Villa 0-1 Chelsea – I’m not p!#sed off. Are you?

February 22, 2009 by Martin Banks
Filed under: Aston Villa, Match Reports 
guus hiddink

As you can see, Guus Hiddink is over the moon with win

Before the game I felt confidence was needed for us to stand a chance and our boys went out with no shortage of it. We attacked Chelsea and passed it around their midfield and tried to carve out openings. I felt we played well and against most teams in the Prem that performance would’ve earnt us a win.

But Chelsea were back.

The Chelsea that won trophies and terrorised teams returned in terrible timing for us. The Chelsea that played Hull would’ve lost to us yesterday, but we had  the misfortune to face them when they’ve just spent two weeks healing the cracks. Hiddink’s arrival, be it temporary or not, be it a good move or not, was just the kind of manoeuvre they needed to wake the team up to themselves and pull them together. We got unlucky with the timing.

When we faced them back at the start of October, we never expected to be above them by the next meeting, especially after how amazing they played that day. If Scolari could’ve kept them playing like they did against us, they would’ve walked the league this season.

Why we Villans should not be p!#sed off

Fourth: We’re still 4th in the Premier League table, with a 6 point lead over Arsenal, so after next Sunday’s game against Stoke, we’ll still definitely be top four. Even if we lose (god forbid).

Workrate: The Chelsea workrate that has been missing from their game for a while, was back in abundance. No matter where the ball went on the park, they outnumbered us. When we broke down the wings, they outnumbered us in the box. In the middle of the park, they outnumbered us. When they attacked, they outnumbered us. This is a large part of what makes them win so many games; they work so hard as a team. When they play like that we can’t be too ashamed to lose, especially to only concede 1 goal.

Previous results: Prior to this game we had not lost in the league for 13 games. It’s nothing to be ashamed of to finish such a run against Chelsea. If we’d got a result yesterday and then lost to Stoke next week, then I’d be annoyed.

Fear Factor: Villa can be proud to now be considered a team that Chelsea need to fear. Whether or not you believe that the timing of Scolari’s sacking was related to us, it can’t be denied that Chelsea feared our threat and upped their game considerably to get a win.

Ashley Young free kick: We very nearly equalised with a scorching Young free kick that cannoned off the bar. Cech was totally beaten, in fact he didn’t move a muscle it came in that quick. Had the foul been a yard further out, that would’ve dipped in and made it 1-1.

Arsenal drew:  The Gunners are being a bunch of fools this season and they blew this golden chance to regain 3 points on us, with a goalless draw at home to Sunderland. That is ground that they may well rue not recovering come May.

Welcome to heaven: There was a banner hanging up at Villa Park yesterday which announced ‘Welcome to heaven’. It’s great to see how much the fans are loving this season.There’s no point moaning through our crap seasons if we aren’t going to enjoy this one, so fair play to the people who put this banner up, we’re with you.

So in the most part I think we can hold our heads high as Villans… and blame it all on NMS.

Where we need to improve

Ashley Young: Much like last time we played Chelsea, Young was not at the top of his game. Bosingwa seems capable of neutralising his threat very effectively. Steve Clarridge suggested that Ashley can’t play against the Big Four sides, and whilst that may not be entirely true, he certainly didn’t shine in either Chelsea game. Maybe this is why Capello doesn’t pick him.

Crossing: A lot of this will crossover with the previous point; all our crosses into the box yesterday went straight to Cech. At no point did we seem to notice this and correct it either, we just kept wasting attack after attack by giving it straight to the big man.


Comments

8 Comments on Villa 0-1 Chelsea – I’m not p!#sed off. Are you?

  1. pongogidman on Sun, 22nd Feb 2009 11:32

    2. I think Magic Mart got his tactics wrong for this one – I’d have gone for a 4-5-1 set up to nullify the Chelsea midfield. Instead, we looked tired and predictable in the first half with Lampard, Mikel and Ballack running the show. It was a better second half for us but knocking long balls to Carew and Heskey are meat and drink for Terry and Alex. Performance-wise: Knight and Davies looked very shaky against Drogba and Anelka and Cuellar is a hopeless right-back – why Mart plays him there is beyond me. Positives: Petrov was superb (again), Gabby, Milner & the two Youngs worked tirelessly. Still, Arsenal didn’t capitalise and we’ve come through a tough week well-placed in two competitions. The future’s still bright but still a lot of hard work to do to secure further passage in the UEFA Cup and achieve the holy grail of a CL place.

  2. Simon Preston on Sun, 22nd Feb 2009 11:45

    3. I think we played superbly after we had that free kick. The last 10 minutes of the first half and the entire second half we really took the game to them and if it weren’t for the efforts of Petr Cech and his magnet like hands we could have got some goals in there. Of course, you could have said the same about Chelsea and Friedel. How many superb stops did he pull off?

    Losing 1 – 0 to Chelsea in a pretty entertaining game? I’ll take that. Looking at our fixtures for the rest of the season we’ve got Liverpool and Man Utd away which is going to be tough (in the case of Utd, perhaps impossible) and Everton at home but the rest of them would be ones you’d expect to swing in our favour – even if our final games are ones we lost to first time round.

    Looks very good for Champions League spot lads. And that will do me very very nicely indeed.

  3. peter on Sun, 22nd Feb 2009 12:13

    4. The “Ashley Young free kick” point is pretty irrelevant, since there was no foul, only a Heskey dive.

  4. Bri on Sun, 22nd Feb 2009 21:00

    5. Heskey might have dived (maybe) but Drogba’s blatant push on Davies in the Chelsea penalty area wasn’t punished so it even’s out.

    UTV

  5. Martin Banks on Sun, 22nd Feb 2009 22:01

    6. Nah, Heskey didn’t dive, he’s not the type. He did go down far too easy though. He’s a bit of a fanny for such a big bloke, a strong gust of wind can ground him.

  6. Evoflash on Mon, 23rd Feb 2009 7:45

    7. Our crossing drove me mental on Saturday. EVERY TIME! It was Cech’s ball. FFS LADS GO BACK TO SCHOOL.

    On a better day we would have won that match.

    Why did Curtis go off? Thought he was doing ok.

  7. Martin Banks on Mon, 23rd Feb 2009 10:08

    8. Couldn’t agree more Evoflash. And the shooting wasn’t much better. They were mostly going straight at Cech too.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: We desperately need a poacher.

    And play the ball into the box on the floor from time to time!

  8. ghost of ted drake on Mon, 23rd Feb 2009 10:36

    9. Thought the banner was just what the doctor ordered… enjoy enjoy enjoy…. rejoice, Arsenal are rubbish… welcome to the promised land

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