We were certainly nowhere near battered And the scoreline it definitely flattered, Those Mourinho ´Blues´ So very fair do´s To our lads who ran till they were shattered And so many positives to take Going into the fourteen day break, Bearing in mind We were so soon behind We were 10 mins from sharing a stake And ´twas probably because we´d done well That in that hectic, final spell, We pushed just a bit Too hard, and they hit Us quickly, to sound the death knell It´s worth noting too, I would say It was Lambert-esque almost the way, We pressed for the win And lost by the skin Of our teeth, when Hughton´s way might have paid But so small are margins sometimes When chasing the three points to climb, And despite the defeat They´re finding their feet The new lads, yet to reach their prime Fer was superb once again With Howson, linking a good chain, To support and feed And hassle and lead The fight into the enemy´s lane And Olsson M impressed me too On this, his home PL debut, Defensively sound With an urge to bound Forward, and break out of the queue So performance-wise, encouraging The result though, most undeserving, But these were no Stoke And had they not awoke Late on, we´d have ended drawing. OTBC
On the money RBF, fine performance not quite achieving what we deserved! Terrific performance from everyone! OTBC
well said RBF, we were so good , Fer was just amazing, cant grumble at the result they have so much quality right through their squad their subs cost more than our squad! Never mind if we can keep that dedication, workrate, and endeavour and add some better crossing we will be fine, the fact we had a couple of chances to double our score before they hit us so late just goes to show how well we are playing.
Well said rbf Plenty of games left to build on the last 2 performances and it's pretty tight points-wise between us and mid table We had a go today
The irony is, as RBF points out in his verse, that had we just been a little more Hughton rather that a little too much Lambert we would almost certainly have got one point and might have got all three. Making sure you don't leave the back door open is not incompatible with keeping on the front foot and pressing for a win. That's the sort of thing that separates successful teams from the rest.
Yes,a fair point that.Paradoxically having dropped into the relegation zone I feel more confident about our chances this season.At times we made one of the Premiership favourites look second best.The push on Pilkington would have been given more times than not and the ref gave goal kicks that should have been corners twice in two minutes in the first half.
what was disappointing was once again the apparent 'big club bias' in the referees performance. i personally think the standard of refereeing has improved slightly this season. i think more common sense is being used and the advantage rule is being utilised in a far more reasonable way, but when you see a performance from a referee which is so heavily slanted in the bigger clubs favour, it's no surprise that people complain. i counted 4 separate decisions he gave against us yesterday which were definitely incorrect - they were blatant. these stretched from corners not given to penalty decisions but anybody watching that game, whether actively involved or a neutral would have watched mr swarbrick's performance and felt he was biased towards chelsea. i'm 100% sure he wasn't - certainly not intentionally - but it's no coincidence that whenever we play a big club the referee has a stinker - and ALL major decisions go against us and in favour of our more illustrious opponents. is it pressure?
Yeah, some strange decisions. Must mention the irony of pressing for the the lead, we got caught out at the back.
Only just seen the highlights Super, and I have to say that I didn´t think the Pilkington incident was a penalty, saw it from several different angles, none of which were really conclusive, but we have seen them given for much less than that. But then again, I dare say if it had been at Stamford Bridge and it had been a Johnson or Tettey tackle on Mata, it would probably have been given. I can partly understand refs feeling under pressure to give 50/50 decisions the way of the top sides when they are at home, because of the added pressure of the home crowd, but I can´t see any reason why they should feel the same pressure when the top sides are away, he was in a good position to see it too.
Ah well if Hansen said it was then it most definately was! I thought you boys were unlucky as it goes but you have to say that Ruddy had an absolute nightmare.
he certainly made a hash of the goal and had one or two other shaky moments. very uncharacteristic. we were certainly unlucky to lose the game. not sure the penalty played much part in the result as we equalised soon after anyway but it was disappointing to cause our own downfall with such silly mistakes from our own corner. we looked a good side apart from that though and the way mourinho celebrated his side's third goal indicated he was seriously relieved and i don't blame him. helps if you've got £65m worth of talent to bring on mind!
Also, and nobody has mentioned this, but their second goal shouldn't have really stood as we should have had a free-kick deep in their half. Watch Hazard as he wins the header to start the move - he blatantly leads with his arm which nowadays is a straight forward free-kick. Just imagine if it was Howson challenging like that, winning the header and putting it back in their box - the ref would have blown up in a heartbeat. Ah well, we're going to have to get used to this sort of thing, especially when we play the big boys as has been said. Great performance though, and lots of positives to take away. Great poem again RBF, hats off to you sir
Rubbish, he made two or three absolutely superb saves and I thought he generally had a good game aside from the goal where he perhaps should have done better. He was blatantly fouled by Ba on the occasion he dropped the ball (which I'm sure is factored in to your appraisal of his performance) and whilst it counts for nothing he actually got his fingertips to Willian's goal which 95% of keepers wouldn't have even had a sniff at. I'm actually a little confused by some of the criticism he's been getting in recent weeks, even from our own fans. I've got no reason to doubt him at all, the idea of dropping him for Bunn is absolutely barmy if you ask me.
Have seen it again, and am prepared to bow down to the majority vote, dare say my old eyes aren´t quite as sharp as they used to be
