Hang on, Long is a mile offside for our goal. I didn't notice it is live, and I didn't notice it re-watching the game just then. I don't think the commentators mentioned it either. But looking at it again now, when Fraser kicks it, Long is someway behind the Chelsea back line - before he then pushes up, contests the header with Ivanovic, and less than five seconds later latches onto Baba's header. Or I am going mad?
I'll make my points then get my coat A lot of points that turned that game around: Firstly when Hiddink changed his tactics in the second half we were really struggling. Fair enough this happens however whilst in this area we got: Cahill on Austin should have been a penalty, if not for handball then because he went straight across the front of Austin stopping him from getting to the ball. However I can forgive the referee not giving that because from his viewpoint it probably appeared that due to the ball changing direction and Cahill's hand being the blindside of the ref that he had got the ball. So moving on from the fact we should have had an opportunity to get to 2 nil I'll progress with our own catalogue of downfall: VVD decided to pretend he had been smacked in the face by Costa and then decided to go down in a delayed reaction after looking at the referee and not getting the decision. The fact that he was caught around the neck yet he clutched his face was bad enough. The fact that he then chose after not getting the decision to go down WHEN WE HAD THE BALL STILL was damned annoying. That bit started some strange 'Lets get Costa angry' party rather than trying to play football. Firstly we have VVD going down in our box from the slightest touch from Costa and Atkinson falls for it. Then we get Bertrand smashing into Costa for no reason other than to add another bit of wind up. Long gets injured and hurrah for our saviour Pelle who when graced with a great chance to play the simple left or right pass gets his Italian Flair goggles on and with the ball being on the ground and unable to flick it he ignores the simple pass. Give the defender the eyes one way and pass the other..........or not, because he fluffs it and Chelsea go up the other end and score. Why with Pelle is it always the refusal to do the simple things that we get wound up about. I won't go on more about Pelle because that was his last bit of effort in the game. I will say however when my son and I saw Mane ready we both screamed 'Mane for Pelle please'. On our first goal everybody stopped to claim the ball had gone out when it hadn't. Then unfortunately for Foster he could not commit to where the ball ended up because of the player coming through the middle that I think VVD had let go. By the time Fraser had realised that player was missing the touch it was too late. The 2nd goal I am not really surprised about but I can't understand how Ivanovic got that header so easily. I had switched off by then The key element in this is forget the penalty because I can understand how the referee did not give that . What lost us this game was us losing our concentration and instead trying to wind Chelsea (Costa in particular) up. I bet Koeman is furious with several of our players today.
I would note that Shane long, since he switched to his actul position up front has looked every inch a 12 million pound player.
Bollocks! Just got home and seen this. Didn't get the notification when I posted on the forum from my phone earlier today. Summary: nice to be back in the stands, we deserved our lead, needed the second goal, Long injury changed the game, Pellè was poor and didn't hold the ball up (too many silly flicks giving CFC possession) and the late goals were always on the cards. I don't like going for officials but Atkinson was inconsistent. please log in to view this image
You can always say that, though. It's not asking too much for a keeper to make the most basic of saves, otherwise why do teams even use them? I would say that was mainly because Willian was having one of those "Oh wait. I just remembered I'm Willian!" moments. When he is playing like that, and Hazard is at 85-90% as well then defenders can push up and operate as they pleased. Again, they had gone close twice in the second half before Pelle even came on. Our best chance was to see if we could ride out the spell and get them frustrated. Which was starting to happen, but we gave up a horrible goal at the exact wrong time. That was the game changer. We were always way on the back foot after that, which had little to do with Pelle. Or Mane who played the last 15 minutes and was on the pitch for the last goal, and really nothing much changed. Which isn't to say Pelle had a good game, because he was crap. But basically blaming a striker for the defense giving up two goals in 25 minutes... one on some king of brain fart/miscommunication/ref confusion and the other on bad set piece defending makes no sense. The post I was responding to was one saying "We need to look at why we were poor in the second half." If you think the answer is Pelle, then IMO you are fixating on Pelle and not actually why we lost the game in the second half. But that was sort of incidental. Austin wasn't particularly good, and Davis was not as sharp as usual. TBF, they were not as bad as Pelle. But none of them were really why we lost. What cost us were primarily those two mental errors, and Chelsea playing excellently. Like I keep saying-- It happens. This reminds me of the Leicester game where everyone was complaining about Koeman's subs and why Clasie instead of Romeu and how that cost us the game. In fact, Leicester were simply excellent and now in retrospect I think most people would give them more credit.
Ha. Atkinson hasn't overruled the assistant. He just cocked up and gave the advantage to the wrong team. Never mind.
You can see why he thought it was for Chelsea...Kennedy actually got to the ball first before kicking Cedric
Oh. Still, 99 times out of 100 we would have got a free kick once the assistant flagged so it's still annoying.
Feeling really aggrieved now. Clear penalty, take your pick from handball or foul. Kick out at Cedric, not only our foul, but a red card offence. And having just seen the second goal, I see we had someone on the post, but the ball went through the centre of the goal. FF maybe could have done better for that one as well? Sort it out for Tuesday.
Seeing the replays has made me feel worse! Ah well. On to the next, at least we don't have to wait too long.
Atkinson proving what a rubbish referee he is: got both those decisions wrong (penalty on Austin as Cahill just took him out, then handballed it twice, and clear kick out on Cedric with linesman flagging). Got no 50/50s and the inconsistency on bookings was a joke. We weren't at our best today, but thought we were comfortable until that soft first goal. Pelle really poor when he came on.
I thought the Itchen linesman was worse. Too often behind the play, by e end wasn't making any decisions but waiting to copy Atkinson. Worried about being overruled again I would guesss
