Premiership: Middlesbrough v. Chelsea
Wednesday, 23 August 06, 03:42 PM · Comments (3)
Chelsea's second game of the new Premiership campaign kicks off at the Riverside later this evening with both the manager and players eager to avenge last season's shock 3-0 defeat.
"It is the one performance last year that stands out as our worst so we will try and put that right. But the most important thing is to get six points out of six at the start of the season," said Frank Lampard earlier this week.
New signing Khalid Boulahrouz goes straight into the squad while Claude Makelele and Michael Ballack, both ruled out of the win over Manchester City, are back in training and could feature. Geremi, Joe Cole, Petr Cech and Robert Huth are all injured, and William Gallas remains in limbo.
Middlesbrough manager Gareth Southgate underwent a baptism of fire at the Madejski Stadium on Saturday as his side slipped to a 3-2 loss after taking a two-goal lead.
Southgate will be without new signing Julio Arca, who's expected to miss three weeks after breaking a bone in his foot during the defeat at Reading, while Gaizka Mendieta is pushing for a recall to the first team.
Not since 1995, when they beat Chelsea 2-0, have Boro won an opening home Premiership fixture.
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Was worried about this game, what with our truncated and rushed preseason to have three matches in a week including Boro and Blackburn away was always going to be difficult.
Having seen the extended highlights thought we looked very composed in the first half and some of our movement and passing was slick. However Carvalho in my opinion, having been superb against City, had a 'mare. He kept giving the ball away and being caught out of position.
Oh well good to see Sheva off the scoresheet. We need to go up to Ewood and be prepared for a very physical game and hopefully batter them.
It's early days.
Not overly worried about United. Sure they have scored a lot of goals and looked good but they have played two below average teams. Up the Chels.
3 Comments · Add yours
A bit speechless really, Boro did nothing apart from the first 10 mins when they attacked,and the last 10 mins.. I just watched the game live on the Fox Soccer Channel I'm just going to have to drink a lot to help numb the pain!!!!
its definetely disappointing that we failed to trash them (for a second consecutive time I should say) when they had some defensive problems. We definitely have some issues to work out b4 Sunday