STOKE 0 – 2 CHELSEA
The good news for Chelsea, but bad news for Stoke came before kick-off with the news that Rory Delap had withdrawn through injury. So no long throw-ins to contend with, although we still found ourselves up against a spirited Stoke side.
Chelsea controlled the first half although were stopped from making the most of their possession by a busy Thomas Sorensen on a couple of occasions, with both Ballack and Drogba denied an opener. However, a lovely weighted pass from Frank Lampard saw Jose Bosingwa slam past Sorensen on 37 minutes. To be fair, Bosingwa, who’d got himself goal-side of Cresswell, looked like he was trying to put the ball across the face of goal before a deflection from Andy Griffin gave the right-back his first goal for Chelsea but it was the end result that mattered.
For all Chelsea’s domination in the first half though, there was some sloppy play at times and the effort to make that domination count seemed to be lacking. Whilst they always looked comfortable, a little more penetration wouldn’t have been too much to ask.
Having said that, we started the second half with some incisive, one-touch passing and a defensive error with Stoke giving the ball away on the edge of the area saw a Malouda shot hit the woodwork after Sorensen had somehow got a hand to it.
To be fair to Stoke though, they’d come out fighting for the second half and were definitely holding their own, almost succeeding in getting an equaliser from a corner, only to see John Obi Mikel clear off the line.
Nicolas Anelka, who’d come on for the fragile looking Kalou after the break, should have doubled our lead in the 67th minute, although as is too often the case for the French striker, got it all wrong, going for power rather than accuracy. So, when Belletti replaced the rusty Didier Drogba soon after, it looked as if 1-0 would be the best we could hope for from the game. Anelka had other ideas though, making up for his earlier miss in the 76th minute, taking advantage of a Bosingwa cross from the right side of goal and banging it past Sorensen.
Ballack came close to making it 3-0 soon after and Lampard could have had a couple in the finishing stages although Sorensen kept it at a respectable 2 goal deficit.
All in all then, a fair result which reflected Chelsea’s better passing and control although we were made to work hard for it. A little bit of impatience crept in as the game went on and it looked as if we might fail to capitalise on our lead but our overall dominance paid off in the end with us ticking off our sixth consecutive away win in the Premier League.
A comfortable enough win which puts us back to the top of the table, for a couple of hours at least.
*Edit: Arsenal were shite so we stay top 😀
Teams:
Stoke: Sorensen, Griffin, Cort, Diagne-Faye, Higginbotham, Olofinjana, Diao, Lawrence (Tonge 66), Cresswell, Kitson (Fuller 53), Sidibe (Faye 81).
Substitutes not used: Simonsen, Sonko, Soares, Whelan.
Chelsea: Cech, Terry, Cole A, Bosingwa, Alex, Malouda, Ballack (Paulo Ferreira 90), Lampard, Mikel, Kalou (Anelka 46), Drogba (Belletti 73).
Substitutes not used: Hilario, Bridge, Ivanovic, Sinclair.
Goals
Bosingwa (36), Anelka (76)
Blue is the colour
