Premiership: Chelsea 2 - 1 Charlton Athletic
Monday, 11 September 06, 06:39 PM · Comments (8)
Match reports
The Observer, Amy Lawrence: "Chelsea confirmed their superiority as Drogba, Lampard and Shevchenko threatened a goalfest. A narrow scoreline it might have been but by half time it was hard to conclude Charlton provided anything more than shooting practice."
Independent on Sunday, Ronald Atkin: "In the end, whistles of relief greeted a close-run thing for Chelsea which should have been sealed and signed by half-time. Charlton, routinely embarrassed in the first 45 minutes as Chelsea cavorted and flaunted their superiority, overcame the need to rearrange the side because of injury to three players so well that they carried the battle to the champions attractively and impressively."
Sunday Telegraph, Patrick Barclay: "Seldom in the field of footballing conflict can so much fuss have been made over a substitute. Ashley Cole began on the Chelsea bench because Jose Mourinho preferred to retain Wayne Bridge at left-back, a decision Bridge vindicated with a vibrant hour before giving way — with a healthy measure of bitterness, it appeared — to his England colleague and rival."
The Times, Russell Kempson: "Michael Ballack strolls through the midfield like an emperor. Head held high, tracking back, thrusting forward, casually transferring the ball from left foot to right. He may be a stranger to the Barclays Premiership, but already he is lording it, the master of all that he surveys."
Official Chelsea FC Website, Paul Mason: "[Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink] finally scored against a former club. He didn’t celebrate. In fact his body language was close to an apology. After a brief moment while they took in what had occurred, large sections of the Chelsea support rose to calmly applaud their former favourite."
The good
- Michael Ballack. Put in a solid performance on his home debut. His header from a Frank Lampard corner led to the opening goal, a Didier Drogba snap-shot (the big Ivorian is a better striker when he does things instinctively) after Charlton's Brian Hughes blocked on the line. "It was, as the phrase on the back of a Chelsea supporter’s shirt pertinently observed, 'The Drogs Ballacks'." - The Times.
- Wayne Bridge. Rightly got the nod over Ashley Cole and, apart from a poor clearance which landed at the feet of the Addicks' Dennis Rommedahl (who skinned both Bridge and Cole on a number of occasions), put in another good showing. He was inevitably substituted for Cole after 62 minutes.
- Michael Essien. Another sublime, near faultless performance in the Claude Makelele role. He hasn't put a foot wrong this season. It'll be interesting to see whether he keeps his place against Werder Bremen and Liverpool.
- The number of goal-scoring opportunities, particularly before the break. Chelsea toyed with Charlton in the first half and there were a hatful of chances to add to Drogba's early strike; Drogba himself should have scored a hat-trick.
- Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. His magnanimous reaction after scoring the equaliser was refreshing and he was rightly applauded by the home fans.
The bad
- The number of squandered goal-scoring opportunities. The game should have been way beyond the reach of Iain Dowie's side long before Hasselbaink took advantage of Ricardo Carvalho's mistake.
- Frank Lampard's shooting. He appears to be lacking confidence. The unjustifiably harsh criticism he's received in the media of late just might have got to him. Otherwise he had a solid game.
Man of the Match
Michael Essien.
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Drigba was poor, why the hell aren't we caining teams??? Drogba, should have had 3. he gets to a one on one and he always shows why he isnt world class - he cannot finish!!! i dotn see why we play him right now. in a 1 on 1 u have to favour the keeper.
Lamps was quite solid but off colour, his shooting is still poor, i really think (even though il get stick) he should be dropped. Have makelele essien and ballack
Formation - HAS TO CHANGE!!!! once robben and cole are fit, please please please revert to a 4-3-3. I said this before, our power is in the middle, LETS USE IT!!!!! if drogba is not finishing, (yes he scored 3 so far and he scored against charlton albeit by good reaction) then we need to put in makelele essien ballack and lamps (take out one of them, whoever isnt on key, right now is LAMPS) the play robben sheva and cole/wright phillips and let the good times role.
True blue - kinda agree with what u said, something does seem fishy, i dont think its really anything, this season will be really hard, everyone wants to beats us more and more, like mourinho said everyone has got better. so everything will be harder, This year we will see what we are made of. I hope we get everything we set out for. and as for our defense, i think mourinho will use form as a key factor, A.cole said himself, he doesnt expect to walk into this team, and on bridges form - too right, but mourinho has to give him playing time to let him settle into our team and the way we play. i doubt he will let bridge go, i am however worried about our cover in the middle, after letting Billy/Huth go, we are left we not alot, not to mention im not overly keen on carvalho because he tends to make too many shirt pulls/silly tackles sometimes and i just feel that it will cost us if we are not careful. What i do not wish or agree with u on though is, wantign wenger or benitez, now dont get me wrong both are very good, but mourinho is quality, proven quality he can do anything and let me tell u im sure he realises he has one of the most wanted jobs in the world in managing chelsea. we could pretty much take any manager. With our option of limitless funds etc. Maybe not the best way to attract someone but its true. we can pay anyone any amount, and get pretty much any player we want. thats a fact. But i love mourinho, dont agree with some of his comments sometimes, but hey im behind him, which club or fan doesnt back their manager?? i dont know about u but i do 100% and think he is bringing home glory that we have longed for for years. and this season will not be an exception
CHEERS
In response to True Blue: I don't see why Bridge should leave the team in January. Mourinho should give him an experimental place on the left wing, similar to the role he played for England before Joe Cole came along. Having both those players on that side of the field should be devastating. However, we do need to buy a new centre defender in January happy to play cover, preferably one with pace, along with a new striker, unless we move Mancienne and Sinclair through the ranks considerably quick.
just a quick point to 'Blue Champions' -YOU LOST TO M'BORO, WE ONLY DREW! Granted a shit result at home but you lost!
Oh, and have faith in TSO. Wenger and Benitez pale in comparison!
Drogba is playing well, but as the majority of the posts above point out, he is not a great finisher.
It is such a shame that those two chances which he spurned when through on goal on Saturday didn't fall to Sheva, who would have buried them.
Is something wrong there tactically? I suppose ultimately a lot of it comes down to chance.
Can't help feeling that Sheva, who has an admirable work rate, is wasting too much time on the wings with the Drog in the centre.
As for Bridge on the wing, either Robben and Cole are first in that position, both being quicker and trickier.
Looking forward to tonight - I expect it will be quite a tight game if Bremen get all their players back.
Funny how Drogs gets caught up in cross fire...The problem i think on the team at the present is Lamps form. I actually saw him walking back when our goal was under threat....
Come on people Drogs may have wasted a few but I have got no problem with a strike who takes a short and misses as long as he wins us games...
Sheva has been too quiet and i am thinking that he needs more support through the middle that is where Lamps comes in...
I have no problem with the team just the fittness levels
8 Comments · Add yours
Nice summary, a pleasure to read as always.
Still devasted that we lost Gallas for A. Cole. The way Bridgy is playing we needed an understudy for him not to make him understudy to A. Cole. Don't get me wrong - A.cole is a great left-back but I just don't see how you can have 2 national team left-backs in the same squad? Whichever one becomes the regular (it had better be A.Cole otherwise why the hell did we bring him in at the cost of Gallas?) then the other one will have to have 1st team football to challange for that spot for Euro 2008. Bascially - Bridge will now leave us in January.
So - this leaves still wth no cover for that role (left back) and no cover for central defence. God forbid we Terry or Carvallho gets injured, we will only have bhoularouz (don't know how to spell it). Anyway - I just can't beleive that Jose or any of the management could not see that Gallas/ Terry at the back was our best combo.
Verdict - Our 1st choice team is very solid, but we have weak cover in defence. If we avoid injuries we have a great chance at the Triple this season, even injuries in the midfield and up-front won't hurt us much. It is just defence where we are vunerable.
Hidden Verdict - I believe Jose to be a very astute man and I don't believe that if he had full control of tranfer activities (over Kenyon/ Roman and co . not the players) he would never leave himself with such a weak squad defensivley at the start of a season. I am not a boo-boy at all - the last 2 seasons I had so much confidence we would win the Champs and EPl, but this season I just have this feeling that something has changed at the bridge. Everything is such a drama with jose (will he stay won't he?, the comments he makes, etc) and is he even in full control of his squad (Does Roman insist that Sheva always play?) - is Jose forced to make room for Ballack and Sheva as opposed to him deciding that was his best option to win trophies?
Now there's reports that Ballck is claiming now he should share take penalties with our Frank after his miss against Charlton!!
These all look like there a signs of squad/ Manager troubles ahead - Sometimes I wish we had got Wenger or Benitiz instead.
I
Chelsea huffed and puffed towards what should have been a convincing home win. Once again a scrappy second half performance from Chelsea but despite all this, we got three points and leaves a lot to worry. In the first half Chelsea was completely dominant and in particular Sheva and Drogba. There was yet another strong message from Drogba that said that he would very well challenge and deserve a place on merit. Drogba’s third goal of the season was not lucky as you might think in the first instance. He was there when it mattered and he had the presence of mind to put it through. Having said this, he showed that he needs lot more composure on front of the goal, when he missed a sitter, later in the second half.
Boulahrouz had a very good game and he looks a very promising first teamer. Ashley Cole made his debut and didn’t do anything special except letting Rommedahl cut through inside dangerously a couple of times. Whereas Bridge was again brimming with his new-found confidence and there was this brilliant run by him beating three Charltoners and a smart pass to Sheva in front of the box which was later wasted by Lampard. Carvalho put all his bad form behind and put across a fantastic header that gave Chelsea the lead. Today, for the first time since he joined us, I thought Ballack made his presence felt.
Someone has to tell Lampard that this is not World Cup and he can be back to form. He missed a couple of chances which could have been buried with better concentration. Kalou was very mediocre during his short stay and he was lucky to get a penalty for something which didn’t look like a foul. I was waiting for Sheva or Ballack to take the penalty. Against Blackburn, Lampard was fortunate to score the penalty. Here again, one more poor penalty shoot by Lampard and this time around he wasn’t quite lucky.
The Chelsea defence was looking very scrappy in the last quarter. The Bent-Hasselbaink duo were a constant threat, more towards the end, even as the Chelsea players were just waiting for the whistle just as they did against Middlesbrough. Jose Mourinho surely needs to hammer this thing into the minds of the players, that the match is not over until the final whistle. There was so much indecisiveness to Chelsea’s game that in fact gave some kind of hope for Charlton.
Man Utd marches on. 4 wins out of 4. Though it was only a 1-0 win, Man Utd was easily the better of the teams. As I had said earlier, no need to worry about their streak as even the most die-hard Man Utd fan knows that they cannot sustain this for long. Great day indeed for Man Utd fans. They saw the ‘mighty’ Liverpool shot down by Everton 3-0. That was the surprise of the day considering that the Freak Lamppost was among the goals. Everton had their nervous moments as Liverpool was constantly attacking the Everton goal. To see Liverpool floored by a 3-0 margin was really sweet.
And, Arsenal dropping points in Emigrants Stadium was not a surprise. They should consider themselves lucky to come off with a point. Now that the gunnerboys have seen all their signings failing together, they have to be convinced that they play poor football. Arsene Wenger looked hopeless once again. Henry scored the penalty. Goodness they didn’t try pass a couple of times before he hit the penalty (once they have tried that too - Henry/Pires). Looks like the only sure way for Arsenal to find the net is through a penalty. Not sure what Henry had to say, after the match. Before their first match of the season, he was saying that he is only 50% match fit or whatever. Before this home match, he scored for France and must have been decently fit. Another off-colour performance today. The worst disappointment of the day was that Gallas could not keep his promise of scoring an own goal. We’ll wait for that to happen. It was embarrassing for the Gooners not have broken the defence of 10-man Boro. Not sure they really want to play the champions league next year!
Atleast we won. But Jose! please sort this out! We cannot afford to walk around with closed eyes in the last quarter of every match. Whereas the first half really showed what we can expect from Chelsea in this season. Let’s kill off Werder Bremen.