Chelsea Terrace Talk – Irish Examiner Article By Trizia

The season is beginning to take an all too familiar turn – and we can only really blame ourselves. Even the most ardent red has to admit that Suarez apart, this is one of the poorest Liverpool sides certainly in my lifetime, yet, we let them boss the game from the moment they equalised. And while we are on the subject of that equaliser – Liverpool have one dangerous player – so what do we do? Leave him totally unmarked of course! That would never had happened if Terry had still been on the pitch. I’m not going to bang on about leadership & organisation again as our lack of both was evident for all to see.

While we are on the subject of John Terry, when he went down it was evident immediately that it was bad – JT doesn’t stay down unless he is unconscious or very badly hurt. If the referee was under any misconception of the severity of the injury, the screams of agony which I could clearly hear from my seat in the Upper tier of the East Stand could have given him a clue.

Instead of getting immediate attention, Terry had to wait until the ball was put out of play. Not so for St. Stevie for whom the referee blew up the second he went down (I think he went down as he thought he had given away a penalty – it looked alot like a penalty, but it can’t have been a penalty otherwise the referee would have given it wouldn’t he?) – then allowed him to be treated on the pitch despite it not being a head injury; just to stick it to us that little bit more, the referee then fannyed about wasting time so as to allow Gerrard time to walk around the pitch so he was in a position to come on immediately that the game was restarted.

What was it that Joseph Heller said? “just because your paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not after you”. As an aside, Mikel has been booked in every game since the Clattenburg accusation – no agenda though obviously…..

Whatever the referee did or did not do in this match, the fact that we didn’t get all three points was totally down to ourselves. You can have all the creative midfielders you want, but if you haven’t got a clinical finisher & if you don’t take your chances when they are presented then that just leaves you as just another Arsenal – all style & no substance. Hazard maybe a mercurial wizard on the ball but if he gives the ball away cheaply then it rather undoes all his good work; he wasn’t the only guilty one of giving the ball away though – it has been prevalent in our game all season, and reached epidemic proportions against Liverpool.

This was due to lack of general movement, our propensity to invite tackles causing us to then panic pass and also a new phenomena of incorporating dozens of meaningless back-heals into our game. The last of these is in particular driving me to distraction – there is no need, and despite what the press might say, we are not Brazil.

Di Matteo too is worrying me more & more. I think his team selections are often amiss and his substitutions are always late and change very little. He also keeps taking Oscar off when he looks the most likely to create something. The players speak very highly of RDM, they obviously respect him. In interviews they speak of his man management skills; the individual family videos he had made prior to the champions league final were a master-stroke & something which the players greatly appreciated; however, his tactics still worry me.

Post match he also said that we still have “good momentum” – really? We have slipped down two places in two weeks by drawing games against sides who look destined to finish mid-table.

There was no injury time goal to paper over the cracks this time. Performances have to improve because as we know, Abramovich is not a patient man – the Guardiola rumours have already started up in earnest again and unlike Rodgers, the media won’t make excuses for Di Matteo.

I have to apologise for my down-beat musings- but you’d better get used to them as filing copy immediately after the match now dictates you will get an out-pouring of my initial pain after an abject performance. I no longer have the luxury of a day or so to calm down and be a little more measured in my missives.

I know it’s probably a bit early to be going into panic mode but the league seems more unforgiving now than it has ever been. It has become more and more difficult to makeup for the odd slip & this period of indifferent performances must be halted, especially with Manchester City on the horizon.

Much was made last season of our “senior” players & how we should be phasing them out but clearly we are not quite ready to let go just yet. Losing Drogba was always going to be a big big miss, but then to have Lampard, Cole & now Terry out too, all at the same time their worth can really be measured. It makes our stance on renewing Ashley Cole’s contract even more ludicrous – of all those senior players named, he out of all of them I think has still got a good two years left in him at the highest level – and that is not to say I don’t rate Bertrand – but sometimes you need some wise old heads on the pitch to get you past that winning post.

We’ve dropped 7 points in three games. It’s deja vu – that (ultimately futile) chase for 4th place….onwards & upwards? Please!

Posted by Trizia

(You can see all of Trizia’s articles here)

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