CRYSTAL PALACE 0-1 CHELSEA
Ok, so it was our first pre-season friendly, it was against Crystal Palace and the majority of our first XI aren’t even in the country but it gave us a chance to get a closer look at some of the players we might start to see a bit more of in the future, and that’s always worth keeping an eye on.
Yesterday’s game also saw the return of Michael Essien for the first time since January. John Obi Mikel made his comeback, as did Alex after his surgery. No place for new summer signing Yossi Benayoun, who missed out with a groin problem but plenty of room for the likes of Di Santo, Sturridge and Josh McEachran, who we seem to be hearing more about all the time.
We had a lively enough start, with Di Santo, Sturridge and Essien all on the attack, with McEachran seemingly involved in just about everything, with Palace resigned to a couple of long-range efforts on the counter. Essien, who really does seem to have come back from injury in great form, saw another shot come back off the bar just over 20 minutes in and then as we hit the half hour mark, a struggling Petr Cech was replaced by Ross Turnball (even if the ticker I had come up was trying to convince me it was Hilario!). But with the exception of the odd attack ending in disappointment, that was about that for the first half.
Early on in the second though, we were back on the attack, first with Bruma firing just wide before McEachran, chipped in from the left for Sturridge to volley towards goal but with Speroni’s block falling for Essien, the Ghanaian saw his shot deflected wide.
On the hour though, Essien drilled a low shot into the bottom left-hand corner and this time the sprawling Speroni couldn’t prevent us from taking the lead. Essien was duly rewarded with an early exit as Ancelotti rang the changes with five substitutions. In fact, substitutions seemed to be the name of the game now, as Burley decided to make a few before Ancelotti had another go, even bringing on 15 year old Nathanel Chalobah as we played out the game pretty comfortably.
Overall then, obviously a difficult one to take too much out of. Not the sort of first XI we’re ever likely to see in the Premier League but interesting enough to have a look at what’s available to us.
On the down side, I’d have to say Di Santo really disappointed me. When we first saw him, he reminded me a bit of Crespo in terms of potential and whilst he didn’t look the same at Blackburn, I convinced myself it was because he didn’t have the same quality of player around him. Watching him again yesterday though, with him looking off the pace and lacking both positional awareness and finishing, I’m starting to wonder whether he’s got as much potential as I’d thought.
Sturridge as well, whilst I wouldn’t question the ability is there, I can’t help feeling the old SWP-type frustrations when I watched him. It’s almost as if he tries too hard. Unlike Di Santo, Sturridge has great pace, great positional awareness and control but the final ball is every bit as frustrating as our previous City signing.
Anyway, enough of the negatives because looking at the positives from yesterday’s game, the return of Essien – as predicted – is like a new signing for us again. The man just looks seriously ready for the new season. McEachran definitely looks as if he has the potential there, if a little rough around the edges at the minute, it just needs teasing out a bit with the right level of exposure to the first team.
Defensively, we look as if we have a decent crop to choose from and to be honest, Bertrand, Bruma and Van Aanholt all look as if they could be in and out of the first team without too much trouble and even 15 year old Chalobah, for the short spell he had, handled himself well enough.
So all in all, a decent enough start to our pre-season. Bring on Amsterdam!
TEAMS
CRYSTAL PALACE: Julian Speroni, David Wright, Alexsander Radosavlijevic, Adam Barrett, Paddy McCarthy, Anthony Ouasafane, Neil Danns, Davide Baiocco, Alan Lee, Darren Ambrose, Andy Dorman.
Subs: Lewis Price, Kieron Cadogan, Claude Davis, Liam Bridcutt, Dean Morgan, Alassane N’Diaye, Wilfred Zaha, Sean Scannell
CHELSEA: Petr Cech, Jeffrey Buma, Ryan Bertrand, Patrick Van Aanholt, Michael Essien, Alex, John Obi Mikel, Nemanja matic. Daniel Sturridge, Joshua McEachran, Franco Di Santo.
Subs: Jack Cork, Henrique Hilario, Conor Clifford, Gorkan Tore, Scott Sinclair, Ben Gordon, Daniel Philliskirk, Kabi Djalo, Nathanel Chalobah, Milan Lalkovic, Michael Woods, Ross Turnbull.
Blue is the colour
