Friday, December 26

I Don't Want to Go To Chelsea…

Chelsea 2 West Ham 0

It’s off to the Faltering Fullback to watch the game on the tele. Matt and Lisa have been watching Doctor Who on Christmas Day and suggest that we might all be the victim of brain crabs pumping us full of anaesthetic as they eat our brains; this is all just a dream and in reality we are bottom of the league and still pumping long crosses at Modibo Maiga. Though the Sky league table does seem to suggest we’re fourth – or is it a dream within a dream?

The London Pride and Truman Swift and both good, though we need alcoholic stimulants in the first half. Song and Sakho are rested and Nolan, Noble and Kouyate never trouble the fluid midfield of Chelsea as Hazard, Willian and Oscar link up really well. While Valencia has pace but is frequently knocked off the ball and Downing is peripheral on the right wing. Andy Carroll might have got Billi pregnant but receives little service and never looks like scoring here.

Chelsea dominate as Willian shoots over and Adrian saves well from Cahill. Just as we’ve done the hard part defending well to concede a corner, we switch off as Chelsea take it quickly. Costa gets a header in and Terry scores from a yard out. Oh for some 19th Century defending. Costa then misses a great shot prodding it over the bar and Ivanovic performs a terrible dive in the box. It’s a relief to get to half-time only one down.

The Irons have a better start to the second half, forcing a couple of corners, and Song and Sakho are finally brought on.  But when Kouyate fails to control the ball in midfield Chelsea break again and Costa runs at three defenders, twisting expertly to score with a low shot after 62 minutes.

Song makes a big difference in midfield and is involved as Courtois has to dive at Valencia’s feet. It looks a routine home win as Adrian and Winston Reid keep the score down, but in the last five minutes the Irons finally get forward. Song finds Amalfitano on the left and the sub skilfully twists inside a defender to hit the post. Morgan also has a header wide of the post, but that’s it against Chelsea’s 28 efforts and some great saves from Adrian.


We never looked like we believed we could win this one and Chelsea look very likely to be Champions, with Mystic Matt predicting they will win the league by six points. Nigel texts to say that he's putting the Champions League breakfast in Kew on-hold. Matt and Lisa leave to prepare for a trip to the ballet at Sadler's Wells, inspired by Eden Hazard's elegant dives. Now we have to recover quickly and batter Arsenal’s suspect defence in two days’ time.

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