Chelsea Vs Aston Villa

[Steve 10,227]

not cool

[Aesthetic Relic 301]

no longer a fortress lol, 4 years unbeaten and its not a fortress, i'd love to see what is a fortress.

You're missing my point.

Once we got in front, the mentality of the team was to kill the game off. TEams knew that when we went into that mode that they were gonna find it virtually impossible to score and get anything from the game. Teams are now having a go at us because we no longer have that way about us. IMO we have been fortunate not to lose this fantastic home record out of sheer luck...nothing else. Its only a matter of time before it goes....I see it coming soon. Grant has sucked the life out of the squad and has taken that fear factor teams had of us away.

They know we will not close down a game and will continue to have a go as they will know they willl get chances. In the past that just wouldnt have happened.

[Steve 10,227]

i get where your coing from and i agree 100%, we need to shut games down

[James 5,140]

For next game:

No Ashley Cole

No Drogba

No Carvalho

No Lampard

No Terry

No Cech

We are seriously fucked!! :huh:

Does the African Nations Cup start at the begining of January? If so Essien, Kalou and Mikel will be missing aswell so yeh we are fucked.

[Aesthetic Relic 301]

Does the African Nations Cup start at the begining of January? If so Essien, Kalou and Mikel will be missing aswell so yeh we are fucked.

Isnt it just a fantastic time in your life right now to be supporting Chelsea :huh:

[BahrainiBlue 32]

:huh:

[joe_kura 0]

you just gotta hold your hands up and say what a fucking game. There's no Drogba, no Terry, no Lampard for an hour, a half injured petr cech, 2-0 down with a few mins to go till half time, we showed great character to come back. Ok i admit, the red card for zat fulham scummer helped and that gave us a major boost. Without that decision of the pen and the red card, we wouldve probably lost this game so some of you need to calm down lol, your acting like 10 year olds. The red cards all were harsh in ways but perhaps justified. Knight was sent off only because of this last man thing, Riccy was sent off because he unnecessarily went over the top when the ball was clearly within reach of him anyway and the ashley cole red was for stopping the ball going in with his hand. I didnt see a replay of ashley's handball, did he handball it?

Anyway it was a brilliant game, both teams deserve credit. Shame we couldn't hold on obviously but it couldve been worse aswell as better in all honesty. Home record still in tact. Oh and Sheva looked awesome today, his 2nd goal was absolute class.

ah.. always looking at the brightsight, aren't you?

credit or not, we should win every game right now just to catch up with arse and manu, while liverfool is right behind our ass. statistically, if we failed to do it, then we can say good bye to premier league while to be on the fourth position will be a huge challenge.

avram inability to manage a football club has become clearer. somebody have to create a dossier on avram's inability and hand it out to roman.

while he dub himself as a motivator, his impression on the dug out didn't seem as one when we are in trouble. even my confidence drop when i see him tapping his forehead while there is more than 15 minutes to go!

[Matt 0]

I think Chelsea fought back fantastically, when a team is 2-0 down you don't expect them to go to the limits and come back at one point to 3-2. I think Grant's decision to attack more was his mistake, playing more defensively especially after Carvalho's sending off was crucial. 3 great goals today, Sheva's shot, Alex's fantastic play, Ballack's free kick. Man of the match for Chelsea could possibly be Shevchenko. He wasn't consistent all game. He scored the first goal, he scored the equalizer and he set up the 3-2 for Alex. Carvalho's challenge was quite stupid, he could've simply obstructed him but he chose to do what Crouch idiotically did against Mikel.

Cech was terrible, there is no excuse for that even if he has a hip injury. If he has a injury he's a professional and step up and tell the boss he isn't fit. He was the reason for 1 of the goals. Chelsea defense was quite good, but some terrible defending at some parts of the game.

Next game Newcastle, I think it'll be a 3-0 something similar to the game against City.

[Elliott 7]

Not very good positive things about Sheva and Ballack really. Sheva's shit overall, and Ballack hardly ever gets a game.

Don't know if you've noticed, but Ballack hardly ever gets a game because he's been injured. He's fit now and in good form, so he'll be playing a lot more, as will Shevchenko.

Well, what a game. Entertaining, and we didn't deserve to win. We were absolutely shite in the first half, terrible. Villa were all over us, and whilst their second goal was purely a goalkeeping error, it's not like they didn't deserve to be 2-0 up. What an amazing lifeline for us for Zat Knight to be sent off and Sheva to knock that penalty in just before half time. Had that not happened, we would have lost this game 3 or 4 nil I'm sure, what an embarrassment that would have been! Looking at half time, I think we can be happy with a draw as a result, even though we have to be angry about the performance. I'll be glued to match of the day to see all the refereeing decisions, many of them were awful. The bald linesman running along the east stand was particularly awful, but it seemed in the first half as if the ref was giving all the decisions to Villa, eg Essien getting booked for a bookable tackle and then Reo-Coker not, and him ignoring the constant fouling of their wingers.

Second half we came out well, and a fantastic goal from Sheva. And fantastic work again from him to set Alex through, great finish by him as well. Everything looked great, and then Villa step up with a superbly perfect freekick and awful defending from us, Laursen was totally clear. And then Riccy, what the fuck are you doing? What an awful tackle, it wasn't a surprise to see him walk and he totally deserved it. But we were still on level with them in terms of men so it was game on. Ballack duly struck a fantastic freekick and all we had to do was sit the game out... but no, we concede a penalty. I've no idea what happened, but it looked like whoever shot should have been the goalscorer, and I can only guess Ashley stuck his hand out to stop the ball going in. Blue Lion said this shouldn't have been a sending off, but if he blocked a shot into an open goal like I thought he had, a red card is the only option.

I think this game has single handedly destroyed out title ambitions. Not because of the result, but because we have lost two defenders for three more games in an incredibly important period, along with a multitude of injured players... Makelele (apparently), Shevchenko, Lampard, Drogba, Malouda, Cudicini and Terry. And the African Nations men, Essien, Mikel and Kalou. And with Essien, my dad was saying that was his 5th yellow card of the season... is that right? If so, we've lost him for Newcastle as well.

Jeez. Well, let's settle for 3rd place, and try and win a cup or two, eh?

Player ratings:

Cech: 6 - bad mistake, could do nowt about the other goals though and commanded his area well in the air

Ferreira: 5 - had a bad game

Ashley Cole: 5 - had a poor game and got sent off

Carvalho: 5 - some of his passing was awful at times and then dropped us in the shit by making a stupid tackle and getting sent off

Alex: 7 - He seemed to do ok defensively today and scored a good goal

Essien: 7 - Did okay, got about a lot

Lampard: 5 - He was poor today even for the short time he was on the pitch. He's the central cog in our machine, and he didn't perform so neither did we.

Joe Cole: 6 - Just wasn't effective today, was very well marshalled by Bouma

Kalou: 6 - All running and no end product

Pizarro: 5 - Pretty poor, had no real effect on the game

Shevchenko: 9 - Fantastic contribution, worked hard, tucked away the penalty, scored a fantastic goal and made a third. Best performance in a Chelsea shirt for him.

Subs:

Ballack: 9 - He drove our game in the second half, massive performance and a great freekick to add one more to his rating

Wright-Phillips: 6 - Didn't really have the chance to do much

Mikel: 6 - Didn't have the time to assert himself on the game.

Man of the match for me is Shevchenko with Ballack a close second. Everyone else was poor to slightly above average.

[chrismada9 1,948]

Isnt it just a fantastic time in your life right now to be supporting Chelsea

It's not a question of that, it's something more along the lines of...

"Don't you just love the Christmas period?"

[SuperSheva7 0]

does anyone have the goals? i missed the whole match...thank god.

[Elliott 7]

Pff, thank God. It was a brilliant match!

[Layla 0]

Just arg!!so close and yet so far.But hey least we got back into it at least,thats one thing,shows we still have that mentality.Shame Grant did an McClaren with his subs.

Seriously though kinda worrying the fact we played attacking footie against B'Ham and that ended 3-2 and then dropped points agsinst Villa and Everton by again playing 'attacking footie'.We cant attack and defend well it seems so either one or the other.

Xmas period eeek hate it!We luck we can hit back against Newcastle otherwise just a repeat of last xmas coming through

[Guest Lampards Bitch]

Hilario may as well of been in goal! I only heard Cech made a howler on the second goal. I have yet to watch it. Kiss good bye to out title hopes people. The gap is too much now. We will need Pompey to beat Arsenal now or Arsenal to have an absolute all time low along with Man you.

Lampard being injured is a massive blow to us. The team is crumbling now. Well tbh I'm use to this more than us winning lol!

I'll give my full view once I have watched the game.

[True_Blue 469]

I was watching until the 30th minute when we were 1-0 down,and Ballack got in.Then i went to work and told my dad to give me a call when the game ends.He called and said you finished 4-4 and 2 sent off's i was like:

Jesus Fuckin Christ wtf happened!

We are out of the title race i am really always optimistic but we cant get back into this.

[Layla 0]

Cant see it happening.Though never know stranger things have but as long as we stay third,wont mind so much.Maybe can focus on Champs league now hmmmm.

Yeh havent seen the highlights either but it was a bad mistake,let it roll but hey 9/10 the saves he makes are just woha.Needs his confidence and JT back

Shame Lampsie have to wait longer for his 100th :huh:

Liverpool messed today up for me defo.Sodding Gerrard!!Would've been able to cope with our crazy result had that not happened in the last min as well grrrrrr

Edited December 26, 2007 by Layla

[Guest Lampards Bitch]

we wont win anything this year

[Layla 0]

Lol postive thinking!