It's a great point to teams who shut up shop against teams who are highly likely to punish you on the break in an open game. It's frustrating, yeah. I've seen it at nearly all home games at Anfield too. It works for them and sometimes they can even nick a winner.
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Let's give credit to West Ham. They came to Stamford Bridge, defended extremely well and played some decent stuff going forward as well. They thoroughly deserved their point and could have won it near the end when Carlton Cole was clean through.Comment
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Yeah at no point did I think West Ham were playing for a draw. Even when Chelsea equalised they were going for it, so full credit to them.Comment
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I'm getting more and more grudging to giving teams credit for doing what west ham did.
'Strong' defence is becoming more and more a case of stuffing the box with so many players that you can't get off a shot because you'll have 3 men on you and two men in front blocking any shot. To use videogame examples it's the equilivant of button mashing in beat'em'ups or zerging in things like WoW. You're not doing well out of any specific skill, you're just making it incredibly hard to play against.
West Ham didn't deserve the goal (was only possible because he controlled it with his arm) and any times they did break, it was because they had a golden chance presented to them. They didn't work for these, they simply countered when most of Chelsea was up front or relied on a mistake to give them a clear run.
Luck is always present in sports but relying on it as a tactic makes for dull football and 2/3rds of the time you put on a dismal performance for your travelling fans and lose 1-0 to a goal in the 70th or later minute. I know it sounds like sour grapes and it is to some extent, but I've said elsewhere, even if it favoured chelsea that I hate teams playing for a 0-0 or a lucky goal.Comment
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You'l find that ball was controlled with his shoulder, lad. Pouring sour grapes down your bare chest in slow motion with sex face.Comment
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looked armpit to me which is a handball (as you couldn't do it if the arm wasn't there). Still a blatent penalty mind.
I slowly, sensually lick off the sour grape juice then take off my robe and wizards hat...Comment
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I dunno about the handball, it seems to depend of the ref/linesman these days. We had a similar decision yesterday, Ronaldo scored but a handball decsion was given. Was it correct? Was the West Ham one correct? On both decisions it was hard to tell watching it from a couple of replays so you have to sympathise with the officials a little. They just have to make the decision they think is right at the time.Comment
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In fairness I totally agree with abigsmurf. Every week one of the smaller teams goes to a big 4 club and manages to get a draw and every week people trot out the same tired old lines about them doing well.
There is nothing at all, in my opinion, that is worthy of praise in most of those performances. There is no talent at all involved in taking 9 defensive players, 1 striker and 1 keeper to an away game and packing your half of the pitch to stop the other team playing.
In fairness today was quite open compared to some of the shut outs I've seen so far this year. And it was also a definite shoulder control, but at the same time Lampard was impeded but so was Bellamy by Terry.
Its all swings and roundabouts I suppose. But Liverpool are still top
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Lol!
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Chelsea were poor. Scolari has a lot of work to do over the next couple of years. We used to be very solid in all areas, now we look shaky.Comment
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bad, poor, crap, rubbish, awful... There aren't enough negative words for that half. Terry fully deserved the red. Stupid tackle.
Scolari should've put drogba on after 30 minutes, we're not moving off the ball, we're giving Everton too much time to regroup, not making runs, not playing down the side when they're bunched up in the middle. Same team and tactics that haven't been working for the past few games
I've not seen an enjoyable game of football for a long time from Chelsea. What the hell happened to the early season brilliance we were showing?Comment
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*sigh*
Yet another draw from yet another bad performanceComment
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