The Man in The Shed
17th September – Back in the big time
There must have been plenty of butterflies in the dressing
room before this game. With many UCL debutants in the squad it was a new dawn.
My initial thoughts when the draw was made were that our group was not too bad.
Further down the line I was not so sure. OK, we had avoided a “big gun” from the
2nd pot but both Valencia and last year’s surprise package Ajax,
were good quality sides.
Valencia had continued a historic trend in sacking their
manager - just a few days before the game too (looking at what he had achieved
I couldn’t understand why – winning the Copa del Rey and back in the UCL was
clearly not enough). So surely tonight was a good time to play them – right ?
Yet again I had to make do with the highlights on TV. How
could my (less than hectic social life) have gotten in the way again ?
Highlights are never the most reliable way to judge a game
but it seemed a spark was missing from the Blues. Whether that was as a result
of losing Mount early to an ankle injury remained to be seen.
The manager had warned about the need for total
concentration throughout so it was no great surprise that a rare lapse whilst defending
a free kick resulted in Chelsea conceding a neatly taken goal.
Having resigned myself to a narrow loss I was as surprised
as anyone when the referee gave Chelsea a penalty courtesy of VAR. Then came
the most bizarre debate over who would take it. Somehow Barkley (only just on
as a sub) convinced everyone (eventually) that he was the main man – only to
blast the kick over the bar.
I don’t know how Lampard managed to keep a straight face
after the defeat to defend Barkley and even claim that he was the designated
penalty taker. What was even more unbelievable was that the press all seemed to
accept that.
So the search for a home win goes on. Let’s hope Mount wasn’t
too badly hurt !
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