CHELSEA 3-3 EVERTON
Well, where do you start after a game like that? To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry during the game and probably felt like doing both at different times for very different reasons. We’ve now conceded ten goals in four games without a win and watching us defend set-pieces, you can see why that’s the case.
Scrappy first goal conceded pretty much against the run of play, with a set-piece ending in an own goal against Petr Cech, who had another poor game for us. Leighton Baines’ free-kick met not just Saha’s head but both John Terry and Petr Cech before landing in the back of the net – lucky? Maybe but poor defending all the same.
Didier Drogba, who has been nothing short of phenomenal for us so far this season, leveled it in the 17th minute with Lampard laying it off for the Ivorian to curl it beautifully past Howard. Just five minutes later Nicolas Anelka made it 2-1, firing into the roof of the net from close range. But just in case we had any big ideas about going into the delayed break a goal up, Yakubu had other ideas. Yet another set-piece as Terry failed to clear a throw in and yet another slice of luck saw the ball come off a prostrate Ricardo Carvalho, falling far too kindly for the Everton sub to bang it past Cech from six yards out. 2-2 at the break then.
No changes in personnel from the break but we came out as positive as we’d been in the first half, pressuring Everton and constantly pushing against their determined defence. That pressure paid off in the 58th minute with Didier Drogba banging in a Branislav Ivanovic cross. But yet again a combination of bad luck and them bloody set-pieces saw Didier Drogba’s attempted clearance hit Saha and bounce over Petr Cech just five minutes later.
We threw everything but the kitchen sink at them after that but their defence stood up to it all and a point was all we were getting.
So that’s ten goals conceded in our last four games and whether Everton got lucky or not, this is the sort of game we’d be pointing to at the end of a season when the points aren’t there. And we might have got a break with United losing to Villa yesterday but maybe what we should be concerning ourselves with right now, is the effect a run of four games without a win will have on our players.
TEAMS
CHELSEA: Cech; Ivanovic, Carvalho (Belletti 85), Terry, A Cole; Mikel (Borini 87); Ballack, Lampard; J Cole (Malouda 75); Anelka, Drogba
EVERTON: Howard; Hibbert, Neill, Heitinga, Baines; Pienaar, Rodwell, Fellaini, Bilyaletdinov; Jo (Yakubu 45+2), Saha (Agard 90+3)
GOALS
CHELSEA: Drogba (18, 58), Anelka (23),
EVERTON: Cech (og, 12), Yakubu (45+), Saha (63)
Blue is the colour
