I normally try and base my articles around a less combative, more positive perspective of the games and the club in general. I am still pro-Pochettino and think the new owners are way too savvy to fail as a business with us. Which I guess will draw accusations from the anti-Pochetino, anti-Boehly/Clearlake baying mob as a sign that in some way I am a paid shill for the club. I wish I was. Because I’d be demanding a huge fat fee to allow me to live a very very comfortable retirement, whilst happily chucking my principles of free and fair constructive praise and criticism into the sea. Yeah well that ain’t the case, and I find ‘on the payroll’ as an insult as bad as ‘plastic’ just because some people spend every waking moment thinking about Chelsea, and every available bit of disposable income on following them home and away, whereas those they attack have ….oh yeah…lives. Don’t get me wrong, I know some lovely lovely people with AST’s and ST’s , but the reason they’re lovely is they don’t feel a need to turn on their own fellow fans just because they don’t tow the so-called hardcore fans line. Or because they don’t go to every game, home and away.
However, my general brighter outlook has been tested severely yesterday by the kind of display that feels like a defeat, even though it patently wasn’t. We were hugely dominant at times, camped in Burnley’s half for almost the entire second half, creating chance after chance and yet…and yet…unable to hold the lead twice. The words ‘dismal’ and ‘hapless’ keep coming to the forefront of my mind.
The day started so well, the garden of The Cock Tavern was upbeat, reflecting the Spring like weather, the people drinking and generally getting themselves ready for what, on paper, looked a nailed on home win, of course simultaneously caveating this positivity with ‘glorious unpredictability’ , ‘Charity FC’ and ‘typical Chelsea’ gallows humour. Lest we forget Southampton at home last year, a team who couldn’t buy a goal, let alone a win until we rolled out the red carpet to them. In fact the pub was the high point as is becoming the norm, worthy mentions to the ever lovely Walter Otton, John Fleming, Becca, Ken B, Tracey, Gemma M, Sue, Dan Burgess and his PL game virgin friend John, , Nathan, Simon K, Chidge, Sasha, Kez, Phil Spector, Mark Spector, Phil’s Mum and also his girlfriend and of course Patrick from Mexico and Dan Silver. I’ve probably forgotten some, but that’s a testament to just how many top people were there and how old I am.
So, to the game…….There were sighs of relief at the team announcement and the fact that Gillette (Sterling) had been benched after his recent shit-shows, and in the main the mood was agreement that Poch had chosen the starting lineup as potentially the best from a continually thin and seemingly getting thinner squad, still affected by long term injuries to top players.
I gather an investigation has been launched into why we are so afflicted by injuries. NOT BEFORE BLOODY TIME. It’s gone way past the point where bad luck can be blamed.
Anyway, as per usual we started slowly, Burnley definitely having the better early chances. Kompany will be at a big club soon, Burnley will go down, but they came up a season too early. He is an intelligent man, and whereas others might opt to park the bus, he doesn’t…until they went down to 10. Now, we also had a goal disallowed, VAR intervening to remove Disasi’s effort , fair enough…it looked like it was a handball. But …4 minutes, yes 4 minutes to decide this was the case? Ridiculous. Either drop VAR or smarten up and have a 60 second maximum review time. Eventually though, and before the non-goal we had settled in to a dominant period but one thing was obvious. Jackson , who’s improved of late, was physically on the pitch and yet…not. Invisible, anonymous, MIA. When he did get the ball he generally lost it or did nothing of any use. Under Jose he’d have been hooked after 25 minutes. However, he saw the whole game out, contributing precisely the square root of nothing. Then, the incident to give us the break we needed. Mudryk through on goal was bought down in the box. From where I was sitting it looked nailed on as a penalty. Replays confimed this but again VAR took 2 mnutes to confirm what took everyone about 10 seconds. . There was ‘handbags’ on the sideline as Kompany berated the officials for giving the 2nd yellow card to the offender Assignon. I didn’t see this sending off because the normal ‘Cheerio’ wasn’t sang, and then within seconds Kompany himself was sent off , presumably for dissent. So, due to my own ignorance I watched the rest of the game blissfully unaware they were down to 10 men. Up stepped Cole Palmer to slot home beautifully. Our best player getting the reward he deserved. Half time, 1-0 up, effectively we should be cruising . You know City, Arsenal, Spuds, Liverpool would be sharpening the swords with which to kill Burnley off. Not us though. No…we put the swords away and decided to try and kill them off with tippy=tappy football dressage bollocks. At times it can look great, at others it merely looks like shadow boxing , and at it’s worst it’s Sarriball boring, meaningless, arty-farty arse-gravy Nonsenseball.
Yep NonsenseBall, you heard it hear first.
Minutes after the restart Burnley were level because they gained posession from an unforced Mudryk error on our left, and Cullen finished with aplomb. The Skink.
Now, top teams , as we once were, especially under Jose, Carlo, Conte and TT, would see this as a blip, a setback.
An Ooops moment.
After which they’d fly back stronger to punish the barefaced cheek of the depleted Burnley. And to be fair, we did try. After that goal we seemed almost camped in Burnleys half, dominating possession. BUT…..we did this in an ‘Arsenal under later Wenger’ way. Lots of pretty football , lots of possession, and wasted half arsed chances though poor decisions and poor finishing and the desire to score the most artistic and text book tippy-tappy football dressage bollocks goal ever. I fully expected to see a scruffy, cigarette smoking, baggy track-suited tramp in the dugout as I was transported back in time to the season I nearly threw my season ticket in the bin. Pochettino then did some bold stuff, replacing an oddly subdued Conor Gallagher and Caicedo, effectively removing all but Enzo from the midfield. A risk, but one that paid off as Sterling, in a rare bright moment in the fewm minutes he was on, played a lovely back heeled assist for that man Cole Palmer to restore the lead. It turns out we had 33 shots on goal yesterday, 12 corners, 66% possession. I’m not surprised by that, but I am surprised we only scored 2, and that we conceded 2. If ever the case was laid out for a proper, out and out, laces through the ball, diving header lover, bustling, self-chance creating, hated by defenders, bully striker then there it was yesterday. I’d go as far as to say we could have had Jackson sent off and no-one would have noticed. I like the kid, I think he has a future, but he has to become more aware of who’s on or near him, he has to watch Drogba/Costa videos to see how they battered their way to chances, he has to learn to go to the ball and not wait for it to come to him. He has lots to learn or I fear he may find QPR or a career in Scottish football calling.
Inevitably almost minutes after taking the lead we lost it to an O’ Shea header from a corner where we simply went into Dalek With Jumper Over Head mode across the team. It was a poor corner to concede, poor defending, poor marking , poor positioning and POOR goalkeeping. Yes, Petrovic has the Chelsea trait of brilliance followed by incompetence. I think that’s 24 goals in 12 games or something similar we’ve conceded….not all of that can be naive defending. So, come the summer I would go for Ramsdale because until Raya came on the scene he was looking the best in the league. Don’t @me on that. We need a top, proven goalkeeper. I like Disasi, I even like the combative Cucurella now, teaming up well with Mudryk on the left. I think Gusto is going to make a Reece James comeback into that position almost impossible if he continues as he has done (alongside Palmer, the signing of the season), but it’s obvious that the promise shown by Badiashile has evaporated. He looks static, immobile, stiff and now indecisive. A bench player at best in current form. It wasn’t him or Disasi at fault specifically for the goals conceded , but a symbol of a team malaise whereby we gift opportunities to other teams by stupid unforced errors and simply regress to headless chicken mode in defence. It’s not just defenders who defend, everyone has a part to play, especially at corners and set pieces. For reference see Didier Drogba and Olivier Giroud.
The game fizzled to a draw, an early chance missed by Mudryk (a back pass instead of a shot in the first half), Madueke a deflection into the side netting which fooled me into a goal celebration for 3 seconds…you know the sort…the one where everyone looks at you and you have to sit meekly down and stay sheepishly quiet for a few minutes. Conor was guilty of poor shooting, and across the field we saw numerous mis-controls of the ball under no pressure. Were they tired? Surely not, despite international breaks. Enzo, played a full 90, despite the fact he MUST have been jet lagged after arriving back from Argentina on Thursday, thats not an opinion, that’s counting. Everyone gets jet lag, no matter how fit or rich you are. It’s the law of physiological biorhythms, so fair play Enzo for seeing the game out, and almost scoring with an attempt which hit the post.
In summary, this was more than a bad day at the office, it was a regression to the inconsistent performances that have dogged us all season. Yes, we are missing James, Nkunku, Lavia, Fofana, Chilwell, Carney, Les and Chilly, but in truth I’m not convinced any of these would have made any difference. I’ll use the usual F1 analogy, even though it has become the dullest sport known to man. We have all the component parts of a great car, but no-one knows how to maximise it’s tuning to bring greatness, and bits are continually falling off. In the case of Pochettino as Chief Engineer, I’d say he has an excuse when he’s putting out a car from the bits left over, but needs to get to the root of an injury crisis that could be construed as ‘quiet quitting’ by some of the crocked. Until we see the full finished, tuned, cleaned and reliable car, then we’re stuck with this Ferrari F1. Famous, rich, stylish, incompetent, unreliable and living off a reputation forged by past glories.
Man of the Match? Cole Palmer . Bouquets to Gusto, Cucurella, Enzo. Brickbats to Badiashile, Sterling and Jackson.
I am so NOT looking forward to Manchester United at home on Thursday. My expectations are low, very low. And maybe after that, with relegation no longer a threat the players will be ‘on the beach’ early and we can see out the rest of the season in a low expectation, enjoy the pub and company, stress free manner, much like we did last season.
And then spend the summer to rebuild the hope and desire to actually compete for the top position(s) for the first time since 2017. And buy a striker, a goalkeeper, and a Captain.
KTBFFH, TG
