I'm now inclined to think the referee was spot on with the first red card. I previously thought it might have been just a yellow, but the reverse angle is very clear. SWP was marginally ahead of Bosingwa and Bosingwa clearly pulled his shirt, and did caused SWP to stumble. SWP to his credit tried to carry on. John Terry was a considerable distance away and I'm afraid he is renowned for not having much pace - I don't think there is any chance he would have caught up with SWP before he would have been able to take a shot. SWP was denied a clear goal scoring opportunity and therefore it had to be a red. I'd be interested to see which part of my analysis the Chelsea fans disagree with. (I mean that genuinely! I understand that we all have different opinions and that's what makes football fun!) I also think it's worth noting that psychology played a huge part in the game - Chelsea paid the price for forgetting we are rivals. We harried and hassled them so well, and as Lawro said, we didn't let them settle. The fans added hugely to this, I've never experienced booing like that! They were shell shocked and I think the red cards genuinely helped them regroup and go for goal, they had nothing to lose after the cards and we had a lot to lose. And you could tell the psychology had switched - our boys looked nervous and so got played off the pitch in the second half. Credit to Chelsea for that. As for Lampards claim for a penalty, I agree that it is a good penalty shout, equal to Helguson's and I won't pretend Chelsea fans don't have a right to feel aggrieved over that one. One final note - it was good to see Drogba check Taarabt was okay before he left the pitch (without really complaining), even though he must have felt pretty raw at the time! I have a lot of time for Drogba, especially considering his charity work.
I never thought the first one was anything but a red, it was 100% a foul and terry was nowhere near swp. Had the ref waited a second with the whistle, swp may have netted.
I sat in P upper so I was quite far away from the incident, from behind it was difficult to call, but the reverse angle made it pretty clear to me. Brave and very good spot from the ref if you ask me!
