Ratings and Reactions: Villa - Chelsea

[Zatman]

very mature from Jose as always, picking on a team 15 places below them 

[Stevo985]

 

Chelsea's cynicism is an embarrassment to all of football - demonstrated most ably I think by the incident a few minutes from time when on the half way line one of their players put the ball out of play so that one of their players could have treatment for an injury. Captain Terry looked up and realised that nobody had suffered an injury yet, so immediately went down, Azpilecueta clearly hadn't spotted him, so he went down too, near to the touchline. Hutton clearly felt this was an imposition and attempted to take the throw in quickly in order to demonstrate the dubious nature of the injuries. The ref was never going to let him do that and stopped play. He was then harangued for not booking Hutton for his cheek by John Terry who had risen Lazarus-style and sprinted 30 yards to ensure his voice was heard. It all seemed to be too much for Obi Mikkel who appeared to faint and went down requiring treatment. They were shocking today, truly embarrassing and I think it's days like this where the FA should be looking at issuing fines for failing to control players - something needs to be done about it for the sake of the game. Personally I'd like to see us take rugby's lead and let the game go on whilst players are treated, stopping the need for a break in play. In the meantime, I think you'll join me in offering a prayer for those eight or nine Chelsea players that were seriously injured in the final few minutes - we can only hope they will go on to play again.

 

The solution to this is so **** easy that it enrages me.

 

Let the physios come on while play is going on. Other sports do it, why not Football?

 

Yes it creates a hazard that you have to play around, but again other sports do this.

It would immediately mean people didn't fake injuries because it's a huge disadvantage. 

 

If it's a serious injury then the ref still has the option to stop the game/ But you'd get rid of this farcical situation where we have to put the ball out or stop the game because 6 foot 3 180lbs of Drogba got a tap on the thigh from Ashley "lighter than a 12 year old girl" Westwood and is so traumatically injured that he can't get up for 5 minutes, for which the ref will add on 20 seconds.

[The Fun Factory]

Positives- A goal! A lovely premier league goal. Now 3 goals in last 2 home games, which is good going for us.

Gil looked good going forward, but messed up for the chavski goal.

Lambert did the right thing dropping Benteke to give him a kick up the backside

At times we looked okay- I was not that overly impressed with Chelsea. They did enough to win but given our awful recent run they could have gone for us after the first goal and hammered us. Luckily they did not and we got a decent result from it. Namely not getting spanked and scoring a goal. Most would have taken this before the match.

 

Negatives- defence is now making silly mistakes- 9 let in last 3 league games.

Once they scored again no one really thought we could score 2 in a game- that would have been crazy.

2 wins in 20, 2 home wins all season and 1 goal from our entire midfield is just not good enough

Delph had a poor game and proves why he is staying with us and not moving to a top 6 club. Because he is not good enough.

 

How are we still 16th and not bottom with 2 wins since September and 12 goals? There is  a lot of rubbish in the division and hopefully there are 3 worse sides than us again.

 

Why do we continue to get bigger crowds versus Liverpool (39,578) and United (41,273) than the 2 leading teams in English football Man City (32,964) and Chelsea (35,969)?

 

Also why are there blokes selling pork scrathings outside the Holte now- and do they taste nice?

 

Next week crucial. Could beat Hull and be in the Quarter Finals by Sunday evening. Then again with Lambert  I always fear the worse.

[Stevo985]

BEcause probably 10,000 of the home crowd in a Liverpool/united game are Away fans.

[AdamDouggie]

But of a silly comment, we've known for a good 6 years agbonlohor hasn't got many goals in him, that's not the point. He offered more tonight than Benteke has in the last how many games! I rate Benteke highly and I believe he'll come back to his best but there is no point playing him when he is in such bad form. Gabby and wiemann gives us legs and work rate, that's what we need at the minute to scrape chances and goals. Proved it today, we scored first goal in 7 games without Benteke on the pitch! A striker offers more than just goals nowadays!

[villa4europe]

the goal was brilliant from Gil

 

their 1st goal looked like really good movement, from where i was their 2nd goal looked really poor from us

 

the play acting was shocking, drogba FFS, at least twice a chelsea player went down "injured" we played on, they went mad for it to be kicked out of play, won the ball off us and they didnt **** kick it out either! followed by the ref stopping the game, was infuriating 

[Robbie09]

I absolutely lost the plot at Witton Station after the game at a few gobby Chelsea words removed more interested in revelling in our misery than enjoying themselves. I clearly should not have given them what they wanted and bitten back, apologies to anyone who had to witness that!

We scored! Yay!

No need to apologise, 99.% of Chelsea fans are clearings in the woods

[The Fun Factory]

BEcause probably 10,000 of the home crowd in a Liverpool/united game are Away fans.

Was plenty of Chelsea fans today in the home end. Saw loads of those nauseating half and half scarfs in the Trinity Round Stand today. Horrible-  should only allowed for European games or for cup games like Bournemouth. I just don't think Chelsea has the glamour associated with the club when compared to United, even after a decade of buying trophies.

[sheepyvillian]

But of a silly comment, we've known for a good 6 years agbonlohor hasn't got many goals in him, that's not the point. He offered more tonight than Benteke has in the last how many games! I rate Benteke highly and I believe he'll come back to his best but there is no point playing him when he is in such bad form. Gabby and wiemann gives us legs and work rate, that's what we need at the minute to scrape chances and goals. Proved it today, we scored first goal in 7 games without Benteke on the pitch! A striker offers more than just goals nowadays!

[sheepyvillian]

Didn't look remotely like scoring after going 2-1 down.

Mostly to do with the bus they parked, they were so scared of not maintaining that lead..

What about the one we parked after the equaliser ? Wake up and smell the coffee .

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Learn to pick your battles. That was as good a display as we could possibly expect against a side 7 points clear at the top of the league.

Play like that Tuesday and we will win. Problem is we probably won't, but wait till then eh.

[AdamDouggie]

Learn to pick your battles. That was as good a display as we could possibly expect against a side 7 points clear at the top of the league.

Play like that Tuesday and we will win. Problem is we probably won't, but wait till then eh.

Completely agree! And I say, start the same team!

[sheepyvillian]

Chelsea this , Chelsea that , I'm sick of hearing it , this aint about Chelsea so lets not get distracted by all that parochial nonsense , this great club of ours is slowly , but surely sinking , and trust me , Captain Ahab aint leaving soon , bring on the mutiny , I say .

[villa4europe]

missed MOTD but caught them talking about us, jenas said its no surprise we arent scoring we only had one up front today followed by murphy saying we have to play benteke

 

theres a reason i stopped watching MOTD

[Stevo985]

We should just play 10 up front then. We'd score bloody loads if that logic works!

[Cliffy Biro]

Second goal is a comedy of errors, such a shame. Would have been a huge point.

[PaulC]

missed MOTD but caught them talking about us, jenas said its no surprise we arent scoring we only had one up front today followed by murphy saying we have to play benteke

 

theres a reason i stopped watching MOTD

 

Dreadful I wonder how much of the match they watched. 

[villa4europe]

not so much the match but there are a huge number of journos and pundits out there who can quite happily spout stats about how we arent scoring (savage for example) but there are very few that can actually tell the viewer why, keown did it brilliantly on MOTD2 last week, from what i saw tonight they didnt even try to analyse our formation and shape and how we changed it for this game

[PaulC]

What bugged me was they said the one moment of quality came when Gil created the goal, are they forgetting the other quality moments from him or have they not watched the match. 

[14K_away]

much better performance but Lambert wearing his alternate reality glasses again, we are creating chances, bringing in crosses so bring on Benteke.. makes sense yeah ? well yes unless you then go and change the setup which stops those crosses coming in allowing for more quality teapot impressions from Tekkers though to be fair he did try to get about a bit more than usual...

 

Cleverly had probably his best showing for us today.. still poor but even a shot on target (in my definition), so the one and only time he should have been left on the pitch ... you could have guessed it, and the swap for Sincliar made no sense.. though FAR more sense than the WTF Joe Cole for Weimann.

 

Basically Lambert saw we were actually making a good fist of it ... can't have that, time for some pointless subs, change the way we are playing and guarantee mediocrity and inevitable loss.

 

If he had left well alone we may well have had a shot at a point, if any changes were required... Delph was having a shocker and Sanchez should have come on (or Cole for Delph rather than Weimann), Sanchez had a shocker last week for sure but has been one of our most promising, alongside Gil.

 

Picked Clark MOTM though Gill/Okore were as worthy, I don't think anyone except Delph had a bad game as such though Sinclair was ineffective if not entirely his fault. Cole is always good value but why and where need to be addressed.