When Scolari said that a win is the most important thing for him, I guess he did not refer to matches like these. There are matches that you win 1-0 but still feel comfortable by the fact that you outplayed, outclassed and bossed the opposition thoroughly and it’s just that the scoreline does not reflect that always. The match at the JJB was a forgettable one for Chelsea fans. Bulk of the blame should go to the pitch, whose behaviour we could not figure out. The Latics knew how to play on their pitch while we were still struggling. The only way Chelsea could have scored yesterday was through a set piece. And that’s what happened, in fact, that was the only thing that happened for us.

When Deco was preparing to take that free kick, I was wondering if that was the right move, given that we have Ballack and Lampard on the ranks. Deco is not even a free kick specialist. But the technique and accuracy with which he took the kick was amazing. He had me jump when the ball swerved into the top corner. Last week he was the man of the match and now he scores the only goal of the match. If he is any more consistent, he’s going to carry huge burden of expectations on his shoulders. I’ve already made up my mind to expect 20 goals from him this season, a feat he has never achieved before in his career.

Other than that early moment of delight, there was nothing else in the game for a Chelsea fan. If not anything else, the game was scary. Firstly, the game kind of brought us back down to earth. People like me who predicted a 3-0 rout were made to bite the dust. I have an excuse though. I was told before the match that the pitch is a lot better than before. As we started playing, we realised that the pitch behaved differently in different parts. In some areas, you had to put more pressure to pass the ball and in some it was normal. The amount of unsuccessful passes and lost possessions in the middle were innumerous. At one point, I got so pissed off that I was screaming why can’t you get a 5 passes undisturbed. It was not possible. While I put some blame on the pitch, I can’t spare our players too.

It took less than 10 minutes to realise how horrible the pitch was. Despite realising that our players did not really adjust their game to the quality of the pitch. Our intelligence was not there. We kept trying to do the same things over and over again and lost possession. When the ball does not roll all that well, we may not create width and be successful in wing attacks. More often than not the ball would be intercepted and that’s what happened yesterday. Very quickly, we should have figured out and changed to plan B, if there was one.
When we losing possession, like in every minute, we should have at least retained the ball, pass around harmlessly, feel the ball and the pitch and played within the framework offered by the ground reality (pun intended).

The box defending is still bad. We are clumsy by the day in the box. We’re gonna get punished sooner or later. There were some parts of the match when Wigan and Chelsea played like each other. They were playing in front of their crowds. We also let them have the belief that they can pull one up any moment. That kept them going. In all fairness, they must have scored, at least once. While we had all of two shots on target all match, they created more and deserved more. May be, we underestimated Wigan. It was their home match, they were fighting for every ball, not allowing the Chelsea midfield to settle down and not giving us any time on the ball. That’s how all teams are going to play against us. Every single team would watch the video of yesterday’s match and learn how to stop us.

Before the match I thought I would not see much of Cech while the Wigan keeper would be in action all the time. It turned out to be exactly the opposite. Pollitt was hardly in action. Cech was almost the most seen player despite being on goal. Does his crazy flourescent orange kit draw the opponent players towards him? Cech had his best game for many many months. Last season, he lost his unofficial title of ‘one of the three best goalkeepers in Europe’. In Euro 2008, he dumped himself even further down. But now, he seems to be back for us. This game should mark the return of the Petr Cech we know. My MOTM goes to him for keeping Chelsea in the match and on top of the table.

Are you worried after the performance at the JJB?

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Ah yes, we are topping the table. That’s a nice feeling. Forget about how we won and all that. There were reasonable excuses from our side. I don’t think we need to be worried about the way we played. It was an one-off match. There is only one league match at JJB and that’s over. I think we’ll play more like the way we played against Portsmouth and that would be the trend. This match at the JJB should be an aberration but the important point is that we could hold on to our lead for about 85 minutes in an hostile pitch and a decent opposition. There was no Emile Heskey stoppage time heart breaker this time. In short, the highlights of the match are Deco’s goal, Cech’s performance, Chelsea holding onto the lead and that we topping the table after the match. Don’t let other things bother you. We’ll be back with a bang against the Spurs at the bridge!