[Archived] Chelsea 3 Blackburn Rovers 0

[pksrover]

skysports matchreport

Blackburn were not finished and Carvalho again reacted well to black McCarthy's effort.

I guess the journo meant block and not black?!

[Bobby G]

LOL now that had me cracked up. He better have meant block! Freudian error me thinks!

[Rovermatt]

We'll get done in this one, at least 3-0.

Was that Kalou's first goal for Chelsea?

[pksrover]

Was that Kalou's first goal for Chelsea?

first premiership goal

[RoversFanUSA]

First half i think we played great! derbyshire almost came up and warnocks run in was very nice but unfountly cleard out at the last sec. Over all i think we did good we DID however give away a lot of balls and seemed to pass crisply one sec and poorly the next. Well like 1864roverite said rOVERS MUST NOT lose sleep over this. and the saturday game in my eyes is way more important because of the points. Kind of a bummer we sliped outa 10th but i have a funny feeling we will be back realll soon and even go better then 10th like..ummm lets say 6th again.

[Exiled in Toronto]

Doing what exactly?

He was absolute rubbish.

Considering he was playing out of position and against Lampard etc, I though he did quite well in the first half - some good passes to keep our play flowing. He certainly was far from being our worst performer.

Henchoz was found out (again) and I have thought for a while that Bert's deficiencies, in particular heading, make him a dodgy full back. His few overlaps when he got the ball were dire in contrast to Warnock. I also agree with the sentiment that Nonda and Jeffers did nothing, yet again, to suggest they should be near the first team.

Gally's not the finished article, but I am getting to like him.

[herbergeehh]

Too bad Warnock didn't just put his toe to the ball, a great run and an inspiring performance from our new left back. A good tackle by Essien, unfortunately Warnock didn't seem to be aware that Essien closed in on him..

The game; marred by the early goal, and the lack of efficiency from our part. We had enough chances to score, especially young Derbyshire had one or two good opportunities. But when you don't put it away against Chelsea, you're bound to be punished.

Positives:

- Warnock looked very good, especially going forward.

- Nelsen, another solid ninety minutes. (did anyone notice that Tugay'esque dribble in midfield? Magical stuff!)

Negatives:

Brett Emerton. You were, as someone so nicely put it above, all over the place. Poor distribution and not a lot of good involvements to be honest. Step up!

Stephane Henchoz. So slow, he single-handedly gave Drogba the first goal. I'm sorry, but your lack of pace is too much of a weakness at the moment. Bring back Zura or Toddy asap!!

Bentley had an off-game, and our strikers struggled to do much with the very limited service given.

Bring on whoever's next.

[AndyH16]

I'd agree with Henchoz not having a good game but he did make a couple of important tackles.

Oh and Ashley Cole's injury looked a bit painful.

[herbergeehh]

Yes, he's strong in the tackle and solid in the air, but unless the opposing striker is an unfit Kevin Davies, it's too risky having him back there.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Forget about it and lets look forward to Saturday.

[jim mk2]

Shevchenko's best game since he came to England according to Mourinho.

Good ol Rovers.

[HairwayToSteven]

I thought we asked questions in the first half, but the quality of Chelski is evident; they seldom play -really- well, but they always seem to edge out games. I guess I'd say that Chelski are just plain solid, which isn't a surprise given the amount of money that's beeing splashed around.

I'm not saying we should feel that we should've got something from the game, but a goal would be nice. In the end I thought we deserved one, at least. The injuries this season has really hurt us, and I think they will continue to do so over the next few months. Hopefully the new acquasitions will help us, certainly Warnock will. He looks dazzling, pure quality.

I still think this has been a good season this far, still in the FA cup (although we have an extremely hard next round with either Bolton or Arse away), still in Europe, and with a lot of nice fixtures left in the Prem to maybe hope for a good upper half placing. We could've been in dire straits if you look at the injuries, and I believe we owe quite a bit of it to Sparky.

[Jan]

Shevchenko's best game since he came to England according to Mourinho.

Good ol Rovers.

I suppose it was- if you want to have paid squillions for a striker who can only score against League 1 or 2 opposition. Some of his misses were plain laughable. He was on a par, quality-wise, with Nonda tonight, and whatever people say, Nonda DIDN'T cost squillions!

[ewoodblue]

Was that Kalou's first goal for Chelsea?

Kalou scored against us at Ewood as well, but in League Cup,when they beat us 0-2.

[dj54nna]

Oh and Ashley Cole's injury looked a bit painful.

I laughed so hard when he went over.

[Martin]

I watched the game in the pub on ART or whatever it is - I'm pretty sure it's Arabic.

I think we've done ok tonight, we've had a real go at least. Warnonck was excellent and Henchoz sluggish at best.

If we would have taken our chances or at least hit the target the scoreline would have been interesting.

Chelsea's quality came through in the end, but I say roll on Saturday.

[Jim J]

Didn't expect anything from this game, so onwards and upwards, heads up boys.

[Scotty]

I knew we'd lose as soon as I saw our team. I don't care what some people think of Mokoena, this was the one game where he had to play. Chelsea's strength is all down the middle and we needed to protect our centre-halves. A powder-puff midfield of Bentley, Gallagher, Pedersen and Tugay was never going to do it.

I'm all for attacking play but that line-up was just suicidal.

[ewoodblue]

Didn't expect anything from this game, so onwards and upwards, heads up boys.

Well with Wigan and West Ham losing on Tuesday,it still keeps us well clear of the bottom 3.

Now we've got Chelsea out of way , let's hope we can motor , again.

Even though we got beat 3-0, i don't think we played that bad tonight, especially first half, and Warnock looked good again.

[Mr. E]

I just love these comments. We lose 6-2 to Arsenal, and it's "oh well, we played good, the result isn't that important", and now the same thing.

Results like these shouldn't be acceptable for a team competing in Europe, simple as.

[Blueboy Downunder]

I watched the game in the pub on ART or whatever it is - I'm pretty sure it's Arabic.

I think we've done ok tonight, we've had a real go at least. Warnonck was excellent and Henchoz sluggish at best.

If we would have taken our chances or at least hit the target the scoreline would have been interesting.

Chelsea's quality came through in the end, but I say roll on Saturday.

mate, i think the word you are looking for is "composure"....especially infront of goal. we did a lot of huffing and puffing all night long, but we only made cech make a save in the 83rd minute. for me, nonda typified our performance up front tonight, when in the dying minutes, he blazed a shot miles wide from only 10-12 yards out. gally was totally ineffective. hindsight is a great thing, but with that in mind we should have played 4-4-2, instead of gally playing infront of the 2 strikers. all of their goals came from straight down the middle. the difference was that when they had the ball in the middle of the park, lampard and co ran right at the heart of the defence, whereas we just looked devoid of any idea at times, when in similar positions.

[HairwayToSteven]

I just love these comments. We lose 6-2 to Arsenal, and it's "oh well, we played good, the result isn't that important", and now the same thing.

Results like these shouldn't be acceptable for a team competing in Europe, simple as.

We tried to go forward, sometimes you get punished, and we did against arse. It's one thing going in to a game trying to win, but when the other team is arse, manure, chelski or liverpuddle, you're going to lose a lot of times. Then you have two options, 1. gripe, or 2. take the positives - if any.

Certainly one look at the transfer budgets is sufficient to see that the odds are stacked against our beloved team. Combine that with the class players these teams already have at their disposal, even the back-ups. Take Warnock, 3rd choice at Liverpool.

It would be rediculous comparing Rovers to the top four, today we played one of those and the biggest spender of them all. We lost fair and square, but we can take some positives out of it - and we do.

Do you think we should defend a 0-1 defeat, so that it looks better on paper? I think that would be utter rubbish.

[RevidgeBlue]

I knew we'd lose as soon as I saw our team. I don't care what some people think of Mokoena, this was the one game where he had to play. Chelsea's strength is all down the middle and we needed to protect our centre-halves. A powder-puff midfield of Bentley, Gallagher, Pedersen and Tugay was never going to do it.

I'm all for attacking play but that line-up was just suicidal.

Have to disagree with that totally.

In the first half, by and large, we played some great football and gave at least as good as we got.

We started brilliantly but were undone by poor defending for the first goal.

The game hinged totally on 30 mins. 1-0 down and Warnock was brought down in the area otherwise clean through on goal. Defender came in diagonally, ball went straight out of play in the direction Warnock was heading. Stonewall penalty and red card.

Not surprisingly Poll didn't even give it a second look. (It wouldn't go down with Sky and the Premier League too well if Utd went 9 points clear at this point in the season would it?)

Second half we didn't play as well.

Several players had bad games, Henchoz was reputedly semi fit, Tugay didn't look fit, and Emerton had a mare. The first goal might have been prevented had he not been stuck up near the half way line in no man's land. Gallagher also didn't really figure.

McCarthy was poor, you need your best players to come up with a big performance against the "big 4" and he hardly showed. Bellamy scored 2 goals there last season. Derbyshire was the only player "good enough" to get on the end of our only two serious situations but unfortunately missed.

Eventually we were beaten by the better side and the 2-0 win became 3-0 in injury time. However if Poll had acted correctly and/or we had taken a couple of chances - who knows?

I think we approached it completely correctly.

[Mr. E]

We tried to go forward, sometimes you get punished, and we did against arse. It's one thing going in to a game trying to win, but when the other team is arse, manure, chelski or liverpuddle, you're going to lose a lot of times. Then you have two options, 1. gripe, or 2. take the positives - if any.

Certainly one look at the transfer budgets is sufficient to see that the odds are stacked against our beloved team. Combine that with the world class players these teams already have at their disposal, even the back-ups. Take Warnock, 3rd choice at Liverpool.

It would be rediculous comparing Rovers to the top four, today we played one of those and the biggest spender of them all. We lost fair and square, but we can take some positives out of it - and we do.

Do you think we should defend a 0-1 defeat, so that it looks better on paper? I think that would be utter rubbish.

It's not that I was expecting anything other than a defeat, it's not that that irritates me, but the manner in which we lost. I don't think I watched the same game as the people here who claim we "outplayed" them. We made a few decent passes, looked to go forward, but rarely caused them much trouble at all. While every one of their attacks looked like a certain goal, they could have sleep-walked through that defense. I don't know who we need to play there to get things straight, but things obviously aren't working. We can't defend a 1-0 defeat because we can't defend at all. Just like the Arsenal game, you can search for the "positives" all you want, but the fact is again we showed no resistance and come away with no points against a truly determined side.

[Scotty]

Brilliant Rev. Your post above is as funny as it gets.

Seriously though, we didn't outplay anyone. We were easily beaten in the end by a team who never, ever had to get out of first gear. Still, apparently we approached it the right way so that's ok then.