The Man in The Shed

23^rd November – Echoes of the past

Whilst glad that the last international break for a while was over, facing City away brought back all of those dreadful memories from the painful mauling our team took last season. Although it is always frustrating at the Bridge when teams turn up to defend – you can understand why you would set up that way against a technically superior team. Sarri decided to take on City toe-to-toe and we came away six goals worse off. Just to add to their motivation City’s last game was a loss to Liverpool.

The international break wasn’t all bad of course. Abraham and Mount both scored with Tomori making his debut. Giroud continues to play for France and score yet still doesn’t make our bench. On the downside Hudson-Odoi started for England but played more wayward passes in 45 minutes than in a season for Chelsea.

So how would Lampard approach the game ? Add a bit more experience in the starting eleven ? No way, pretty much the expected team with Emerson the preferred left back, Hudson-Odoi out with a niggling injury and Pulisic fit after his knock in the last game. The only tactical tweak was having effectively three defensive midfielders in Kanté, Jorginho and Kovacic (with Mount on the bench).

The first 20 minutes were entertaining for fans and neutrals alike with both teams looking good going forward and both looking suspect in defence. We were even 5-2 up on chances apparently. The TV producers had done a great job and our away support were coming through loud and clear on SKY.

Then out of nothing Kanté trickles a shot into the net and we’re in front. More amazing- an assist for Kovacic !!

The pattern of play remained unchanged – still very open at both ends. So it was no great surprise when City equalised although another disappointing deflection taking the ball past a wrong-footed Kepa.

Still no change in the pattern of play although City were now looking slightly more threatening.

Out of nothing (again) and another piece of individual skill from Mahrez and City are ahead. This time his shot goes through the legs of Tomori.

It’s bad enough that we’re now losing but more irritating that my mates were now “clucking” on WhatsApp about which City players would get Fantasy points for assists.

My nerves were then being shredded as Kepa decided to pass straight to Aguero who rather charitably decided to successfully play the crossbar challenge.

Chelsea were now giving the ball away cheaply but somehow City managed not to score another goal before half time.

My overall view at the mid-point was surprisingly positive. We had played our normal way and generally matched a more experienced City team. I couldn’t see us winning somehow but felt a draw was possible.

The second half failed to match the first in terms of entertainment with City pretty much keeping Chelsea at arm’s length. A Kanté chance (deflected) and a Willian shot (just over) were probably the only real chances in 45 minutes. Ederson did quite a good job of copying Kepa by hitting a clearance straight at Batshuayi but the ball rebounded out of play.

City did score a third at the end but somehow the VAR team found a way to disallow it for offside. I reckon that was the first VAR decision in our favour all season – not that it affected anything except our goal difference.

Final conclusions were mixed. We didn’t get hammered again. There was very little from Aguero or Sterling (other than the disallowed goal) and the team played with freedom despite playing away to a top team. The most astonishing stat. appeared to be that we’d had the majority of possession – a complete anomaly for a Pep team. Realistically though we’d not laid more than a couple of jabs in total in the second half.

For all the positivity generally we had now lost to Liverpool (twice), United and City. It might have been close on occasion but for all the minor details we need a big win against a top team before our young team start to believe that they are not quite a top team.

Social media was also scathing about Kepa’s performances of late. Whilst he made one obvious distribution error which was not punished my general feeling was that he just doesn’t seem to save very many shots. Compared to a Ben Foster who seems to manage half a dozen every game (in an admittedly poor Watford team).

So role on Wednesday with a critical Champions League away game against Valencia. A must not lose game !