PORTSMOUTH 0-5 CHELSEA
So, it was former versus current Chelsea boss, and Avram Grant played it fairly safe with a defensive line-up whilst Carlo Ancelotti seemed to be looking for an improved attack, dropping the out of sorts Nicolas Anelka to the bench in favour of Daniel Sturridge. Deco also got his first start since early February, Zhirkov replaced the injured Ivanovic, on the positive side Petr Cech made a return although less positively, for some reason the Chelsea boss put Carvalho back in ahead of Alex.
As ever, we had a good start, dominating the play although you’d be forgiven for not reading too much into that these days. Drogba had a couple of early chances, first combining nicely with Deco before tapping it wide, then volleying well over from close range. Lampard stung James’ hands, with a couple of decent shots from distance but before Pompey ever really got a handle on the game, a David James howler helped us to a 1-0 lead in the 32nd minute. It was Deco combining with Drogba again that must’ve had James’ jittery enough to make a complete hash of it, standing there with his hands on his hips and egg on his face as Drogba tapped into an empty net.
I’d said from the off I couldn’t understand why Carvalho got the nod ahead of Alex but it didn’t turn out to be a permanent thing as it turns out, with Carvalho going off injured again not long after the goal. It seemed Malouda didn’t make himself any friends at Fratton Park, first colliding with Ricardo Rocha who ended up being carried off complete with oxygen mask from what looked a pretty 50/50 aerial challenge and then adding insult to injury (if you’ll pardon the pun) by slotting past James from a tight angle 5 minutes into the second half.
Joe Cole made an immediate impact, coming on for Sturridge in the 53rd minute and forcing David James straight into action but when Frank Lampard’s shot was pushed out by the Portsmouth keeper, it was Malouda on hand again to tuck away his second of the night. Needless to say, it was all over by this time with David James having a decidedly uncomfortable night and it didn’t get any better for him once Mikel played Drogba in for his second and our fourth.
I suppose a word should be said about Portsmouth here, even if that word happens to be ‘poor’ and with Lampard putting away our fifth from Drogba’s knock down in the closing minutes, the scoreline summed that up perfectly.
Overall then, a pretty easy win which was exactly what we needed after our recent disasters, not something to quite wet ourselves over considering the opposition but 3 points anyway. That’s not being disrespectful to Pompey though, just accepting we didn’t catch them on one of their better days. But you can only play the team in front of you and we did that convincingly.
Just one final thought though – and it’d be nice to think someone feels the need to point this out to Didier: there’s some things that are just wrong on a football pitch – and waltzing with the opposition has to be one of them! 🙂
TEAMS
PORTSMOUTH: James, Rocha (Basinas, 45), Hreidarsson, Mokoena (Kanu, 71), Finnan, O’Hara, Hughes, Wilson, Mullins, Piquionne, Smith (Owusu-Abeyie, 46).
Unused subs: Ashdown, Vanden Borre, Brown, Webber.
CHELSEA: Cech, Ferreira, Terry, Carvalho (Alex, 37), Malouda, Deco, Lampard, Zhirkov (van Aanholt, 71), Mikel, Drogba, Sturridge (J Cole, 55),
Unused subs: Turnball, Bruma, Kalou, Anelka.
GOALS
Drogba 32, 77
Malouda 50, 60
Lampard 90
Blue is the colour
