Stamford Chidge & Jonathan Kydd are joined by Martin Wickham to look back at a much needed win and performance to knock Aston Villa out of the FA Cup and look ahead to Monday night’s match against Crystal Palace.
In part one we look back at a great night at Villa Park. Was it the best performance of the season and where did that come from? It was like Chelsea from the past: intensity, strong, aggressive, desire, team effort, compact and tactically superb. Much credit should go to under pressure Pochettino. Disasi and Gusto were superb and Enzo and Moises ran the match. And the away support was fantastic.
But is it a coincidence that we played better without the dropped Sterling and Silva? Chelsea played higher up the pitch; the defence, midfield and attack were closer together which made the defence less exposed and the passing forward quicker and easier and without Sterling we looked more direct without running in to blind alleys, falling over or giving the ball away.
Bring on Dirty Leeds, but we need consistency now!
In part two we welcome back Hambo from Back of the Nest for the Opposition View. We ask him on a scale of 1-10 how angry are Palace fans at the moment? Is it all Hodgsons fault? What’s his experience of the American owners? What are his thoughts on Conor Gallagher? How big a miss will Marc Guéhi, Michael Olise & Eberechi Eze be, all out injured?
While recent history is on Chelsea’s side, given our inconsistency does he fancy Palace’s chances and how does he see it going and what’s his prediction?
In part three we preview Crystal Palace v Chelsea kicking off with JK’s summary of today’s Presser, followed by Chidge’s team selection. With Chelsea being consistently inconsistent how can we get the consistency we need? While Chelsea have a nasty habit this season of following up a good result with a poor one, we do have history on our side with this fixture and Palace have lost Guehi, Eze and Olise which will be a big problem for them.
We wrap up with how we see it going and our predictions, and another round of ‘They Played For Both’
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