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Surprise! Surprise!


It wasn’t quite the five-star performance I was hoping for. Anyway, why should I be unhappy to see us leave the Bridge with three points? We were easily the superior side. If you saw the game you could have realised this. We had many decisive chances that could have sealed the game beyond doubt whereas the Hammers were trying hard to get atleast one shot on target. But in all fairness, I should say they played very well. Like Jose said they gave us a game. They were never short of confidence and they kept charging us time and again.

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My heart was thumping whenever Tevez got the ball. I’m sure if Tevez had not played in this match, the quality gulf between Chelsea and West Ham could have been much wider. Tevez was the only player who could match Chelsea’s quality and kept troubling us. Will he be Chelsea-bound next season? He certainly deserves to play for a Champions side. I’d welcome him for one.

Geremi has completed his hattrick of superb performances. After some aggressive defending and setting up of goals, he slotted one in the top right corner from a free kick. Lampard got ready for the free kick and in a flash comes Geremi and shoots us to 1-0 up. Pardew must have been thinking “You bastards!”.

The remarkable thing was that he took the free kick in a team which had Lampard, Shevchenko, Robben, Drogba and Essien. That’s Chelsea for you. There was a surprise plan and that was tried out in the training ground several times and like a charm, it was reproduced in the derby. Sheva gave couple of beautiful passes into the box that were wasted. Drogba worked hard and took a day off from his busy scoring schedule. Lampard dominated the midfield but should have buried some with ease.

Jose Mourinho said in the post-match conference:

I think they played a good game, I would say [it was] a comfortable game for 88 minutes and a difficult game for the last five. I think we produced enough to score a second goal and kill the game but we didn’t. And after that we face a good team – good players, good manager, good team – and it was a difficult match because they were always organised and they wait until the last minute. When they felt the game was almost over they put everything forward. Sheringham, Harewood, Tevez, Ferdinand as striker, so they gambled in the last five minutes.

It was a satisfactory performance because we beat a good team. I see the quality of their players and manager and I don’t think they deserve to be in the position they are. We had enough chances to kill the game. But we didn’t and in the last five minutes or so they threw a lot of bodies up. However the reality is we were in control and deserved the win. As for Geremi, he scores those goals all the time in training. He is playing well, setting up chances and I like him.

Sad to see Ricardo going off with an injury but that, only that, gave Khalid another chance. It was not an impressive show by Khalid I should say. Lost the ball in crucial areas, failed to win winnable tackles, unwarranated clearance, he gotta get better than this. One glaring chink in our armour today was the poor communication between Carlo and the back four. On quite a few occasions, it caused us some serious problems with Carlo colliding with our own men.

Robben must be wondering what he needs to do to hit the stuff in the back of the net. I would say, it was more of misfortune than poor finishing. He’ll come good. I hope Jose persists with him. Once again, Joe Cole made a guest appearance. Apart from a couple of good runs and losing of the ball, he was not that visible. But he can be a force if he plays for 90 minutes. Jose played Obi (for 10 ‘okay’ minutes), only after the kid apologised for his bad behaviour. I’m sure Jose would make a man out of this extraordinarily talented spoilt kid.

The last 10 minutes or so were not very comfortable and I could not help recollect the horrors of the middlesbrough match this season. We were very shaky in defence in the last quarter and even the attack was little reckless. May be that was complacency or plain bad play or may be they didn’t want to push themselves too much. I’m sure Jose would have had in mind the important mid-week match against Bremen and the next weekend blockbuster.

I’ve started liking Pardew since he provoked Arsene Wenger to reveal his ‘class’. I took Pardew’s side in that incident with absolutely no bias against Wenger. Now he’s gone one notch higher in my books when he said the below.

His team carry lots of superstars and are always highly motivated. It’s difficult to say he’s underrated – Jose will certainly say that, I’m sure – but you can’t manage a team like Chelsea and have all those superstars unless you are a great manager. It’s very difficult to manage players with large egos, fantastic ability and huge salaries. And he motivates them and gets them into a team structure that wins most games.

The problem you have is that if you’re a superstar player you expect to play. He’s carrying 18 of those. Some players at clubs can almost accept the fact they are not in the starting eleven, but are ready to come in and show their professionalism when called upon. At the big clubs, especially Chelsea when they are paid very large salaries, it must be difficult to manage.

Elsewhere, Arsenal and Liverpool continued with their home and away form respectively. While I was unduly ecstatic when Sheff went ahead against Man Utd, Rooney did the formalities to complete the inevitable.

We have got Werder Bremen in the mid-week. For once, Barca must be hoping Chelsea wins as it makes their qualification easier. I dont think, we should put too much pressure on ourselves to win this Bremen match. A second team would do for me. Let the top guys be fully charged for Old Trafford.

[tags] Chelsea, West Ham, Jose Mourinho, Alan Pardew, Geremi, Werder Bremen, Barcelona, Premiership, Old Trafford [/tags]