Super Frank 'Comes' Back with A Double


Any14ATreble

By 41 Years A Blue
September 24 2006

Forget all this 'Big Brother, Little Brother and Love Thy Neighbour' stuff. Fulham hate Chelsea and Chelsea hate Fulham and I defy anyone to tell me different.

Fulham v Chelsea may not rank as the 'derby of all derbies,' but when you have two clubs situated a few miles apart there are an awful lot of bragging rights to be won.

Over 24,000 crammed into the antiquated Craven Cottage stadium situated down by the riverside in hope and expectation of a repeat of last March's Fulham's shock 1-0 victory.

From the moment is was revealed that Chelsea Captain John Terry (back injury) and Khalid Boulahrouz (illness) were ruled out you sensed that the selling of William Gallas to Emirates XI looked stupid and ill-thought. But in the face of adversity a new star was born in that Paulo Ferreira stepped into the breach alongside Ricardo Carvalho and Chelsea kept another clean sheet.

With Geremi drafted in at right-back and Ashley Cole at left-back a makeshift Chelsea defence was born.

After the match Jose described Ferreira's performance as outstanding. Jose said "Paulo was never a central defender. He never was. He is a team player and an intelligent player, ready for everything you need from him. Playing against Collins John is not easy and playing against McBride together with Helguson is not easy. And Paulo was brilliant."

Fulham's best and only chance came when Boupa Diop skimmed a header past the post from a Queudrue free-kick. Fulham also had complaints when they should have been awarded a penalty in the second-half. The ball broke from Brown at the edge of the Blue's penalty area, Cech came out to meet Brown and blocked the ball, the ball appeared to break free and Brown went tumbling over Cech's arms. Ref Mark Halsey blew for a Chelsea free-kick, but on another day a penalty might have been given.

When it comes to making substitutions Jose is not frightened of making them. Off went Robben and on came Kalou. Kalou caused allsorts of problems and won the penalty that saw Chelsea take the lead. Taking the ball into the box, young Rosenior stumbled and as he fell in a front crawl motion his right arm made contact with the ball. Up stepped Super Frank to fire the ball high into the Fulham net and showed Michael Ballack, anything you can do I can do better.

Interesting point to make here. Without Ballack in the side, Frank had his best game of the season and his second goal emphasized why Frank is so important to Chelsea and to England. With lots of interchange of passes in the midfield area the ball found its way via Essien to Didier Drogba who softly laid the ball into Lampard's path and he sweetly stroked the ball into the right hand side of Niemi's net.

Essien was again outstanding, Drogba was brilliant leading the line, Shevchenko was unlucky to not have scored when Niemi parried his shot and then Dids hit the bar with a return shot and in the first half 'Rocking' Robben also hit the bar with a 25 yard screamer.

Fulham's manager Chris Coleman can moan all he likes about Ref Mark Halsey, but if Halsey had had a better view of Brown's disgraceful over the top two footed challenge on Ashley Cole late in the game and a red card was shown then Brown would have been added to Coleman's list of 'missing' Fulham players.

Bet there is no video panel for this one?!?!

COME ON CHELSEA

41 YEARS A BLUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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