It does pain and if you had not watched the match, it would pain even more. My prediction of the score was right but I just got the side wrong. Loads and loads of possession resulted in bucketful of chances, but lack of sharpness resulting in poor final product ensured that Villa park remains our bogey ground. I missed Lampard very badly. Screw internationals, take rest and come back soon.

Jose started with a very strong 4-3-3 with Mikel, Maka and Essien in the midfield. It is a defence-minded midfield if you think so. Essien is not a defence-minded midfielder, only the last season saw him change his profile whenever required. Most teams would die to take this midfield for theirs. Drogba, Malouda and SWP made the front three. SWP still gets a nod over Joe Cole and rightfully so. Belletti gets a start on the right back with Alex joining Terry in the central defence.

The first half was completely ours. At about 35 minutes, we had 64% possession in an away game at a ground that has been our pain, of late. We had too many chances not so score in the first half. Though Villa saw only little of the ball, they made good impact with whatever they got. SWP was really zipping past but more than once he wanted to grab the glory himself and wasted beautiful chances. I was not too happy with Mikel as he was taking too much time on the ball which helped them regroup and also it really slowed down our attacks. Belletti was quite lively on the flank but was too slow when it came to marking the wide men.

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The second half started with a bad defensive set-piece mistake that resulted in a goal. When Villa scored, it was completely agains the run of play and we had only ourselves to blame. This match was all about set-pieces. We got more than a dozen corners and we hardly threatened them. Leave alone threatening them, we made a criminal waste of few of them. Chelsea of the title-winning seasons, was major threat with corners. We used to really make them count and that was one of the real weapons of our game. If Jose is going to rip the boys into pieces, it could be heavily on the set-pieces. And the mess with set-pieces was complete when Villa scored their goal from their only second corner. Ashley Cole could have done better with his goal line job, but primarily it was a poorly defended corner. Terry had a mixed performance but I won’t forget that he is playing after taking his pain-killers.

All through the match, we dominated the game end to end. Our attacks were launched and nurtured very well but when it came to the attacking third, there was some kind of indecisiveness or lack of ideas which saw a lot of chances wasted. Malouda was off colour and it showed in his set-pieces – lacked purpose and horribly poor. In the second half, we were playing too many passes even in the attacking third. There were quite a few situations where someone could have pulled the trigger intsead passing it further down.

Jose brought on Joe Cole, Pizarro and Kalou of which Joe Cole looked lively, Kalou wasted a chance that Drogba would have buried easily and Pizarro did not quite impress. I don’t care about the margin of defeat. 1-0 and 2-0 mean the same to me. The second goal was more out of the aggressive tactic opted by Jose in the second half. Most of the times, we have seen it work like a charm. This is one case of the tactic failing and ending up a goal conceded. I was surprised to see Jose saying the same thing I just did. Second goal means nothing to him and also he did give credit to Villa for their well-organised game and their ‘heart’:

I think it was a good game. Aston Villa played well, Chelsea played well in my opinion. Chelsea made a mistake you cannot make in something we are very well organised, which is defensive set pieces and the game that was under control with a solid first half changed with that goal in the first minute. I think a point each should reflect what happened on the pitch, but you pay for mistakes. We made our mistake and I cannot say that Villa didn’t deserve because they didn’t make that mistake in their defence. After that Villa were well organised, heart, and had the crowd behind them. Chelsea played with a complete domination of the game but were not scoring a goal. The second goal means nothing for me in the context of the game.

Here is Martin O’Neill showering praises on Chelsea while not hiding his joy:

They can score in an instant, but they didn’t, and I was pleased to hear the final whistle. In defeat Chelsea were brilliant. Obviously I’m delighted for our efforts, we had to play strongly, with a lot of determination and a lot of belief. I think we had that and naturally I’m delighted. They changed their system round because frank Lampard didn’t play, I thought when they had it, Malouda started to cause a few problems when he picked it up. They’ve been beaten today but Chelsea are exceptional.

stats.PNGSo why did we lose this game? Certainly, the team selection was fine and there was no problem in playing Mikel, Maka and Essien together. When we had 20 shots and scored none, it can’t be about the midfield. Drogba was good but tried too many tricks most of which did not come through today. SWP was good but was selfish from difficult angles when he had better options than shooting off-target himself. Malouda had a game that he would like to forget. Our back four changing every match is also not very helpful. We were piss poor with set-pieces. At times, no one was ready to pull the trigger. A combination of some or all of these meant that Chelsea’s 18 match unbeaten streak would come to an end at Villa park, of all places.

It would be news tomorrow that Roman walked off with a couple of minutes left in the stoppage time. He should have been upset and that’s natural and even Jose would be upset. One thing is, Roman has jumped in joy when we won the title twice in two years and he would not have witnessed too many Chelsea defeats but surely this would be in news.

So, we’re now no.4 in the table with both Arsenal and Liverpool having difficult away fixtures against Spurs and Pompey respectively, while we play Blackburn at the Bridge. Oh well, club football takes a break for goddamn internationals and returns on 15-Sep. Until then, enough time for soul-searching and regrouping for the men in blue. Hope our Chelsea contingent of the England team comes back fit and fine. Bye then.

[tags]Chelsea, Aston Villa, Premier League, Agbonlahor, Belletti, Alex, Drogba, Malouda, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Lampard, Terry, Knight, Jose Mourinho, Martin O Neill, Roman Abramovich, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United[/tags]