Chelsea earned a well deserved win in the weekend’s Barclays premier league game after the international break, beating Cardiff City 4-1 at Stamford Bridge. It was in most ways a controversial early first half as we conceded a goal from Cardiff’s Mutch who capitalized on a defensive blunder from Luiz to slot home an effort past Petr Cech who was playing his 300th game in the premier league. Let’s take a look in how the game unfolded through out starting from the line-ups.
Starting 11s:
Chelsea FC: Cech; Ivanovic, D Luiz, Terry (c), Bertrand (Torres 62); Ramires , Lampard; Willian , Mata ( Oscar 58), Hazard; Eto’o (Azpilicueta 68).
Cardiff City: Marshall; Theophile-Catherine, Caulker (c), Turner, Taylor; Cowie, Gunnarsson (Gestede 79), Medel (K Bo-Kyung 55), Whittingham; Odemwingie (Campbell 69), Mutch.
summary:
The game was underway at Saturday afternoon at Stamford bridge and it was just 10 mins when a huge error by Luiz who received a pass back by Ramires Laid it off for Mutch mistakingly allowing the Cardiff player to open the scoring for the Welsh team. After that the Blues started attacking by going upfront much often than usually even though Cardiff again went close with an attempt from Odemwingie. John Terry though went close to leveling the score for us by heading slightly wide a Juan Mata corner.
The team continued to test the Cardiff keeper many times until the 33rd minute when Eto’o capitalized on the goal keeper’s uncertainty and took the ball off the air while Marshall was bouncing the ball. He then laid it off to Eden Hazard leveling the score with another controversial and unusual goal.
Then, the 2nd goal for us came at the 66th minute when Eto’o used his quick feet and technique to fire a low, hard shot past the goalie to notch home his first goal for Chelsea. Jose Mourinho despite substituting him off quickly afterwards would surely be satisfied with the goal.
The Portuguese boss was then sent off the touch line and instructed to sit right in the first row with Chelsea fans. He clearly wasn’t disappointed as that moment echoed the famous quote: ‘I’m one of you’ from Jose right when he made his return last summer. The 3rd goal came from Oscar who fired from 20ft away from goal notched a cracker in to the top bar and in for a goal. That just had Jose and a every fan at the Bridge off their feet and celebrate.
The 4th came right around the closing stages of the game as Oscar made a dribble in the left hand side of the attack and struck a low effort past the keeper. That rounded off a satisfying win for all fans who watched and Jose Mourinho whose team continued a great run of form after the 2 week international break.
Now, attention turns to the midweek champions league clash against FC Schalke at Stamford Bridge. We will hope to earn another win the UCL after the 4-0 away win at Bucharest the last time around. Thanks for reading and KTBFFH!! (Twitter- Fahmi Ahmed)