And it had all begun quite encouragingly. Sitting back away from home and soaking up the pressure just isn’t the Tottenham way, so right from the off we took the game to that lot, giving as good as we got in the first half. Jenas, Hudd and Palacios weren’t far off with their long-range efforts, and there was a gorgeous through-ball from Sergeant Wilson to free up Defoe in the early stages. By stages however, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It was loosely reminiscent of one of those action films in which everything starts off serenely enough, before one by one the characters are all killed off and by the end it’s complete carnage.Interestingly, ‘Arry opted to replace Modric by pretending the problem wasn’t there and doing away with the concept of a left-winger. To be honest I’m not entirely sure precisely what formation it was – a lop-sided 4-4-2, or maybe a variant on 4-3-3. The players did not make it abundantly clear, and either way there was not much of a presence on the left. Whether or not the deployment of a winger on the left would have at least helped to keep a lid on the Chelski full-backs will go down as one of life’s hypotheticals. Our formation actually worked to an extent in the first half – fluid if a little shapeless, and benefiting from Keane dropping back from attack – but ultimately, irrespective of the formation, we missed Modric’s guile. Jenas and Palacios had their moments, but we lacked a cutting-edge.
Pointing the Finger
And on the subject of the centre-backs, I’m really not quite sure what happened in the latter stages, as Stamford Bridge started to resemble the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan. Bodies dropping everywhere, stretcher-bearers working over-time, and the Chelski groundstaff having to sweep bloodied limbs off the pitch at full-time. I doubt that anyone else will want to play centre-back for us now, as the position is clearly cursed.
Penalty Shout
The hullaballoo over the penalty also glosses over the fact that the second goal was a poor one to concede, as once Cudicini had shovelled the ball sideways two Chelksi players reacted faster than any of our lot. That whole sequence of events – the penalty shout, followed by the strength of Drogba and the sight of our boys casually rocking on their heels as the Chelski forwards gobbled up the scraps – summed things up. Bad luck, bad defending, clinical finishing from the other lot.
13 replies on “Chelsea 3-0 Spurs: Let The Howard Webb Love-In Begin…”
Robbed again by another disgraceful refereeing performance.
Keane’s was an obvious Penalty – just like the one that Ballack should have had from Corlucca and Lampard from his free kick which was forearm smashed away.
Bassong would not have been injured if he had been sent off when he shuld have been after a number of yellow card offences
Lovely stuff. Last sentence sums it up perfectly. Anyone got a hopeful return date for Moddle?
Who was robbed?
…
Chelsea scored 3 and had 2 penalty appeals turned down..
Chelsea also never needed to get out of second gear..
If you had had your penalty given Chelsea would have played a lot better.
“as there tend to be 22 other chaps out there each game who make more mistakes”
(a) Those 22 chaps get punished for their mistakes. Referees are proclaimed to be infallible.
(b) When these “mistakes” always go in favour of the Big 4, you start to wonder if they are actually mistakes
(c) Big 4 fans like Nicky and chelsear are delusional. If the refs thought their penalty claims had any merit, they would be given, since refs favour the Big 4.
Good column. The refereeing was poor but relatively impartial. We’ve got them two out of the way and now, if we can find enough players, we could get back to winning ways.
12 points from six, two points per game thats top four level and three of the top four played already, already.
Could’ve been different if the Penalty decision had gone our way – and if we’d have take one of the 1st half chances, but didn’t. Fuck it – fuck them – move on. Still 32 games to go
we started brightly and yes it was a penalty! but as usual harry hid behind a smokescreen of a penalty decision we did not get, instead of owning up to his own shortcomings he picked the wrong keeper the wrong formation Lennon has been brilliant wide right where?did he play him? keene should not have started and unless your a pompey old boy forget it the way he has treated dos santos and even worse roman is pretty shameful. still if we get james and muntari in january he will be happy over half the side will be ex pompey
I don’y think Lennon would get much joy on the same wing as Ashlel Cole.
Harry knew that.
Nicky..
agree totally with Chivers…..as much as i love what Harry has done so far for us, for the second game in a row he has just stuck to his favourites and completely ignored the fact we’ve got an amazing squad of players who ALL need playing time!
Gomes……been on the bench for two games now, he WOULD have saved Giggs free kick last week and for all the crazy shit that comes with him (tell me a world class keeper ever who wasn’t a little crazy) he certainly wouldn’t have let in 6 goals in 2 games in my opinion.
Gio……now we are a club who have been screaming out for a left winger since Ginola, in him we have a Lennon who’s Mexican and left footed but with a more consistent finished product, if any of you managed to catch any of his intl appearances the boy took on players with speed and guile, created goals and acored goals….great goals, yet we play Kranjcar, who’s been at the club 2 mins, really is not used to the we play at all and he puts him on as a sub 2 games in a row now and can anyone remember anything of note, ermm bit like the game against England, he was anonymous.
Pavluychenko….rated by Hiddink (you know him, prob one the best managers in world football who’s won I don’t even know, but i’d say at least 3-4 times what Harry has in his career) as one of the best strikers in the world, hasn’t played more than 5 mintues all season for us, goes off with Russia, scores 3 goals in 2 games then comes back to London, in the next 2 games he plays zero minutes, games that we needed goals in and as much as I respect Peter Crouch as a player, yesterday we were 3-0 down, there was no way on god’s green earth we were ever gonna win that game, so what did we do for the last 20 minutes…hooof it Crouch to win a second ball we never could, I really do recall that the first 20 mins we basically out played them on the FLOOR, he may not be to everyone flavour, but how does anyone adapt to a league and a style of play if the never get to play?!
I fear that if Harry keeps on sticking to his favourites, not only are we going to lose these players come January, but if we continue to lose and they still don’t play, it will do nothing but start a rot in the dressing room and cause divisions which could be severely detrimental to our beloved club!
COYS
why does everyone criticise keane for missing chances when defoe misses more than anyone? how many times does he look up to see where goalie is when he’s through. never. he closes his eyes and smacks it. all well and good against the likes of hull. i knew Bent would score loads, i put money on him for top scorer. i’d prefer him to defoe. in the last 2 games, defoes contributed absolutely nothing in open play. hell, i’d perfer heskey up front
Chelsea was the better team. Totally agree on the disaster that was Corluka. He is a great player but when faced with speed, he doesn’t stand a chance against his man. He needs Ledley to back him up when that does happen. Amazing how much confidence King instills in others.
COYS!!!
Lets face it when it come to any type of sport there will always be things that we pick on when our team looses. Without us complaining there would not be any professional sports. But do you ever notice, that we always come back for more.