Costa Scores!

By Gary Watton
March 9 2016

For the second year in succession, the Parisian team with lots of Brazilians has defeated the London club with lots of Brazilians in the last sixteen of the Champions League. The result was harsh on both Costa and Willian, neither of whom deserved to be on the losing team, while young Kenedy can only progress after last night's education against a quality side. Captain Ivanovic also tried his stout heart out, but his defending and that of his colleagues was ultimately in vain against a more streetwise outfit.

Chelsea, in their defence, if you can excuse the pun, played quite well in patches. However, isolated moments of quality and a damning statistic of 37% possession at home were simply inadequate against an excellent opposition, inspired by big Ibrahimovic.

Some folk are assuming that Chelsea will quickly return to the Champions League, say in eighteen months time, but the harsh lessons of Liverpool's prolonged absence from the Champions League in the last decade suggests that a quick reunion is far from guaranteed, not least when we won't be able to attract too many marquee signings when we are sitting it out of European football's blue riband contests.

Perhaps we should blood young Miazga in future weeks, as we have seen enough of the failing Cahill. Meanwhile Courtois is not immune from criticism, thinks me. Sure it's not his fault that we are struggling this season, but he seems to have played better for Atletico Madrid than he has done for us, yet it's the other Belgian who keeps copping the blame. Mourinho touted Thibaut as the best goalkeeper in the world, but I doubt if he is even among the top five goalkeepers in the Premiership. It's all very well scapegoating the defence, but big Courtois is the last line of defence. When all else fails, and it frequently has, it is incumbent upon Courtois to bail his buddies out. There haven't been too many magic saves or miracle stops from Thibaut. Can anyone really say that each and every one of the goals in recent weeks had nothing to do with the big goalkeeper? If he is not in a position to stop goals, then he needs to adjust his position so that he can do what he is handsomely paid to do - stop goals. As things stand, he is not doing his job too well.

Elsewhere, Michael Emenalo simply must walk the plank at the end of the season. Abramovich has ruthlessly dismissed the likes of Ray Wilkins, Carlo Ancelotti, Jose Mourinho twice, and Avram Grant after he took us to a Champions League final. Why oh why has Putin's buddy been so merciful and patient towards the dimwitted Emenalo? It was bad enough signing the misfit Djilibodji, but he's now only gone and recruited the unfit Pato. We basically swapped Ramires for Pato. Ramires is presumably already playing his little heart out in China, while Pato has seen even less first-team action than Djilibodji. If Pato hasn't scored at least one goal and played at least six matches before the end of the season, Emenalo needs to be evicted. He is the weakest link, a forty-two carat liability who is hampering our recruitment process, meaning that clubs like PSG have long since overtaken us. Come on Chelsea brains trust. No more misfits and damaged goods please.

Finally, someone stated last night that if Mourinho had been in charge, we could have fashioned out a one-nil win. First of all, the belligerent one was in charge last year and we couldn't even beat ten-man PSG. Secondly, I don't want us to keep scraping by in the Champions League with awful one-nil wins. If our ambition has become so limited to cautious tactics away from home and one-nil wins at home, then we are going nowhere slowly. I don't think that we are suited at present to playing away from home in the first leg, as we never look like scoring enough away goals to take the heat off the second leg. Instead we are too cautious in the away match and leave ourselves too much to do in the second leg. If Chelsea's strategy is to sneak past teams with one-nil wins, then we would be better off without European football, and quite frankly European football would be better off without us! 

CHELSEA 1 Paris Saint-Germain 2; half time: 1-1.

CHELSEA goal scorer: Costa

CHELSEA team: Courtois; Azpilicueta; Ivanovic; Cahill; Kenedy; Hazard; Fabregas; Mikel; Willian; Pedro; Costa. Used substitutes: Traore; Oscar.

CHELSEA LEADING SCORERS:

Costa fifteen goals

Willian ten goals

Oscar eight goals

Pedro five goals

Traore four goals

Cahill three goals

Fabregas three goals

Ramires three goals

Remy three goals

.

Discussion started by Chelsea FC (IP Logged), 09/03/2016 20:02

Chelsea FC
09/03/2016 20:02

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