The Official Thread of Chelsea FC

[Norf Tyrone]

As above bar Drogs for Kalou. Good to see the racial assault on Drogs has not overly affected him.

[Archie Mitchell]

Great performance from Chelsea today. Look unstopable and Drogba is on fire. He loves scoring against Arsenal too.

I fear for City next weekend given the 2 teams form at the minute.

[slow corner back]

Impressive stuff indeed from Chelsea, the form team of the league so far.

[Norf Tyrone]

Our back for were immense, with kudos to Ivanovic. However Terry was unreal IMHO. Anelka's work rate too is fantastic at the minute and allows Drogba the room to do the Drogba think!

Long way to go.

As a negative aside. This season we have seen a player struck by a missle at OT, a fan try to attack Bellamy at OT, and today a missle almost hitting Frank Lampard. As of yet little action or condemnation.

Last season a fan throw a flag onto the SB pitch at the end of a game (Not at anyone), and Chelsea were fined £100,000. Why the differance?

Anyhow.... onwards and upwards.

[A Quinn Martin Production]

Twas like St Gall's v The Loup!

[TheGreatRambo]

Our back for were immense, with kudos to Ivanovic. However Terry was unreal IMHO. Anelka's work rate too is fantastic at the minute and allows Drogba the room to do the Drogba think!

Long way to go.

As a negative aside. This season we have seen a player struck by a missle at OT, a fan try to attack Bellamy at OT, and today a missle almost hitting Frank Lampard. As of yet little action or condemnation.

Last season a fan throw a flag onto the SB pitch at the end of a game (Not at anyone), and Chelsea were fined £100,000. Why the differance?

Anyhow.... onwards and upwards.

I think u'll find that Bellamy attacks fan would have been closer to the truth

[Norf Tyrone]

Our back for were immense, with kudos to Ivanovic. However Terry was unreal IMHO. Anelka's work rate too is fantastic at the minute and allows Drogba the room to do the Drogba think!

Long way to go.

As a negative aside. This season we have seen a player struck by a missle at OT, a fan try to attack Bellamy at OT, and today a missle almost hitting Frank Lampard. As of yet little action or condemnation.

Last season a fan throw a flag onto the SB pitch at the end of a game (Not at anyone), and Chelsea were fined £100,000. Why the differance?

Anyhow.... onwards and upwards.

I think u'll find that Bellamy attacks fan would have been closer to the truth

No it wasn't.

[Archie Mitchell]

In penalties now. Chelsea scored at the death with a mistake from Robinson.

1-0 in shootout, Ballack missed

[Archie Mitchell]

2-1 - Emerton and Drogba

[Archie Mitchell]

3-2 - Grella and Malouda

[Archie Mitchell]

3-3 Hilario saved Kalinic's penalty, Zhirkov scored.

[Archie Mitchell]

4-3 Hoilett scored for Blackburn, Kakuta missed for Chelsea. Blackburn through.

[Norf Tyrone]

A few mistakes by the gaffer tonight, and a bit unlucky. The starting XI was asking for trouble. Ferreria at centre back was always going to be nervy, espcially with the lack of first time back up around him. A strange choice with Bruma and Hutchinson available at CB.

Upfront, Kalou, Deco, Malouda and Joe Cole. Hmmmm. A bit light weight for Blackburn away.

So the Italiano makes 3 Joséesque changes at HT. They were the right switches but it's a massive risk making all your subs with extra time a possability. So it came to pass that Kalou gets injured and it's 10 v 11 for the last hour.

It was good to see the side battling, and getting the reward with a rare Paulo Ferreria last minute goal.

However I'd love to see the referee's assesment for tonight. Twice Blackburn players dived (Emerton's particularly embarassing), and although he didn't buy the dives, he didn't book the offenders. Ballack is quite clearly rugby tackled in the box, and he gives no penalty, Grella spends all evening kicking everything that moves, and after the umptenth challange eventually gets booked, and Drogba had a big penalty claim turned down.

I thought the ref officiated like it was a friendly game.

The big bonuses were Kakuta and especially Bruma's performances. I could nearly guarantee that these two will make the step up into regular first team football. I have seen Bruma once or twice, and he has looked the part. According to more regular observers, he is miles ahead of John Terry at this age. Hgh praise indeed.

[A Quinn Martin Production]

A few mistakes by the gaffer tonight, and a bit unlucky. The starting XI was asking for trouble. Ferreria at centre back was always going to be nervy, espcially with the lack of first time back up around him. A strange choice with Bruma and Hutchinson available at CB.

Upfront, Kalou, Deco, Malouda and Joe Cole. Hmmmm. A bit light weight for Blackburn away.

So the Italiano makes 3 Joséesque changes at HT. They were the right switches but it's a massive risk making all your subs with extra time a possability. So it came to pass that Kalou gets injured and it's 10 v 11 for the last hour.

It was good to see the side battling, and getting the reward with a rare Paulo Ferreria last minute goal.

However I'd love to see the referee's assesment for tonight. Twice Blackburn players dived (Emerton's particularly embarassing), and although he didn't buy the dives, he didn't book the offenders. Ballack is quite clearly rugby tackled in the box, and he gives no penalty, Grella spends all evening kicking everything that moves, and after the umptenth challange eventually gets booked, and Drogba had a big penalty claim turned down.

I thought the ref officiated like it was a friendly game.

The big bonuses were Kakuta and especially Bruma's performances. I could nearly guarantee that these two will make the step up into regular first team football. I have seen Bruma once or twice, and he has looked the part. According to more regular observers, he is miles ahead of John Terry at this age. Hgh praise indeed.

Now I will be the first to admit that Chelsea fans are on rocky ground when it comes to discussing diving but this is a more general point about referees' consistency.  Let's say player A puts in a big dive and the ref doesn't buy it.  AFAIK that is a yellow card offense.  So if the ref doesn't give the pen/free there is a fair chance he thinks the player dived esp. if he appeals for a pen/free...so yellow card?  If the aim is to cut out diving shouldn't refs be showing cards for this more often??

On a related point Drogba for the most part is staying on his feet this year and for me he is the Player of the Season so far.  He must have read my post after the Barcelona game

[screenexile]

Meh I dunno about the diving thing... for me it's VERY hard to prove at times (Eduardo got his charge overturned during the year) and unless someone goes down and looks for a free/penalty I would generally give them the benefit of the doubt and not book them.