Joey Majka
Did Chelsea Get Robbed?
11th May 2009
As a Chelsea fan, it is easy to say that Chelsea was robbed of the opportunity to play in the Champions League Final by poor officiating. I’ve even had a Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal fan tell me that they think we were robbed, and personally I feel that the officiating cost us the match. There was the clear hand-ball in the box at the very end of the match that came off Ballack’s volley that caused the German skipper to completely lose it (but I’ll address that later).
Then there was another hand-ball earlier in the match and the incident when Alves pulled Malouda down inside the box and the referee spotted the foul just outside the area. All three of those calls should have given Chelsea three chances at a spot kick. With the likes of Ballack and Lampard in the line-up, I’m 100% convinced that we would have at least converted two of the PK’s if not all three. If that was the case, it would have been 4-1 Chelsea and we would have been through to the Final for a rematch against Manchester United.
However, that was not the case. The lack of calls made by the referee caused major frustration on the part of the Chelsea side. After the match Boswinga made some comments to the media about the referee, including calling him a “cheat” and a “thief”, Drogba’s post match tirade has been well documented, and Ballack ran half way down the field screaming at the referee after a foul for a hand ball wasn’t given at the end of the match. I may be in the minority on this, but I don’t have any issues with their actions.
I believe that it shows their passion for the game. Could they have expressed their feelings in a better, more social acceptable way? Sure, but what’s done is done. And now UEFA is thinking about banning Drogba from Champions League competition for 6-months (from what I’m hearing) and handing Chelsea some kind of punishment. Personally I feel that getting eliminated from the competition in the manner that Chelsea did is punishment enough.
Being all said, I don’t think that the match can be completely blamed on the ref though. Chelsea had numerous chances in the match that they should have capitalized on. Many of the players had chances to score and Barcelona’s keeper made key saves.
We also cannot forget that in the 1st Leg at Barcelona we just sat back and played defense, seeming content to walk away with a 0-0 draw; leaving Barcelona only needing a draw at Stamford Bridge to advance. Chelsea gambled, they called our bluff and won the pot.
Sure the referee blew some calls, but he also sent off one of their players and they scored with 10 men. Should Chelsea have advanced to the finals? Sure, but we also should have seized more chances in the 1st and 2nd legs. Now all Chelsea fans can do is wait for the FA Cup final against Everton at the end of the month and wait to hear the sanctions that are going to be handed down by UEFA.
Joey Majka
When did playing defense leave the game of football?
April 2009
I’m sorry; I didn’t know when playing defense left the game of football. In football there are 2 goals, scoring goals and not allowing goals. When Chelsea played Barcelona over the weekend at Camp Nou they opted for the choice of not allowing goals. Drogba did have a really good chance of giving us an away goal, but other than that Chelsea was determined to play a physical defensive style.
It seemed that Chelsea was content to take a 0-0 draw at Camp Nou back to the Bridge; however that did not sit too well with players and managers of Barcelona. A number of Barcelona’s players are now complaining about the style of play of Chelsea during the match. Xavi, after the match, said: “In England, they talk about fair play so much, but it's a shame they don't put that talk into practice when their teams get on the pitch.”
Fair play you say? Excuse me, I’m sorry that I missed the memo when teams were not allowed to play defense. It’s not Chelsea’s fault that the Spanish refs baby everyone and calls every little foul and dive a foul (no wonder Ronaldo wants to go to Spain). Just because you were “bullied” out of the game by the likes of Ballack, Essien, and Mikel in the midfield is no reason to complain. This is a European competition, you are not playing in Spain and therefore you have to adapt to the style of play of different nations. Chelsea chose to play defense and not press forward. Sorry if that doesn’t fit you style of play.
25th Feb 2009 Chelsea v Juventus
When Scolari was first fired, I was a bit surprised and thought it was more a knee-jerk reaction from Roman for the lack of results. Should Scolari had been giving more time to right the ship, or was the threat of finishing out of the top 4 and missing the Champions League too much for Roman to fathom?
But then I look back the last 5 matches in February. Liverpool 2 – Chelsea 0 (A), Chelsea 0 – Hull City 0 (H), Watford 1 – Chelsea 3 (A), Aston Villa 0 – Chelsea 1 (A), and Chelsea 1 – Juventus 0 (H). The first 2 matches were under Scolari and Chelsea played absolutely terrible. The players looked lost, there was a severe lack of flow in the movement, and there were defensive break downs because Bosingwa and Cole were overly used to provide width. Even though Wilkins was the manager during Watford match, you can’t tell me that when Hiddink came in after Russia’s International match he wasn’t giving Wilkins or Wilkins was asking some opinions while Hiddink was watching training.
Then we move on to the short lived Hiddink era. From what I saw against Villa and Wednesday against Juventus, Chelsea looked like a completely different team. Drogba looked extremely well and actually seemed motivated for the first time since Mourinho left. He was moving into space and getting open, allowing for crosses into the box to find him. Yeah, I could be negative and point out a few missed chances, but I could do that with others as well. He did look a bit rusty though, the training ground is different than a match. I thought Ballack had one of, if not if the best match of this season. He did much better with ball control, passing, and defending. Lampard and Terry were class and the rest of the team played very solid in my opinion.
I wish that we could have capitalized on a few more of our chances though in the first half. I haven’t seen Juventus play in the Champions League this season until this match; I’ve only seen them in Serie A. However, I don’t think that Juventus is as bad as they showed in the first half at the Bridge because they picked up the intensity in the second half. So we have to make sure to play with the same intensity that we did at Home.
I think that this was the type of football that Roman has been looking for. The midfield was flowing very well and Hiddink is slowly starting to disprove the opinions of Grant and Scolari that Anelka and Drogba cannot play together. I thought that the substitution of Ballack for Mancienne was wise. Ballack was sitting on a yellow card and Hiddink didn’t want to risk suspension for the away leg in Turin. The one thing that left me asking myself “What the hell?” was when Hiddink brought on Malouda for Kalou. Not so much taking Kalou off because it seemed like he was everywhere on the pitch for 81 minutes, but bringing on Malouda. I can’t even remember the last time I saw Malouda play before this game. I would have rather seen Stoch or Di Santo come on instead.
Good result all-in-all. Chelsea got a goal and didn’t concede at home. Let’s Go Blues!
Who is to blame for the poor Form?
08th Feb 2009
Blame Everyone
The problem does not lie with one individual player, it lies with the team in general and everyone shares the blame. Football is a team sport and you win or lose as a team. When Jose and Grant where at Chelsea, we played the same style of football. Scolari has come in and changed the style of the team and the players have not been able to adapt to it so far. I don't know if Scolari can't get the players motivated or what, but they are showing lack of heart. Jose was intimidating and Grant looked like Darth Vadar, while Scolari, to me at least, just doesn't have the intimidating factor in him.
I think that Scolari has a difficult time with dealing with the grind of an 9-10 month season. With managing on the international level, you have fully fit players for 7 weeks max and just a couple days before qualifying matches and friendlies. And when you have international matches, you get to pick the players that you call up so the team is of your choice and they are healthy.
Scolair's team has dropped 22 points in the last 16 games, while Grant only dropped 11 points in the 16 game period when he didn't have either Cech, Terry, Lampard, Ballack, Essien, or Drogba to choose from.
In club play, new managers walk in and have to adapt to the players you have that were suited for the style of the previous manager. As a manager you have to tweak your style of play to fit the talent that you have, and I fear that Scolari has been up able to do that. But then again, the players should also try to adapt to the new style of play as well.
In short, blame the entire squad not an individual. No one player/manager is greater than than whole.