“The Unassuming Epic”- Chelsea 3, Blackburn 3 (4:3 Penalties)

And you guys forget that Kalou started the last two CC games alone up front and scored both times, as he did last night. Here was the team we put out that thrashed Bolton 4-0 at SB:

Hilario
Belletti Alex Ivanovic Ferreira
Deco Ballack Malouda
Sturridge J.Cole
Kalou

Last night's team:

Hilario
Belletti Ferreira Ivanovic Zhirkov
Ballack Mikel Malouda
Deco J. Cole
Kalou

Absolutely no one was complaining then. The main problem last night was that we missed Alex (a.k.a. the Tank) badly in such a physical game, Zhirkov had a bad day and Carlo fucked up in taking both Joe and Deco off at HT when one of them should have been taking a penalty at the end. It was our first half performance that truly did the damage, and you'd have put your house on Herr Ballack scoring that penalty.

Now, let's move on.

There's nothing wrong with Bane in the centre of defence - that's where he's meant to play for crying out loud! By the sounds of it, none of the fault lies with him for any of the goals. Alex was injured and couldn't play, so I can understand Carlo resting JT, but putting Ferreira in there over a specialist CB like Bruma or Hutchinson was asking for trouble, and necessitated one of the half time changes that ultimately shot us in the foot.

Drogba on at HT was the right move, as was getting Ferreira out of the centre, but the truth is that those problems shouldn't have been there in the first place. At the very least, JT should have started last night's game. Weren't all the goals from Zhirkov's side?

All in all, I'm definitely disappointed with the result, especially when I thought we'd salvaged it at the last, but it does mean our depleted squad in January escapes two extra games while, because of the derby draw with City, United need to take it more seriously than usual.
Everyone knows that the Premier League and the Champions League are our main priorities. A win on Saturday will make up for it.

The more Deco and Joe fire blanks, the more I think we need a player like Marek Hamsik. The hole is definitely our weakness at the moment.

alex was injured, he didnt even want to play ivanovic i think because but had too. on defense we had 4 fullbacks and ferreira is a shit central defender.

chelsea really didnt treat this comp seriously at all, basically threw it away by playing such a weak line up. kalou leading the line? i think whenever you see that the game will be thrown away. the fact is we were stronger defensively when bruma a 17 year old came and we drogba led the line properly.

Key points for me were:
-three subs at half-time
-lack of firepower in the starting line-up
-weak defence (I'd stick with Alex as a CB)
-lack of leadership (guys like Drogba always inspire the rest)
That said, I'd put either Lamps or JT in the squad just to make sure.
-start with the second string, make two subs at half time. I'd go for Drogba and Kakuta, and leave Bruma 'til later.
Overall, I didn't see the game, but it seems we were beaten by Rovers' physical prescence. At moments I thought Ferreira and Zhirkov were completely useless. Whether it's down to them not playing regularly, or they just didn't turn up. At least Ferreira scored, and boy did he leave it late. Rovers deserved to go through.

if we beat city this will be forgotten. kinda annoying that carlo didnt give the league cup any respect though.

never enjoy losing, but i'm not fussed. It was a run-out for the fringe and youth players. Carlo did make an error in the triple substitution at halftime, should have kept one sub back for later in the game.

More important is beating the mancs at the weekend. The EPL is the priority this season (in my opinion).

Have to agree with jack. Pretty weak back line, defensively anyway. All 3 subs at the half shows he didn't take it seriously.

Oh well, rather see us beat Man City anyway.

Like I said in the previous post, I think the blame here falls on Carlo. Bane & Paulo in the center of defense is a bug out. And not even Jose would have made three subs to open a second half.