The Man in The Shed

9^th November – VAR

Early start on a Saturday and the winter weather was beginning to show its face.

The hottest topic in the media continued to revolve around how the VAR system was seemly upsetting just about everyone – one way or another. Most of the old Pro’s seemed to be getting worked up over the inconsistency, the long periods awaiting answers and the failure of referees to utilise the pitch-side screens.

I have to admit that I had watched the development of technology support in the NFL in the past and wondered whether football would follow the same path. NFL games ended up taking 4 hours instead of 3 and in the end they gave up on most of it and accepted that some human error was inevitable.

For me the first question should always be “is there a clear error ?”. If that is not the case then VAR’s interest should stop. The referees at the games are being undermined. And all of us fans actually at the ground are now celebrating every goal with a nagging doubt. It’s embarrassing enough after hugging a complete stranger when you get a winner in the 94^th minute; having to apologise after the goal is ruled out is even more painful.

So our Remembrance Day commemoration was suitably done. The minutes silent fittingly respected for 59 seconds before somebody decided to make a relevant yet unnecessary comment.

Team news was interesting with James starting and Dave on the bench. Again no sign of Pedro and of course the return of Cahill.

The game began in typical fashion with Chelsea pressing and Palace compact and looking to frustrate. My interest was almost entirely on how James would cope with Zaha. Things played out well for James with Zaha booked after 20 minutes and became the pantomime villain for the rest of the game. After half an hour I was convinced that James “owned” Zaha such was his mature display.

No goals at half time. We’d only worked their keeper once (Palace hadn’t even managed that) although Cahill had produced a great last ditch block to stop a certain goal.

My half time assessment was pretty much unchanged from the last 2 home league games – Pulisic was looking threatening, Abraham wasn’t involved enough, we were great up until the final pass and the opposition defence had been well drilled. Oh, and James had Zaha in his pocket.

The other thought was how could it be that “the world’s greatest league” still didn’t have a sponsor ? It could only be because the asking price was too high. There could only be a handful of global companies who could afford it. The mischievous side of me then wandered into the most unsuitable sponsors – Armani ? Victoria’s Secret ? Kwik-Fit ? Lush ? Disney ? Primark ? SpudULike ? Virgin ?

Back to the game.

More Chelsea pressure. Could we repeat the last two games and break down a tight defence ? Yes – Kovacic drives forward, passes to Willian standing central in the D; a flick sideways and Abraham is free to shoot home. My 90% celebration calms and then VAR says goal !

Chelsea continued to press. Then randomly (as we were waiting for a Palace corner) the Shed end erupts into singing Jorginho’s name. The suspended Italian must have been at the window of the players’ lounge.

Of course now that Palace were behind they had to come out and play. It always seems like you are watching a different opponent when this happens. Their tempo is raised and their attacking ambitions finally appear.

A Palace free kick out near the by-line sails across to the back post and for those of us in the Shed West side it is headed in – gratefully we are wrong but it was a clear chance wasted.

We needed another goal. Kovacic again drove a long ball out to Pulisic who passed in to Batshuayi (on for Abraham); he turned and shot, blocked but looped into the air where Pulisic headed in for number two !

Time to relax a little and for some friendly banter. The cheerleaders in the shed followed “We’ve won it all” with “you’ve won **** all” and then “Cahill’s won more than you” !

It was nice to hear the Cahill chants (and at the end).

We played the game out with no further alarms. So that was six league wins on the trot.

We’d not missed Jorginho (Kanté was back). Emerson was solid, James owned Zaha, Kovacic took on the main playmaker role, Pulisic justifying a starting place, no mistakes from Tomori and Abraham had one clear chance and scored it.

The final International break - back in two weeks for Man. City away !