Wednesday 17 March 2010

Chelsea will not be one of Champions League last 8, March 16th, 2010

Chart showing the progress of Chelsea F.C. thr...Image via Wikipedia

Email to my son, Nick. We are both Chelsea supporters
 
This report is pretty much as I saw the game. Inter were evil, knew it, and fed on it. Chelsea couldn't match their ferocity. With no help from the ref, when at corners we should have had penalties, we had nowhere to go. Anelka was poor, tried his game of holding and passing but never to much effect.
He had one flash of a chance and got in a shot while off balance but it was blocked immediately by Lucio. Joe Cole came on and knew he had to do something good. He started by shoving someone over and giving away a free-kick, then ran round and round. Too desperate! It was hardly fair on Cole to be in the role of rescuer. So much more playing time had been given, for example, to the big Ballack.
Drogba's free kicks were poor.  I could sympathise with him on his sending off  but Graham Souness was right. Souness had played at the top level and could mix it with the best. So I have to respect his verdict that the ref had to send Drogba off when the matter was brought to his notice. Drogba had fallen to the provocation almost at the end of the match. (Graham Souness,  former player and manager, was speaking from the tv studio)
 
Souness also pointed out the irony that play had moved on, the camera was on midfield action when back we went to a man on the ground. One of the linesmen must have spotted an incident. Footage showed a defender charging into the back of Drogba then seconds later Drogba seemed to stand on  Samuel's foot, 'cue' writhing on the ground. Ironical, when no official spotted the shenanigans at corners earlier when Samuel for example wrestled Drogba to the ground. Maybe the impossibility of knowing whether they are being conned makes the officials unwilling to decide these incidents. They know that video later may show that eg Drogba went down easily!
Ancelotti was left looking like a farmer with no ideas about what to do in this particular field. Shall we plough or make hay? Or just rely on the ladsto decide! All jolly good chaps, know the business, been there before, etc! We'll bring on ploughman Cole! Well, I think most of the ploughers will not be on that field again. Their ambition and ability is not ferocious enough. I thought Ancelotti would have brought some of what Inter had, the ruthlessness that you see from Italian, Argentinian defenders...in fact no Italians were playing for Inter which astonished me because the Inter style was in a long tradition of spoilers. 

The video highlights and comment just after the game ended with footage of Abramovich walking across the turf of an empty stadium. Dressed as sloppily as usual with a grey fleece-like garment on top of jeans and an open necked shirt. He walked slowly up a ramp into the depths of the stadium-barn. He looked agricultural too - like the man who had come to do the artificial insemination but all the cattle had died from foot-and-mouth.

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