Good afternoon.
A gutsy well earned point against the usual vexations of Secondhand Fridge. Some crummy refereeing and a conveyor belt of petty cheating from a team so screwed up they believe they can manage themselves.
The only criticism was the absence of one touch passing. Our average was three and that buys the other lot time. The midfield was massively congested and neither side seemed capable of challenging that.
Bale was vastly improved. So was Walker and had Adebayor not spent the entire game fighting for every ball I doubt we’d have taken a point. He was less successful attacking but hey. Them’s the breaks.
It was a classic Mourinho- esque Cheatski performance and I’m telling you now that a Martin Jol side would have buckled. Crucially Arry’s mob did not and that was the difference out there. Chelsea lacked the killer edge today. From front to back we blunted the knives of a still very, very dangerous side.
Was it two points dropped because we missed a few gilt edge chances? No. Our recent bad run has generated dozens of reasons to get heated and today we showed what a politician would call some genuine green shoots of recovery.
Player ratings in the morning. To our lot this afternoon I say in the softly spoken words of the young Mr Grace, ‘You’ve all done awfully well.’
it was an ordinary game.im glad we got a point but chelsea looked even more pedestrian than us.we had plenty of ball but no end product.i guess if there was extra points on offer for keeping possession we’d be well up the ladder.to many passes going across the pitch and then going backwards to the defenders then to friedel.would have prefered to see defoe up front with ade so at least our midfield could look up and knock the ball over the top for them to run onto.it just mixes things up a bit.i think ade realy gives us a lot of options up front but we aint realy utilising his strength’s.im a bit more optimistic that we could go on to keep 4th or even get 3rd back”but”redknapp has got to get more end product from our forwards.thats the key and when that clicks we are on our way to glory…coys
Gently oozing with pride? Did you see that performance? Hall and Oates. And your kiss is not on my list.
no comment…
Given our recent poor results/performances it was a very decent point. Should have been 3 but not losing was vital.
A win on Tues to keep us on track for the FA cup is needed before going on a run at the of the season similar to the one we had in September.
4th is still in our hands and I’d have taken that at the start of the season. Then it should be a case of “thanks Harry, good luck with England” and we get a new man in (no idea who, Klinsmann, Benitez, Moyes?)
Watching on the box, and listening to the commentary meant being able to hear that Walker gave Friedel a bollocking for not leaving his line to collect a ball not four yards from his line – something which has been mentioned on here before, I do believe!
One of a few ‘Things To Do This Summer’: get a good youngish keeper who is an all-round keeper- stops shots, shouts, and comes off his line. Bleedin’ obvious but you do worry that Arry, for one, would like to keep Friedel for one more season. Similarly Ledders and William will have to go.
Walker was a good player at the start of the season. Now he is bordering on outstanding. Fingers crossed we see the same sort of development from Caulker next year. I don’t know whose decision it was to send him to Swansea, but whoever it was — take a bow, son.