This is going to sound like one of those 'easy with hindsight' sort of articles but..... .... in the last 15-20 minutes Bosingwa was wide open on the right on several occasions. Sinclair is reasonably good at tracking back to cover, but to make Luke Moore do that job is a questionable decision. Maybe Buck brought him on for some other purpose, maybe to keep possession higher up the pitch, who knows. If the object was to close the game out defensively then surely Routledge or Richards would have been better choices as ultimately Bosingwa turned Moore inside out for the equaliser.
Personally, if the substitution had to be Moore for Sinclair, I'd have put Graham on the wing for his running and tracking, and Moore up top. We did seem to lose a bit of balance after the sub. But at the end of the day, the goal cam from a freak event. I've said it before, if you give good players space they will make their own luck. Shame that happened in the 93rd minute. Hope it's a lesson learned.
Wouldn't have worked. Graham was buggered at that stage. That said, I can't understand bringing on the laconic Moore rather than the nippy Routledge. I noticed that even when Sinclair was on the pitch he would be in Taylor's spot (though more towards the goal) and Taylor would take up a position inside the box. This gives you an 'extra' man in the box to defend crosses but the winger has to try and prevent the cross coming in. Moore didn't.
You cannot concede 2/3 of the field to a team like Chelsea for long periods and hope that something good happens. Given enough time something bad always does. It's a lesson to be learned. I was expecting Torres to do something clever out of the blue, that it was Bosingwa glancing it in off Taylor is just sickening. We have to learn to absorb pressure higher up the field or to not give the ball away sloppily in bad places. We did the later too often uncharacteristically under pressure in the second half, which just made it easier for Chelsea. The ol'welly down the field when under pressure followed by the whole team moving forward is tried and true. It's not pretty, it's not us, but we cleared it long multiple times in the second but just sat back .... Perhaps it's been so long since we did that that we forgot the second bit.
Correct, YJ. We did concede far too much possession to them second half and the stats show that. But they were pressing us hard to be fair and didn't allow us to play at all. Didn't surprise me in the least as AVB would have put that right during his half time talk. There's not many teams who are capable of doing that to us at home and their lack of a cutting edge was testament, in part at least, to some excellent defending. Can't remember Vorm having to do too much. A deserved goal on the balance of play, but the lateness and manner of it were indeed sickening.
KJ, I wasn't saying that Graham on the wing was the way to go. I just said that if the sub had to be Moore for Sinclair, that's what I would've done. Moore just doesn't play the wings very well, and to have him do it against Chelsea wasn't a good idea. But obviously the substitution didn't have to be Moore for Sinclair. We could've brought Routledge on for a straight swap. We could have brought Richards on to add defensive stability on the left side. There were other options, but we went with probably the least balanced option. I remember in the play-off final, Tate gave Kebe the freedom of Wembley on our left side. After the game, because we won, a lot of people said that it must have been the plan and it worked because we won. Let me tell everyone now, it's never the plan to give a winger 10/15 yards of space. It's never the plan to let the winger run freely into the penalty area. Last night we didn't get away with it, and the frustrating thing is that it was only post-substitution that we started inviting Bosingwa to run at us off his wing. At the end of the day, we were 80 seconds and a stroke of luck away from it being irrelevant. Taylor gets a bigger touch and it goes for a corner. Taylor gets no touch and it's probably cleared by the next man behind him. Vorm's foot comes up slightly quicker and he saves with his foot. If Graham goes to the corner in the 92nd minute instead of crossing it in and losing possession, maybe we see the game out in the Chelsea half. You get what I'm saying. It wasn't a good cross from Bosingwa, it wasn't getting past the first or second man. It just went in off a freak accident. We played a great game, and as always against top teams it's the minute details that win matches. If we play the same against West Brom, it'll be enough to win.
Giving to much space comes with having a slim lead against a top team , unavoidable in 99 % of cases I'm afraid
True that. Chelsea have players who have scored many a last minute goal against lower ranked Premiership teams hoping to take some points off them. Their quality and determination, coupled with our lack of experience and nervousness when trying to close tight games at this level, was always going to mean a Chelsea siege in our half during the second period. Just a shame to get so close to seeing them off.
Really felt badly for Vorm ..... this would have been a clean sheet amongst clean sheets . It's true though , Chelsea almost always find a way to steal points when not playing up to par
Poor substitution imo. We had already been defending constantly for 10-15 mins before Moore came on, so to put a lazy centre forward on the left wing marking one of the quicker right backs in the premiership, was not smart. I honestly would have preferred to see Bessone playing there than Moore. Buck made similar substitutions when having a slim lead at home last year, and we were lucky to get away with it, but you can't get away with alot in the premiership. I think his theory is that we are defending so much, that we need an extra 'out-ball', to get and keep the ball further up the pitch, but as soon as Moore came on, Bosingwa had the space to attack us. It was just a matter of time before they scored. Hopefully, everyone now knows how important Sinclairs defensive work as become, and Buck realises he HAS to do like for like subs with this team.
A lot of people are talking about the substitution, but I think Bosingwa (and sometimes Sturridge) was getting that space out wide before Sinclair went off. In fairness, Taylor had it covered most of the time once their wide man picked it up, but it felt fragile every time because they were given that opportunity to cross. I know it really hurts to concede after 92 minutes, but how nice is it complaining about not getting all the pints against Chelsea?!
aswan_dam - Agree with you 100%, I was keeping an eye over there and thought if a goal is gonna come, that's where it's gonna come from, same happened against Arsenal - giving to much space out there particularly... Still - its good news that I am feeling gutted about dropping 2 pts to Chelsea - would have rathered all 3, but still lets move forward.
swansman, Arsenal was the same towards the end. Was it Walcott in loads of space out on the touchline?
If you notice we do that a lot....I posted earlier in the week that I spotted Sinclair tracking back to take care of any threat on that side whilst Taylor moved centrally into the box as an 'extra' body in the box. The loss of Sinclair meant that was Moore's job and he didn't do it. I agree Routledge was the better ption but let's hope Rodgers has learned from this.
