It was not the result we expected, neither was it the game we would have expected either. Swansea have a similar playing style with Chelsea, a creative attacking play that when these 2 teams clash, should have resulted in an open, full-of-goals game. However it was not the case, and so was not the win that the club have expected. Now we're sitting a point behind United on the BPL table.
As Mata & Luiz were not fit to play, I was happy to see some excellent replacements in line in Azpilicueta & Moses. I was happy to see them finally start a BPL match. The surprising omission was Ramires, his place taken by Romeu (although he did enter the fray after the interval). It actually seemed interesting to see, without our two leaders, and our top creative maestro, how the team will actually cope.
The first half was a bit slow. Both sides have chances, but it was not the high-tempo game many would have expected. No goals produced in the first half, leading to the away team making a change during the interval. The second half was slightly better, but still not the fast paced game it should have been. Goals came, and it was Chelsea who scored the opening, with Moses scoring his first BPL goal with a header that bounced off the post and went in (for a second there I thought it was going out, thankfully not). However after that goal, we were getting slow, and the home side started to take the game to us, and they were pushing on for an equalizer. At fault for not killing off the game, we were punished as the home side equalised in the 88th minute. The game ended 1 - 1.
I was very interested to see Azpilicueta & Moses play. Although it was not a a very good performance, but they did perform their duties well. Moses scored our only goal. Azpilicueta defended well for the whole 90 minutes. Hazard & Oscar this time were a bit restricted, and perhaps due to the number of opposition defenders arriving when these 2 have the ball. Torres then became isolated with no support, although sometimes he did well in flicking the balls to the other attackers. Overall, the team defended well, but could not produce the performance we did few weeks ago.
Somehow, the offensive efforts weren't as fluent compared to when Mata played. Of course, Juan Mata have been such a key player for us, receiving the Man of The Match award several times now. However I didn't expect his unavailability would be this significant. Our performance certainly looked much slower, much less creative, and we tried more direct passes instead. I certainly can't wait to see Mata back in the squad. And JT as well. This draw leaves us a point behind United in the league, meaning that we will now have to play catch-up, and perform a much better & consistent performance in the league. Our next match is at Stamford Bridge against Shakhtar Donetsk for a mouth-watering UCL clash, and maybe it's time for some payback. With JT back in the squad, and hopefully several other key players too, maybe it's time to show the Ukrainians what this London Club is made of! #CFC
Links:
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/match/80917/swansea-city-vs-chelsea-fc/report
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/match/80917/swansea-city-vs-chelsea-fc/player-ratings
http://www.chelseafc.com/news-article/article/2969182/title/match-report-swansea-city-1-chelsea-1
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