Blues Taxed by Poll

As an arsenal fan, I was obviously disappointed with a draw. Same ole Wenger era Arsenal—crap at set pieces. For Chelsea not to score from open play against an off-form defense was rather damning, despite Robben’s best efforts, although Henry blew his best chance from open play, too.

Arsenal willingly concede possession when 1-0 up, so to say you ‘shaded’ the first half is a bit optimistic. But I would say that Chelsea’s 4-5-1 looks dangerous with Gudjohnssen, Duff, and Robben playing interchanging, exciting park football, with Lampard and Tiago shrewdly setting up in dangerous positions. The arse were in control though, if only just and thanks to frequent Chelsea errant passes, and rode their luck a bit when Chelsea had their tails up. Set plays notwithstanding. Shame about those.

Then, to watch arsenal boss the final 25 minutes and come up empty handed smacked of lucky Mourinho. He got his tactics wrong in the second half. To try and match arsenal man for man in 4-4-2! Or was Chelsea tired? Henry missed a sitter and an out-of-control Parker was lucky to get away with charging into Flamini’s backside when the Arsenal player was making up his mind what to do with the ball in the penalty area.

It is interesting that your goal-scorers predate Ranieri, let alone Mourinho (right?). So the Chelsea juggernaut should continue to gather pace. Win the league by double figures, or lose your focus come the Champion’s League quarterfinals? Could go either way. Good luck.

“There are now only four teams in it for the title: Us, Arsenal, Everton and Manchester United. Liverpool, in my opinion”

Er… that’s five

Squiddy, can I recommend Specsavers? Either that or you have a promising career writing Christmas cracker jokes ahead of you.

how can you doubt Mourinho’s second-half tactics?
Arsenal failed to score!

Great game—and I’m not too disappointed with the draw.

What does disappoint me is Arsenal’s penchant for diving: Pires’ theatrical fall today was flagrant cheating; add to that Vieira’s laughable dive in the Liverpool match and Ljungberg’s sincere penalty appeals after doing a brilliant Superman impression against Birmingham[?] (the referee didn’t award the penalty, but also didn’t book Ljungberg!) and you have quite a collection of CHEATS! I appreciate that Robben still hasn’t learnt not to ‘fall over’ if an opponent breaths on him, but he will under Mourinho’s tutorship—hopefully (Porto did have a tendancy to dive when required). But one Blues player is nothing when compared to the Gunners’ recent record.

Mark, grow up! There is no professional football player or manager that won’t do whatever they feel would help them win. And if that means diving, handling the ball or whatever else… they’ll do it!
And if you think that Mourinho himself would stop short of doing everything to help his team win, read his latest book. He’d tell you, himself!
The game was a good one, lots of goals (all good goals) and I didn’t see a problem with the referee.
Chelsea can find comfort in taking a point at Highbury, while Arsenal can be happy about a draw since they went into the game as under-dogs – with captain Vieira, Edu and Gilberto Silva all ruled out. All in all it was good.

i must commend chelsea. they didnt play rough, they played football. but mouri got the second half wrong, and the scariest part is everyone in england saw dat. i assure you chelsea is the only team thats going to try and play us with a four man midfield for the rest of the season. we failed to score, but i know we will settle this at stamford. and if they try a four midfield then, they will lose! no matter who they have on the pitch.

Ade, United played 4-4-2.

That’s three ‘halves’ of football against top opposition, using the 4-4-2; and we failed to score.

I would not be so blase’

I said for the rest of the season. and i assure you, if anyone in the league does for the whole game, they will lose! unless we go through another blip, in which case we’ll lose our title.
i am that sure!

Andy, I doubt there were many proud Chelsea supporters when Makelele pulled a Rivaldo in Monaco. There’s such a thing as sportsmanship—Pires is an embarrassment.

And from the Telegraph article:

Mourinho added: “We had one of the top referees in the country come to Harlington pre-season. One of the things he explained was walls, distance and whistle … it was clear.”

Interestingly, Mourinho did not name the official – who was Poll.

chelseaclinton, you have to understand that the manager’s mumbo-jumbo talk shows just the same lack of sportsmanship as the players who choose to dive or such. The goal (Henry’s second goal) was legitimate, and the same article from the Telegraph that you quoted, continued with: “However the rules clearly state that Mourinho, for once, is wrong. Rule 13 allows the referee discretion to disregard the 10-yard rule and allow the attacker to take the free-kick quickly. Henry confirmed that Poll had asked him “if he had wanted to have a go so I just waited for (Eidur) Gudjohnsen to get out of the way”. Poll was therefore correct and had applied the rules correctly.”
Let’s face it, we (Chelsea) were lucky to walk with a draw off Highbury. If we are to be objective, during the last 10 minutes we were barely hanging on and it took a huge miss from Henry, one from Van Persie and the referee to close his eyes on Parker’s flattening of Flamini in the penalty area. Also worth mentioning that Eidur’s second goal was one of the luckiest goals one can score.
So, if you guys really want to behave sportsman like, I suggest we admit that we did well getting the draw while we received 2 good goals, scored a good one and a lucky one and the referee didn’t give our opponents a probably deserved penalty kick in the dying minutes.

Andy—Remind me never to play football with you!

And you’re without doubt the most negative, pessimisic Blues ‘fan’ on this blog. Yes, we did well to draw, but our performance more than warranted a draw.

As usual, Blingo has tried to be fair in his analysis, fair to the extent of comparing our performance at Highbury to those of West Brom and Southampton! Hmm…Well, I won’t make much of an issue of that except to say football isn’t that simplistic. Okay, in terms of results, yeah, he’s right; but performance? I don’t think so! Football neutrals, even some serious Arsenal fans I know admit that much.

But, C’mon Blues, you don’t think Arsenal is seriously thinking of overtaking Chelsea now, do you? No! They are worried about the small matter of the Scouse Blues being second and the prospect of Mighty Arsenal playing Champions League qualifiers! And with Man U sniffing their tails, it doesn’t smell good at all for the Arse!

Anyway, I’m pleased with the result; but I won’t be saying anything definitive until after the Liverpool game in the New Year and after this vile weather is gone. One big reason we didn’t get going early yesterday was clearly the weather. The sun-loving Portuguese newcomers, Carvalho and Tiago didn’t turn up yesterday because they were well frozen. But Mourinho is managing it well in my opinion. He substituted them at the right time and brought in a bit of steel in the form of Drogba and Bridge, which gave Gallas the opportunity of playing more in his accustomed position.

One thing I was grateful for yesterday was the performance of Terry and Lampard. By the 16th minute, I thought Chelsea needed a leader on the pitch and just then, Terry pops up and scored that brilliant header! From then on, he pulled his weight and the normally shirking Lampard put in a few crunching tackles to send the message that while we are not going to do a Man U on the Arse, we are no sissies either. Of course, the gritty Parker came in later to re-emphasize that point.

On the free-kick goal, I think most commentators, including Graham Poll in his post-match explanation, are missing the point. I do not think Mourinho is complaining that the free-kick was taken quickly or that the whistle was not blown. Mourinho is a good student of the English game; so I’m sure he’d watched Fowler score the same way against Man U this season and must have heard or watched Henry do the same against Villa last season. Arsenal themselves have been on the receiving end of this goal-from-quick-free-kick phenomenon a few seasons ago in a game against Leeds.

The real issue however is two-fold and on both aspects, Mr Poll’s judgment is questionable. First, the fact is that Pires was not fouled; so the free-kick ought not to have been given in the first place and the second is, having granted the free-kick and having been informed by Henry that he was taking a quick one, Mr Poll barely shifted from his position obstructing Petr Cech who was still organizing the Chelsea wall. Mr Poll was quick to remind us that Chelsea were beneficiaries of the same kind of free-kick in an FA Cup replay against West Ham two seasons ago, but what he is not saying is that unlike yesterday, he had to move quite well away from the ball and David James was well aware of what was to happen, seeing the referee move well away and not being obstructed. In fact, he almost stopped that goal by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink! James’s problem was simply that his defenders were not prepared. But yesterday, it was Graham Poll himself that obstructed Peter Cech’s view of the ball. If he had moved, as he should have to indicate the free quick would be taken quickly, Cech would have had a clear sight of the ball to know what to do, even where his wall was not ready. Fair enough, Henry was clever enough to score the goal; but nothing prevented Mr Poll from coming out and taking responsibility for his own mistakes – one, for giving a dubious free-kick and two, for not moving away clearly from the ball having granted a quick free-kick as an indication that he’d granted a quick free-kick. Philip Don, former referees’ chief has come out to defend Poll, claiming “the advantage should go to the non-offending team”; but one has to ask which team is the offending team, if, as we have seen, the free-kick itself was not deserved.

For us, the lesson here must be that our boys need to be cleverer. People like Lampard and all our free-kick takers need to begin to incorporate the kind of guile and quick thinking displayed by Henry into our play.

So, you Blues, be cheerful! We’ve left the Arse more frustrated and in third; we have a couple of tricky games coming up against Villa and Liverpool. I hope we win those games, including those against Norwich and Portsmouth and I hope Arsenal stumble against Portsmouth, Fulham, Newcastle, Charlton and Man City! And, as for Man U, I’m on my knees right from this evening praying for their collapse against Fulham; then more of the same against Crystal Palace, Bolton, Aston Villa, Middlesbrough and Spurs! Everton? No worries, they know their limit. All this, before January 15th, when Chelsea shall begin its final push for the title with an away trip to our North London friends, Spurs.

Of course, statisticians have began to remind us that only once in the past nine years has a team on top at Christmas gone on to win the Premiership (Man U in 2000); but if by January 15th we are still 4 points clear, I can then begin to order the first consignment of the champagne for May while sending out words to the statisticians to make this the second time in nine years ahead of time. Am I confident? Yes, SUPREMELY CONFIDENT! And the boys are as well!

C’mon Blues!

PS: I celebrated a little after the game actually. It concerns a personal bet I’ve had with one mad Gooner after their performance against Middlesbrough in their second game of the season when they let in three goals, even though they scored five. I predicted the collapse of Arsenal defence this season (the article is somewhere on this site) and the fact that the game indicated that vulnerability, unlike last season. But since Arsenal was then scaring football sissies everywhere, this Gooner came on this site, read my article and went crazy! He wrote stinkers to me promising hell. Along with a few other Arsenal fans, he questioned my claim that no team will put three past Chelsea this season as Middlesbrough did against the Gooners (a record they have once again surpassed at Spurs which put four goals past them!). So, after Henry’s controversial second goal, I was, (yeah, you guessed it) NOT SCARED, because I knew the shrinking Gooners won’t find the net again! All I was then waiting for was the Chelsea equalizer and possible win.

So ye Frustrated Gooner out there, remember your promise? Anyway, that bet is still on!

Folks,

First part of my prayer answered this evening – Man U drop points.

Fulham 1 – Man U 1

Thanks Papa Diop!

That free kick was a fraud! I think some refs do not like Chealse or Abramovich or Mourinho or all.

We are one-one at Highbury, the momentum is with Chealse. What does the referee do? Deflate that momentum by a fraudlent free kick. That affected chealse badly. Some of the thoughts that must occured in the players minds were for example,” does the referee think we must loose this game or is he an Arsenal fan?” They lost focus for sometime but they showed strength and character to come back even though that free Kick forced Mourinho in to some decisions he may never have taken like bringing on an unfit Drogba. I think we need a striker.

People are going on about the rules on free kicks, but nobody has told me one thing: was it a direct or indirect free kick? It was taken so quickly that you could not tell, and if I was on that pitch I would have asked the ref after the goal: “was it direct or indirect?” If Arsenal think that they can rely on such cowardly free kicks in Europe then they must Know they will not go far. What is the point of going in to a game with so much uncertainties about rules?

After the game I was more convinced that chealse will win the league. This was a game with all the odds stack against us. A bad start, a rogue ref and an unfit Drogba. Jose has done something about Chelsea’s strength of mind. In Ranieri’s era it would have been 4-0 to Arsenal.

Samba Mapangala

hello

please get to me all resualts of matches in season 2004-2005

there’re so good for chealse to be a champion for this season.

Thanks to roben & cole 4 their destrotive goals yesterday.Arsenal believed nobody can beat them at highbury but we did it with 2 destrotive goals.

thank you mourinho and drogba for carling cup ...we are the best ..from algeria