Many Chelsea fans will be wondering just how we managed to throw away two points at the Madejski Stadium against Reading last night.
Perhaps the worst thing about it was the despite being 2-0 up and cruising I wasn’t completely shocked by our failure to win the match as we’ve seen this sort of sloppiness all too often this season and playing well for the entirety of the match is becoming a rare occurrence.
Juan Mata, who is more or less the whole Chelsea team these days, gave us the lead at the end of the first half before Frank Lampard headed in from a corner in the second half, it was a professional if unspectacular performance and things were looking good as Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham had dropped points on the night…then disaster struck.
The defence failed to track Royals ‘super sub’ Adam Le Fondre after the midfield allowed Hope Akpan time to pick a pass. And astonishingly, during injury time, our defence allowed not one, two but three…yes, three Reading players free at the back post and Le Fondre said ‘thank you very much for your incompetence’ and stole a point for his side.
As expected the mood amongst the Chelsea support was one of anger and this was mainly directed at our much maligned interim manager Rafael Benitez, who will never be accepted at the club because of his past and present, but this was something that was out of his control despite his awful record at substitutions.
There’s no excuse for the players to capitulate in the manner they did and it always seems to happen when Mata is not on the field, it was the right decision to take him off too as he picked up a knock and it wasn’t worth risking him as his team-mates only had to play a bit of possession football to see the game out. Instead they made it difficult for themselves by failing to hold onto the ball in the vital moments and Oscar wasted chance after chance to kill the game.
Many criticised our failure to get John Terry onto the field to help us see out the game but Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic should have been able to do this without risking the skipper’s fitness.
Our biggest problem seems to be the central midfield. Every time they are called upon we crumble and considering our lack of activity in the transfer market this winter it will continue until John Obi Mikel is back in the XI. We’re also lumbered with the ‘tactical genius’ until the summer, so we can only hope that the players decide to pull their finger out as I’m not impressed with their performance as well as the managers.
Carlo Ancelotti’s ‘bad moment’, Andre Villas-Boas’ slump and Roberto Di Matteo’s demise – it’s about time someone pointed a finger at the players (other than Fernando Torres). The fact that we, the fans, don’t like the manager doesn’t excuse their sloppiness.
Chelsea did not throw the game away.Reading attacked in numbers,nothing to lose,Another 5 minutes they may have one.
I think you can argue both ways. The players haven’t been good enough recently, but I personally blame the manager. This is for 2 reasons, and neither are because he’s ex-liverpool and hates us. I personally think his substitutions are verys poor. They are very rarely good subs, he claimed he made a great sub by bringing on Mata against Brentford but that is just obvious. I would argue this because bringing on a RB after going 2-1 down makes absolutely no sense. Ba given very little time again. Secondly I think you need a manager to motivate you in smaller games. As much as I can see people saying well United don’t, thats ctually not true, they simply have a great motivator against the lesser clubs. Our playuers are good enough (Everton away Arsenal at home prove that) but we simply aren’t willing to put teams to the sword when we have the chance.
His substitutions are poor, I’ve mentioned this, but the point is that we shouldn’t be so bad that we have to rely on a sub making an impact.
The reason why there’s a lot of talk about the poor subs is because the XI out on the pitch have been crap.
Benitez out!!!!!! John Terry in as player / Coach. All those in favor say aye!!!!!
We’re stuck with him unfortunately. Sacking him now would wreck any chance of Chelsea landing a top manager in the summer.
And if we fail to do that then we’re in this situation again this time next year.
Rafa is a joke,been out of football for 2 yrs,that says nobody wanted him,so why is he at a ham pions league winning club,only roman and Ron know what they saw in this fool,we knocked out of 5 competitions already,we worked our so is to beat utd in the cup,for wot,to loose to a lesser team,u think he got a clue,I wouldn’t let my blind dad cross the road with the waiter,he will lead him off the road and into a forest,leave him there and say he is getting better at finding his way home ,yet he never has,we are now not glorious anymore but the biggest laughing stock,as for roman if he is telling the waiter who to play perhaps he should become the manager cos it sure looks like that’s wot he wants,for me,the both should get lost
The owner should get lost? Some people don’t even know they’re born. Let’s not pretend Abramovich spends all his time at Chelsea, it’s the likes of Gourlay and Emenalo that pushed for Benitez.
Abramovich can only stick with Benitez until the summer and I’m hoping he’d convince Hiddink to take one last managerial role before he retires to take a Director of Football role, or something to that effect. Sacking two managers in one season will ruin any chance of getting a top one in the summer.
The same group of players were guilty of the same poor performances that got Di Matteo sacked in the first place. They cannot and should not escape any blame. They’re as much at fault as the board and Benitez are.