Stoke vs. Chelsea
Britannia Stadium, Saturday 12th September.
Based on memories of last year there was a buzz as we all headed North to Stoke on our spangly charter train. It was still raining beer in the stand when we kicked off with Ivanovic at the back instead of Carvalho and Anelka making way for Kalou. Ballack also started following the international break with Michael Essien dropping to the bench.
Stoke were determined to stay deep. Coming forward on a rare occasion Beattie wasted a shot before having to be stretchered off, the first of more than one prolonged injury breaks. His replacement, Ricardo Fuller, spent more time lying on the floor and perfecting his triple axel dismount to the ground after he arrived and at points it looked as if Mike Dean had no control over proceedings. On 16 minutes Kalou received a ridiculous yellow card for *blocking* a Delap throw, yet none was produced minutes later when Ashley Cole was the victim of a brutal late challenge.
Once again we conceded before we could go ahead. Frustrating would be an understatement as Cech misjudged an approach and found himself in no-man’s land so that he could only watch as an Abdoulaye Faye header flew past him. Ancelotti proceeded to go onto on the sidelines as Stoke lost their keeper shortly before a justified 8 minutes of injury time kicked in. It certainly hadn’t been our best display of football and it fell to the usual suspects to deliver. A clever pass by Lampard set Drogba loose to release a left foot contender for goal of the month so that we could at least enter the break on level terms.
Cech had his fair share of work to do after the break. Changes saw Essien replace Ballack, Belletti come on for Mikel and Anelka replace Kalou, who had performed poorly yet again. As we entered the last twenty minutes it became almost as frustrating as the Hull game, all Chelsea with no end result. We had all but given up by the time five more minutes of injury time commenced with some frantic action in front of the enthusiastic away support. Finally, inside the last thirty seconds of play, Anelka found a way to set up Malouda for a low shot that caused chaos and at least one dislocated limb in the stand. Lucky say the red loving press? In the words of Vicky Pollard. “Face. Bovvered.”
Three points to make the journey home all the more bearable along with crushing the Stoke spirit for the second time in two encounters, Serves you right for planting 11 men in the 6 yard box for the second 45 minutes.
Twat of the day: Ricardo Fuller. Diving and whinging that made Drogba look like an amateur on his worst days coupled with dirty tackles and all round ungentlemanly behaviour that displayed jolly bad form all round. Tosser.
Top man: Ashley Cole for getting his own back with that monster tackle. Get in.
Chelsea: Cech, Bosingwa, Branislav the Scouse Slayer, JT, Ashley Cole, Ballack, (Essien 65) Mikel, (Belletti 83) Kaloooooou, (Anelka 63) Frank, Drogs.
Stoke: Eleven yobbos who would be more at home down at the Wimbledon Theatre this Christmas dressed in drag and participating in a pantomime than playing football.