Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
mmmmm
By BlueBlood
April 9 2005
Time and time again on the journey home from Chelsea I kept on changing how I was going to report on the afternoon's events at Stamford Bridge.
I was going to berate the referee's performance, I was going to berate the referee's assistants, I was going to berate Birmingham for spoiling the party (although that would have been thoroughly undeserved) and lastly I was going to berate Chelsea for their own inept performance. But when Norwich City beat Man Utd 2-0 later on in the evening, the world seemed a much better place. Chelsea are still on course to win the Premiership title on the 23rd April with a victory against Fulham, assuming that Chelsea had already disposed of Arsenal three days before. To do that, Chelsea will have to play an awful lot better than they did today. Everything that could be bad about a team's performance happened today. Bad passes, bad control, bad misses in front of goal and just general bad play. All in all it was a bad day at the office until Norwich's shock victory. Jose decided to rest Makelele, Drogba and Gudjohnsen although the latter two were named as substitutes. In came Smertin, Tiago and Kezman who was left to forage up front on his own. Full credit to Birmingham. They came to Stamford Bridge with their own agenda and they were difficult to break down. JM was quoted after the match as saying 'The first half was more like a friendly.' In a bid to liven things up, JM introduced both Eider and Drogba for Smertin and Kezman and to a degree things did start to light up. However it was Birmingham who took a 'shock' lead through Walter Pandiani. One of the ref's (Chris Foy) dubious decisions gave a free kick against Joe Cole, who appeared to have won the ball cleanly. In his frustration Coley was booked and the free kick was moved a further ten yards in. The ball was sailed high into the Chelsea penalty area, Cech was caught in no-man's land and the ball found its way to Pandiani who volleyed Birmingham into a 1-0 lead via the underside of the bar. Chelsea retaliated with a period of incessant pressure. Lampard hit a shot wide, Taylor saved from Drogba. Chelsea had a serious claim for a penalty when Drogba was held down in the area, but the worse ref seen at Stamford Bridge this season rejected the furious appeals. Birmingham could have been 2-0 up, when Carter brought a fine reflex save from Cech and then Super JT cleared from the rebound. Finally eight minutes from time Drogba swept the ball in from a Frankie pass and levelled the score at 1-1. Deep into injury time Jari Jarosik volleyed into the side netting. Parts of the Stamford Bridge ground erupted as they thought that Jarosik had grabbed the winner, if he had, it would have been most unfortunate on a hard working Birmingham side who thoroughly deserved their point. From a Chelsea point of view, today's display was 'after the Lord Mayor's Show' compared to the victory of Munich three days earlier. Parts of Chelsea's performance were flatter than a barrel of beer that had been standing opened for a week, but with Norwich's victory of Man Utd this evening, the froth began to come alive again. ONWARDS and UPWARDS, BRING ON THE GERMANS KEEP THE BLUE FLAG FLYING HIGH!!