Champions League review: Porto 1 - 1 Chelsea
Thursday, 22 February 07, 12:52 AM · Comments (35)
Match reports
The Guardian, Matt Scott: "The most important of Andriy Shevchenko's 10 Chelsea goals came last night, securing a crucial advantage in this tie. But the impact of the match was not overwhelmingly positive. The departure of John Terry with an injury that seems set to rule him out of Sunday's Carling Cup final against Arsenal may be one that Chelsea have cause to rue. He left the stadium on crutches."
The Times, Matt Hughes: "José Mourinho has spent much of this season praising his players for surviving in difficult circumstances, but an even greater test of their fortitude is to come. Chelsea needed all their resilience on a stormy night in this harbour city, overcoming the loss of John Terry, their captain, and an early goal to secure a valuable draw courtesy of an equaliser from Andriy Shevchenko."
Daily Telegraph, John Ley: "Chelsea will benefit not only from the goal but the realisation that Shevchenko is not a £30m dud but still a player of world class."
The Independent, Jason Burt: "[Shevchenko] scored Chelsea's precious goal, the 11th and most important of his turbulent career at the club and probably his best. Mourinho said: "Shevchenko was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Fantastic. His effort to be a team player is amazing, his improvement is amazing. Everyone in the team is delighted.""
The goals
The good
- The result. Considering the way the game started a 1-1 draw and an away goal is a great result. The tie is by no means over, but we're odds-on favourites to reach the quarter-finals.
- Andriy Shevchenko. Scored his 58th Champions League goal and is now the second highest all-time goal scorer in the history of European club competitions. He's now ahead of Eusébio and only four behind Gerd Mà¼ller. In the words of Jose Mourinho: "[Shevchenko is] almost untouchable."
- The back four of Lassana Diarra, Michael Essien, Ricardo Carvalho and Wayne Bridge. Diarra is an impressive player, but the plaudits must go to Essien for stepping in to replace John Terry. As Ray Wilkins - whose commentary on Sky made a refreshing change from listening to the usual inanities - said, Essien is "priceless" and "irreplaceable". Carvalho was his usual magnificent self, and Bridge put in a solid performance at left-back.
- Mourinho's substitutions and tactics. He has few equals when it comes to making the right substitution at the right time. "I made the right decisions on the pitch," he said afterwards. An understatement if ever there was one.
The bad
- The injury to John Terry. He took a knock on his left ankle in training last night; tonight he suffered ligament damage to his right. According to club doctor Bryan English, Terry will not be fit in time for Sunday's League Cup final against Arsenal.
- Four yellow cards of which two - those awarded to Claude Makelele and Petr Cech - were avoidable. Our current injury problems mean it's vital to have as many of the squad as possible available to play, so players shouldn't be getting themselves booked for dissent no matter how poor the officiating. The referee was mostly pretty good, but got a bit card happy. At least he didn't fall for Porto's theatrics. Which leads me to...
- Ricardo Quaresma. Talented no doubt, but a petulant diving cheating git a la Cristiano Ronaldo. A bloody disgrace in fact.
- Michael Ballack. I'm going to upset the Ballack fanboys here... but what exactly did he bring to the team tonight? A few poor long range efforts and a couple of good passes... and that was about it.
Man of the Match
The award should probably go to Michael Essien again, or even Lassana Diarra, but instead I'm going to give it to Andriy Shevchenko. A brilliant and crucial strike means he needs just 5 more European goals to beat Gerd Mà¼ller's tally of 62.
Final thoughts
Just as things looked to be improving the injury jinx strikes again. If Mourinho manages to win either the Premiership or Champions League this season it will probably go down as his greatest achievement given the pressure he's under to deliver. If there's one manger who can do it, it's Mourinho.
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Ballack a waste of space...hmmm
I think he put in an average performance but it was good... Drogba was not in this match...Was he saving himself for Sunday????
I thought he played worse than Ballack. Are we surprised we are never over run in the middle??? His presence in the middle of the park gives us strength and a presence. We were playing in Porto the Champions of Portugal and yet it seemed like we were the home team.
Had TSO had his team injury free with the option to have Robben on in the 2nd half...These guys would have been slaughtered...
I am happy with Diarra and Obi. The future sure does look bright...
Despite being German and liking Ballack I have to admit, he once again just didn´t deliver last night. I hope he wakes up before the end of the season or else he doesn´t deserve the rank of an untouchable.
I still can´t believe how we dominated the second half and still didn´t score. I guess it was due to Lampard hiding and Drogba being unlucky.
Props to the author for being so quick this time! Article online the morning after the game, that is the way it should be!
I enjoyed the first half more than most games this season – exciting end to end with plenty of tension. Just shows how we can play on a decent surface.
Particularly enjoyed Essiens tackle on Quaresma (it was never a booking); it must have felt very satisfying sliding through the ball then the man. Fair play to cheating Quaresma though, he got up after it and played on without limping. Now had Robben received that tackle he’d be out for 6 weeks. Great play by Robben for the goal but is he tough enough for professional football?
Overall more positives than negative.
Top finish from Shevchenko; you could see his confidence level shoot right up after that, so much so that you could accuse him of being selfish on a few occasions but that would be churlish.
Diarra; if you’d taken a straw poll 6 months ago I doubt many would have voted him as a 1st eleven starter but with each game he gets more impressive; strong, feisty and great skill.
I was going to start by condoning the poor standard of European refereeing in all the Champs League games I've seen this week. Then Mike Riley wanted a bit of fame......
I feel indifferent after last night. No doubts a 1 - 1 draw away is a handy result, but at times it looked like we were playing with 10 men; constantly on the back foot, defending very deep at times. I thought the back four after JT's departure were quality. Michael Essien is a machine. I cant think of enough superlatives to describe just how much of an asset this guy is. The most untouchable of Jose's untouchables by the proverbial country mile.
Robben's injury is annoying, but not too surprising, bearing in mind Jose put him straight on without letting him warm up. He can have no complaints about Arjen this time, it was all his doing. Lets hope it's not too serious. And I'm glad I line Murdoch's pocket on a monthly basis to receive such cutting edge sports reporting as last night. 'John Terry looks set to miss the League Cup final on Sunday'. Really ??? The guy is a trojan, and has just been stretchered off on a Wednesday night. Hardly rocket science to work out he's not going to be available for Sunday. 4 - 6 weeks I reckon.
Better news on the injury front that Ashley played an hour last night - potentially available Sunday. How about playing Bridge at CB if Ashleys fit ???
And finally, for the love of God, if we sign a striker in the summer, let it be David Villa. He was different class against Inter last night.
Fifty - Villa did look good; excellent result for Valencia given Inter's current form. Silva's equaliser was fantastic too.
Confident we'll get a result at the Bridge in a couple of weeks, but truly gutted about JT - huge loss for us if he's out again for any extended period.
Not as worried about JT's injury as I should be, given how good Carvalho and Essien have played at the back, but the injuries are crazy - are we ever going to finish a game without somebody walking out the ground on crutches? It's insane.
But a very good performance, I thought, and a game we pretty much controlled.
JM's man-management of Diarra and Mikel has been superb, and the way they have been integrated into the team would be lauded to the heavens were it done by Wenger.
Good performance by Shev. Robben has to be treated with kid gloves for the rest of the season because he is so crucial to our success. I expect we'll see a lot more cautionary substitutions.
After last year's Essien precedent, I am looking forward to UEFA's retrospective punishment for those two diabolical late tackles on Ballack (who does the simple things brilliantly, but seemingly can't pass the ball more than 15 yards).
And well done Shev. His best performance against a 'proper' team. More on Sunday please.
35 Comments · Add yours
Aaaaarrrgh!! What have we done to deserve this? I hope this injury jinx stops NOW!
Ballack is a waste of space if I ever saw one.
And Quaresma has a face I couldn't love to punch more.
I didn't see the first half, but in the second half Lampard was pretty anonymous. I remember just a few matches ago when he was dominating the pitch like only he can. What changed? Ballack.
I've said it before, but I will say it again. This is the sort of season where the "crisis" never dies down. I think in the end it will be a more rewarding season because of it. More directly winning in spite of it.