Owing to an extremely busy week at work, I was unfortunately unable to document my experience at Chelsea vs Arsenal in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final on Wednesday.
Put simply, my thoughts are these: We were totally outclassed, near enough man for man. It was a classic case of men against boys. And yet, there’s still just one goal in it. Whilst our recent history at the Emirates Stadium isn’t amazing, there’s still all to play for in a couple of weeks.
Onto Brentford.
There are few things in life more beautiful than a standard Saturday 3pm kick-off. The opportunity to leave your house at midday, head to the pub for a couple of drinks, watch the game, have a couple of drinks after and head home knowing you still don’t have work the next day.
In December, we saw the news that the Sixes chain had gone into administration. This meant two things. Firstly, stag-dos and birthday parties all over the country would never be the same again. Secondly, it meant we had to find a new pub, one not too far from the ground, to drink at.
If you were to organise all 20 clubs in the Premier League by the number of pubs within one mile of the ground, Chelsea would sit 4th. Not quite title challengers but a place amongst Europe’s elite in the Champions League. Plenty to choose from then.
We settled on The Pembroke, and I arrived just in time to catch the Manchester Derby. As a Chelsea fan, a Manchester City win was nothing short of essential. Both to keep United at bay in our own race for top 4, but also to ensure Arsenal face some kind of challenge for the Premier League title. With both these things on the line, this made the eventual 2-0 Manchester United win almost entirely predictable.
Riding a wave of confidence from my expertly predicted 5-1 win over Charlton, this week I settled on a cruising 3-0 victory. As lineup news came in, it was a relief to see that the majority of the players who missed out midweek through injury had made miraculous recoveries.
All credit to those who made the effort to protest against BlueCo two hours before the game. However, in my opinion this was a mistake. Whilst the protest did have a clear aim, it simply didn’t get buy-in from enough fan groups to make a clear statement, this is not the way to drive change in the club. The ownership is not going to sell anytime soon. What would be more impactful is trying to get them to change their youth-only talent policy.
Personally, I think the atmosphere in the ground has dipped in the last couple of home games. There’s a certain amount of acceptance with the current ownership situation which has led to a sense, at least for myself, of feeling quite empty.
The game started slowly and uninspiringly. more broadly reflecting the general mood in the club right now. Whilst I was less than impressed with how easily he fell to the floor earlier in the game, Joao Pedro’s instinctive weak-foot finish was nothing short of superb.
After a horror show on Wednesday night, it was a relief to see Robert Sanchez back to the level he’s displayed all season. He was quite clearly Man of the Match as he made six saves in total, the most impressive of which were against our very own Tosin Adarabioyo and Brentford’s Kevin Schade. Both saves came at crucial points in the game, and not long after the second, Liam Delap won the penalty that Cole Palmer coolly converted.
Whilst it was nice to see Palmer on the scoresheet, his general play and performance suggested to me there is something deeply wrong with Cole at this point in time. Between a lack of celebration for his goal, and falling to the floor at full time, my guess is that his groin injury is still causing him an immense amount of bother.
The performance itself was not one that will be remembered for years to come, I thought for the most part it was pretty disjointed and we found ourselves under some pretty extreme pressure at multiple points in the game. On this note, it was pretty refreshing to not see the pressure convert into any goals.
The conversation in the pub showed everyone was of a similar viewpoint to me, a win is a win. The Premier League fixture gods have been pretty kind to us as far as the next bunch of games go. Honestly, all five should be winnable.
Wednesday night’s upcoming game against Pafos will mark the fourth game of the Liam Rosenior era and the fourth different competition he’s led us out in. After a confident win against Charlton, lacklustre loss against Arsenal and unglamorous win against Brighton, let’s hope for a repeat of the first performance.
The Shed Diaries 