Well what a massive win that was, a bit like Wembley a few years back they capitulated in the end but take nothing away from our win. We weren't great but didn't need to be as our front players were all excellent in front of goal. Nice to get a big home win as it's been long overdue. Onwards and upwards and hopefully we can win at Villa and keep this run going, they are poor away at home and we have the tools to take advantage, hopefully Torres comes back soon as he is better in these away games with more space.
Keep winning and see what the others do. Can't do anymore. If we do win it this year teams should be terrified because when we get a striker we'll be unfuckingbeatable.
Huge win and even more pleasing that it comes against 5pu1s. Three gifts and a soft penalty, but I'll take us thrashing them whilst their defence is embarrassed in the process. A 7 point gap and even more importantly a 9 point gap over Manchester City is very good at this stage. Piles the pressure on Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City to keep up with their games in hand, regardless of who their respective fixtures may be against. Despite winning by four goals and with a clean we didn't look that good though. I'm just concerned that we haven't had enough title winning performances to give me enough confidence to believe that we can go on to win the title. I know they say that playing badly and still winning is a sign of champions, but we've had too many of those and not enough of matches where we steam rolled the opposition which for me is a much clearer indication of potential champions. Let's wait and see.
Better away mate. [TABLE] [TR="class: lightBlue, bgcolor: #94BEE5"] [TD="class: name tableHeaderRowData"]Aston Villa[/TD] [TD="class: played leagueRightWhite tableHeaderRowData"]28[/TD] [TD="class: homeWins tableHeaderRowData"]4[/TD] [TD="class: homeDraws tableHeaderRowData"]2[/TD] [TD="class: homeLosses tableHeaderRowData"]8[/TD] [TD="class: homeGoalsFor tableHeaderRowData"]16[/TD] [TD="class: homeGoialsAgainst tableHeaderRowData leagueRightWhite"]22[/TD] [TD="class: awayWins tableHeaderRowData"]4[/TD] [TD="class: awayDraws tableHeaderRowData"]5[/TD] [TD="class: awayLosses tableHeaderRowData"]5[/TD] [TD="class: awayGoalsFor tableHeaderRowData"]15[/TD] [TD="class: awayGoalsAgainst tableHeaderRowData leagueRightWhite"]16[/TD] [TD="class: goalDifference tableHeaderRowData"]-7[/TD] [TD="class: points tableHeaderRowData"]31[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]
We earned the points but were not great. Spuds fell apart late on, but still think we had the better of them. Sending off was yet another Ref blunder for mine, ridiculously harsh. Nice to see the strikers scoring, though if he had missed those we would have hit an all time low. That said we can only play what's in front of us. A word about Ivan. What a great player he has been for us, solid, consistent, reliable a real team player. Rarely man of the match but also rarely poor, just a top notch professional in every way.
New odds from P.Power. Chels now 10/11, City 7/4, Pool 13/2, Arsenal 20/1. Great 2nd half display again from the lads. You can see the confidence that a long unbeaten run gives you. Probably not fair to pick players out but i'm going to anyway. J.T. has been a giant in defence all season and is bringing out the best now in Cahill. Not playing for England, with the wear and tear plus travel that entails, is a massive plus for the club and should, barring injuries, extend his career greatly. The other player i have to mention is "Dave". His form this season is top notch. We have got ourselves a special player here. He has been so consistent and must be a nightmare to play against 1 on 1 and deal with his pace. Like a terrier around a postman's legs you can't shake him off. No wonder Jose loves him ! 9 games and counting....come on the Chels !!!
Remarkable player - got to be a shoehorn into a world squad of 15, if not a world starting 11. His solidity allows Hazard to express himself, and I'd only be happy integrating someone like Luke Shaw into the team if Hazard plays central.
Have to agree with the consensus on here; not great but 4 gifts and 3 more points. Would like to see us play the full 90 and not just the second 45 as we will come up against teams with a lot more commitment & spirit then " Team Sherwood".
Jose has made THIS Chelsea team, best in the league!! Pound for pound - this team would be third or fourth at best if not for Jose!!
Congratulations to Chelsea for a deserved victory. The difference between the teams in this case, IMO, was more in what Chelsea didn't do, which was anything really stupid, like pass the ball backwards excessively, than what they did. But winning results as much from avoiding mistakes as in exceptional play, and Chelsea have been very good at not making critical errors. Losses are always disappointing. This was one was especially so because we set ourselves up both surprisingly and effectively--but from the beginning were passing backwards far too often, to Lloris and other players. Backpassing needs to be done rarely, in a nutshell. The more you do it, the more teams will start anticipating the backpass, and the more they start running for it, the more certain it is that they'll end up with a goal. Vertonghen obviously shouldn't have slipped or backpassed, but the real mistake was the pass back to him to begin with. Whoever made it traded in a good chance to break for a Chelsea goal. I still haven't had a good look at the pen, incidentally, but it looked like a bad call from what I did see. I thought the chances it affected the result in any case were slim to very slim. The bad call against Man City hurt because we'd turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 win the year before. I just didn't see that happening at Stamford Bridge. In any case, while I don't wish you good luck as a team, I do want to congratulate you on a good win. I thought Azpilicuehta was particularly good, though the big play might have been Cech's save on Sandro's scorcher, which a lot of keepers would have let in.
Good shout!! Cech is still one of THE best shot stoppers out there & Dave talks on the pitch. Have to admit surprised with your team selection and it was effective and efficient until Vertonghen screwed up. Vertonghen & Sandro mistakes were due to them trying to be too smart. If they both tried to do the simple things - might have cleared both those chances.
Laughable that some on their board don't think it was a penalty, stone wall. Red card is debatable, but he was denied a goalscoring opportunity. Seeing Sherwood almost in tears was very funny though.
Their board was hilarious on match day. Some had proper melt downs calling us and the ref cheats etc yet conveniently forgetting that Lloris was lucky to be on the pitch from as early as the first few minutes. Sandro could have walked as well and it's not our fault they made so many defensive errors! Sherwood is dead man walking now. They might not even make Europe at this rate and no hope of C.L.
I could see them getting a draw had it not been for that first mistake to be honest. They were will in it, not just the score but in terms of general play too. It was a definite penalty though but i can't really decide on the sending off and i've seen it a fair few times. All four goals were so avoidable, i can't remember the last time i watched a game were all four goals were down to mistakes. Eto'o took the first one well though and as soon as we got it i was fully confident we'd win, just didn't expect four. On a seperate note, Azpi is fast becoming the best full back in world football and he's not even playing his best position. Scary.
They were well in it as you say but still plenty of time to play and I didn't see a lot of ambition from them to score. I think we'd have stepped it up as the half went on and we'd have probably nicked it anyway. Awful defending though, some of the worst I've seen from a so called top side.
I'm surprised no one else (that I saw) singled out too much backpassing as our critical error. We were knocking it back, either to Lloris or to the last defender, way too often from the beginning (despite my shouting at the television to stop it). In a nutshell, as long as you backpass once in a great while you're unlikely to pay for it. Do it every minute or two, and the other team starts charging forward trying to get an easy goal. Keep doing it after that, and it's just a matter of time until you give one up. For that matter, I was disgusted at the original pass back to Vertonghen. We had a chance to break, and instead we passed it to the player farthest back on the field? It's getting the basics wrong, as you say. I agree with you about the simple things, I think. If we'd simply knocked it as far up the field as possible, or out of bounds, every time we backpassed, we would have been fine--or, at least, we wouldn't have gifted you the first goal.
