses and some frankly limp-wristed punching that even Graham Norton could have improved on (fisting for this analogy just seems so inappropriate) had me quaking on the settee. But then the save of all saves came his way and frankly I’m not sure any other keeper would have made it, not even him if it happened another 10 times. better than anything I saw from Banks!
SWP - 7/10 - oh dear. Looked out of sorts even though he came on as sub and we keep saying he is a “confidence” player but I’m not sure I want someone so fragile in the team.
Pizzaro - 6/10 - not on long enough to make me really form an opinion.
My own MOTM was Super Frank Lampard who had a superb game in my view and looked every bit as classy as we know he can be. How Friedel reached his rasping first half shot is a mystery to me, but then Friedel always finds the red and blue underpants outside outfit when he plays us.
Have a good Xmas everyone - I’m at the Villa game so fingers crossed we can improve on last years Boxing Day debacle and keep the pressure on.
I’ll be at the pub having some Magners or Guinness (or maybe both) later on and raising a glass of Christmas cheer to everyone Chelsea Blue!
Passing was very poor. Blackburn pressed hard but it does not explain why the team ‘looked like they had their Christmas party last night’, to quote one of the commentators. If Frank’s passing had been up to par, he would have had a superb game, but he was struck by the same malaise as everyone else. Thought that Joey Cole was invisible for most of the game and I didn’t realise Essien was playing for quite some time. He does not look like the dominating player of last year. Lack of match fitness maybe. Alex and Ricky were generally outstanding (though there were occasional misunderstandings with both keepers) which was just as well. Alex is turning out to be a half way decent centre half. Kalou as usual looked equally very good and very bad. His pass to Cole to score (excellently taken) was one of the few bright moments in the first half.
Still, three points when one played as badly as this against a pretty decent side, can’t be all bad. I seem to remember writing more or less the same thing a couple of years ago about this time, and we went on to win the Championship. We need to up our game though.
@ Tony Glover
I disagree in your assessment of Kalou, although I found your post generally agreeable.
I would argue that he is more of a striker than a winger, that striker is his natural position.
In Kalou’s 2004-05 season at Feyenoord, he played 31 games and had 20 goals. In his 2005-06 season at the club, he played 34 games and had 15 goals. However, his first season at Chelsea, employed primarily as a left winger, saw him play 27 games and score only 6 goals.
I’ve spent a while wondering why we don’t see the same production out of a player who was lauded by Marco van Basten and also won the Johan Cruyff Award for outstanding young talent in the Netherlands. I believe the root of it is that he is simply a natural striker, not a winger at all. In my opinion his outstanding physical attributes, his pace and his quickness, allow him to play as a winger, but to me he is consistently unconvincing. I had remarked earlier in the year that Kalou was slowly improving but still tended to “run around like an idiot” and I think I’ve figured out why. He is in the same mold as a player like Robinho who can be played as a winger or striker, but in his head, in his natural state, his mental approach to the game must see him play front and centre. I don’t believe we’ll see the best out of him until he is used as just a striker.
I hope he gets the chance in this Chelsea side, but I would like to know what you lot think about it.
Chelsea just did what was enough to win a match. Considering it was an away game, and that Chelsea had key players injured, it was a good effort. Roman wouldn’t have seen all the beautiful football he wanted, but Kalou’s defense splitting pass that found Joe certainly had all the beauty. And what a finish.Lampard, Essien, Mikel, Carvalho and the defense played well.
Another huge game against the Rovers. They were chasing pts like dogs. Was kinda astonished by their first half attacking and fouling form. A big relief with Cech and Riccy. But another typical holiday big blow for us when seeing Cech off, he was trying to stay a little bit longer, seeing we have no Carlo in, yet, made a decent choice to get off. It looked damn serious in his waist. Hilario did what was needed, but I doubt would it be okay for him to be in charge during the x’mas period?!
3 pts, keep the pressure on ManUre and Arses. No more beautiful football, so what?! Winning is our aim.
Another class performance from Obi. Good to see Essien, though he was a little bit uncomfy. Might be missing too many matches. Hope he will be able to get into the games asap.
Yea, Jack, I heard some chanting from the fans. Was that for Jose?
I agree with Michael’s assessment of Kalou. He is not a natural winger. With the possible exceptions of Malouda and Scott Sinclair, I don’t think we have any natural wingers. Robben and Duff were - look how many goals they scored by cutting in from the left wing - but Joe Cole is most effective when playing freely in the centre, and I think that this is also true of SWP (his centres are often abysmal which is surely the alpha and omega of wing play).
Kalou is an excellent header of the ball, and as we can see, he can also find the killer pass on occasion. He seems to be an instinctive player, and this is not really the mindset needed for wing play where one has often loads of time to think about what to do next, but is the mindset you need in an out and out striker. A 4-4-2 with Drogba or Sheva alongside Kalou would seem the most natural formation to play him in.
I cant overstate how good alex has been for us, he does all the little things that put the team in a position to win. Shevchenko needs to be let go, he has talent but is a lazy git. And if there is a god he will send us obefemi martins in the transfer window.
Kalou will have a hard time convincing people he’s a natural striker until he stops the highlight-reel misses. In England we tend to look at players like him — pacy, wobbly runner, willowy build, likes the ball at his feet — and just assume they’re wingers — Giggs etc. We seem to want our strikers to look and play like Shearer.
I think a 4-4-2 might suit him and Sheva, but that just pushes the positional conundrum back to the midfield.
With the injuries, the team pretty much picks itself at the moment anyway (except for the Paolo/Belletti issue, and one would hope there’d be a Bridge/Cole issue too, but those are not problematic decisions since all four are playing well); I suppose that’s a good thing.
Well… What to say about that? Fantastic topsy-turvy game, though I really thought we’d clinched it after Ballack and Sheva stepped up.
Lampard injured, both Ricky and Ashley suspended for three games…
Be prepared, guys - January is going to be rough, but we’ve got to keep going. Finishing third and clinching the League Cup would be a massive achievement this season. X
Well looks like our EPL challenge is now over, Why was Cech in goal when it was obvious that he was injured?
I’ve done a review guys, so hopefully Nick will get it posted soon. I pretty much said the same about EPL finally slipping away today.
As for Kalou and Pizzaro…….words have not failed me…see the review.
Entertaining games?
Bah! Humbug.
Give me the old 1-0 any time. That was madness. (Of course, I wouldn’t have been complaining if the game had ended two minutes earlier.)
I guess that now that the arse have dropped points at pompy we MUST beat United at the bridge and keep getting points!
I hate to speculate that our title run is over just yet. Arsenal dropped points today also, drawing 0-0 with Portsmouth. And things might look somewhat bleak at the moment but the transfer window is just about to open up…
12 points of the Xmas run would be desirable, but if we can win the next 2 games then 10 out of 12 it won’t be a disaster.
As it stands the lead to the top of the table has only increased by 1 point in reality, so we MUST win the next 2 games to hang on.
The only worrying thing about today is we conceded 4 goals at home which!!… well I can’t remember when we did last. We should have closed that game out at 3-2 and to be given a second chance at 4-3 says it all about the tactical ineptitude. But still, with the Arse dropping points as well we’re still just about in touch.
Pompey somehow hung on for grim death at the end but it does limit the damage a bit. I still think the biggest part we’ll play is in where the title goes - Manchester or North London. My review will tell all you need to know about how I think Avram Grant is as a tactician.
@ JK, because it is obvious Hilario was not ready.
The strange thing about this game was that our attacking line did everything they were supposed to do (can you imagine Sheva and Ballack scoring in one game?) but we were unconvincing in the back.
Looking forward to TG’s review, things are pretty ambiguous for me at the moment.
Blue Will Always Be The Color.
Just saw MOTD and I thought the first Villa goal was offside, and Ashley looked very unlucky to have a handball and red card against him. I gather Chelsea are appealing the decision for wrongful dismissal.