MSK ZILINA 1-4 CHELSEA
We might have opened our Champions League campaign with a 4-1 away win to MSK Zilina but whilst the scoreline sounds pretty convincing, and we didn’t exactly break sweat to get the win, the game itself left me pretty unsatisfied.
Maybe I’m expecting too much after our start to the season, this is European football after all, and Ancelotti had made a few changes to our usual line-up. But even then, he’ll be forced to make changes through the course of the season anyway and with John Terry still not right, Ashley Cole rested, Frank Lampard missing through injury and Didier Drogba serving a suspension, we just didn’t look quite right.
Zilina had a lively enough start, with plenty of help courtesy of a very casual looking set of opponents to be fair. Zhirkov set the standard as early as the second minute with an ominously lazy touch that almost let the hosts in before Alex cleared. And if he wasn’t exactly forcing Ancelotti’s hand to give him any further games, then Daniel Sturridge was also helping make the boss’ team selection easy with a couple of wasted efforts for future reference.
Yossi Benayoun at least may have given Carlo something to think about when his pass down the left found Anelka , who cut back for Essien to bang in the opener. Cech gave us an edgy a couple of minutes later, spilling what looked like an easy enough catch from a free-kick but our second goal on 23 minutes demonstrated how easy our opponents were to get past with Anelka putting through the keeper’s legs.
Just 4 minutes later, John Terry got his head on the end of a Malouda corner and when it came back off the bar, it was Nicolas Anelka picking up his second and our third with an easy finish. Malouda could and probably should have made it four after the half hour mark but took long enough for Pecalka to get a block in and if any of our players had bothered looking in the refs direction when Piacek handled in the area, we might have had a penalty just on half-time. Instead, they all pretended they’d seen nothing, including Anelka’s embarrassed looking half-appeal-half-apology, so we finished the half at 3-0.
That elusive fourth goal came just after the break, with Benayoun again involved, playing Sturridge in who got round the keeper to put away his first Champions League goal. Less than ten minutes later though, the shock of the game saw us gift the Slovakians a consolation with Cech flapping at a cross, the ball coming off a surprised Alex, who knew little about seeing as he’d turned his back anyway, and Tomas Oravec not believing his luck when he got to make sure the ball heading towards our goal actually went in.
After that, there wasn’t a lot to talk about really. Zilina gave it as much of a go as they could, with some more lazy, relaxed defending seeing them nearer our area than they probably should have been at times but on the whole, we were just playing out time and never really went looking for more than the final whistle. There were appearances from Kakuta, van Aanholt and Josh McEachran, with Kakuta managing to have the goal in the net himself 3 minutes from time, only to see it ruled out coutesy of Nicolas Anelka being offside. And that was about that really.
Overall then, it’s not like we struggled or anything but the opposition were pretty weak and we pretty much gave up at 4-0, so the attitude to this one felt different somehow. The defence could and should have worried Ancelotti, with Terry and Alex not looking their best – it would certainly worry me if it looks anything like that at the weekend. Nice to see the youngsters getting a run out though.
TEAMS
ZILINA: Dubravka, Guldan, Piacek, Pecalka, Mraz, Jez, Babatounde, Rilke, Ceesay, Vladavic, Oravec.
Subs: Krnac, Angelovic, Leitner, Majtan, Poliacek, Sourek, Vittor.
CHELSEA: Cech, Ivanovic, Alex, Terry, Zhirkov, Essien, Mikel, Benayoun, Sturridge, Anelka, Malouda.
Subs: Turnbull, Ramires, Ferreira, Kalou, Kakuta, Van Aanholt, McEachran.
GOALS
ZILINA: Oravec, 55
CHELSEA: Essien 13, Anelka 24, 28, Sturridge 48
Blue is the colour
