The Man in The Shed

31^st March – Lucky or what !

So the two week wait was over. The players had all returned from International duty without serious damage and the manager’s message was all about who was tired and who wasn’t. So it wasn’t a great surprise to see Hazard and Kanté warming the bench after playing most of the two games for their countries.

There seemed little to get excited about in a first half which the TV commentator described as “laboured”.  Other than a Pedro shot just over the bar and a Willian free kick just wide the football served up was hardly great. Those Chelsea players on the pitch might not have been deemed tired but they were not doing much to “cement their places”.

And then the second half was like Everton away all over again. We go a goal behind (to a great strike to be fair) within minutes. You’d be hard pushed not to argue that all half time breaks at away grounds should mean keeping the players out on the pitch for ten minutes as sitting them down and talking to them clearly isn’t working !

So Hazard’s rest was cut short but a little more urgency was added to the play. Further re-enforcements in the shape of Loftus-Cheek and Giroud joined the party but other than a sharp cross-shot from Willian there was little sign of a goal. Our away contingent, clearly angry that the manager has ignored their instructions to bring on our new England winger, then send a few messages to the bench along the lines of “your  professional competence is suspect” and “we’d like you to collect your P45 ASAP”.

The players were clearly not listening as real chances were being created but the ball would not go in. Time was running short.

And then Chelsea get a corner, Alonso heads goalwards from the front post and of all people “Dave” pops up to head it home. OK, so he was clearly offside but the officials didn’t seem to notice.

So there are around 6 minutes plus stoppage time left – can we get another ? Pushing hard we leave ourselves exposed to a fast counter – which sure enough happens and Rűdiger less than subtly brings the galloping Cardiff attacker to the ground. Red, surely ? Apparently not and the German receives only a yellow.

Into injury time and another cross from the right hand side goes to the back post where Loftus-Cheek makes it his to head into the net. Smash and grab !

Game ends.

We definitely used up all of our luck in this game. You can certainly understand the reaction of the Cardiff manager. The way he made his point at the end by doing nothing but stare at those officials was the icing on the cake for me. Colin may be 67 but you wouldn’t want to argue with him at that point (Why Colin ? ). There was plenty of material to make a case – from Alonso holding at a corner, Rűdiger also shirt-pulling on top of his red / yellow card and then Dave being offside.

Let’s quickly move on before too many people notice how we stole a result !