Chelsea were labelled as an ’embarrassing’ and ‘a joke’ by their own players (Gary Cahill and Ashley Cole) for their performance during the 4-1 drubbing against Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Super Cup at the Stade Louis Stadium in Monaco.
It was a complete humiliation to watch the Blues crumble at the hands of Radamel Falcao and company, and it my opinion it doesn’t matter if the game carries prestige or not, every defeat hurts regardless of the competition. The feelings were pretty much summed up by the look on John Terry’s face at the end of the match, he didn’t even play in the game due to suspension but was visibly gutted.
However, it was refreshing to see some of the players holding their hands up and accepting responsibility for this one. Ashley Cole tweeted:
“Well that was a lesson, absolute joke no fight, desire, passion, and a big reality check!!!!!! #sorrycfcfans.”
Whilst our goal-scorer Cahill shared a similar sentiment:
“We approach every game in the same way. It was a massive game and we let ourselves down and passed up a great opportunity.
“It is difficult. Obviously we will look to bounce back in the league as this was unacceptable.”
Everything went wrong from the off. Falcao hit the bar in the fourth minute but Chelsea didn’t heed the warning and he opened the scoring two minutes later and it only took the former Porto forward one half of football to earn his hat-trick, effectively putting the tie to bed.
It’s always easy to judge things in hindsight but there was no real shape to Chelsea yesterday and I don’t believe this is a problem with the formation, only those that were asked to play in it. Despite having the extra deep midfielder the Madrid side went through us with ease as Frank Lampard constantly abandoned his position as he ran into the space the likes of Juan Mata and Eden Hazard are meant to occupy. Not only was he treading on their toes by doing this, he didn’t offer any threat going forward and left John Obi Mikel, only player to have a decent game, to do all the midfield work alone. Perhaps we should have lined up as we did against Newcastle which has been our best showing of the season so far.
But the area that will come under the most criticism is the defence. Branislav Ivanovic being the worst offender as he put in his worst ever performance in a Chelsea shirt. As for David Luiz…words fail me but his night was summed up by attempting a clearance with a backheel. We were clearly missing our captain and leader in this area of the field.
We didn’t offer any sort of threat going forward as we barely saw the likes of Mata and Hazard, whilst Ramires continues to struggle to find the form he showed last season and Fernando Torres was an isolated figure.
The game was extremely frustrating but we still have a few new faces to integrate into the side and hopefully this will help solve some of the problems. If we’re focussing on the positives, we’re still top of the Premier League and Roberto Di Matteo has some time to think things over during the international break to make sure we do not put in that sort of performance again.
@micky nd watever, u guys ar simply against mikel out of nationalism, nd jealousy or maybe u guys watched d back of d television or watching in rewind mode.
No one is calling d spiteful defence or inefficient lampard who doesnt know his position. All i hear is mikel, d best DM we have. Dimateo didnt man up to sub lampard nor sleeping iva and you stupid clueless fans dare mention mikel who was our best player that night. Its a pity dt ppl just hate on a player and dt makes them blind to his positives. Dimateo shud assume full control and shud play them on merit by form and formation and not by legendary status while we perish. Why did we buy players?
mikel hld d midfld nd defeated barca, nd won d champ l, now on top of epl table so open ur eyes blind ones.
mick u don’t have a common sense,and u most be very stupid for blaming mikel instead of lampard who is useless.
you must have gone crackerz by pointing ur filty accusing fingers on Mikel Obi who did all dirty jobs abandond by lampard, analysing ftball does require sentiment or hatred even if u watched d match on a black n white tv u wldnt be dat blind 2 notice mikels performances infact he was d only chelsea player with outstanding performance dat nite. No ill feelings anyway coz d sky is alwayz BLUE! Up CHELSEA