Chelsea Banter Archive April 19 2019

19 Apr 2019 11:54:54
Managed to get to the Bridge last night with my son and a friend of his. Had good seats in Row 13 of East Stand Upper. Certainly a game of two halves! CFC look far superior in almost every department in first 45 - much quicker and tellingly decisive with the ball in midfield than we have quite often been with Jorginho at base of our defence playing in that keep-ball but failing to make cutting defence passes way. Instead there were some great interchanges between Hazard, Giroud and Pedro and behind them Kante, Kovatic and Barkley. So we were far quicker to the ball at that stage and more effective with it than our Czech opponents. But only in second half for us to look at times so vulnerable and lacking in intensity (with exception as ever of Kante, what a gem) it seemed as though we might just let Prague snatch an extraordinary and dreadfully embarrassing victory.

Of course dropping of intensity understandable given that we were leading 4-1 at half time (5-1) but we almost fell apart rather than showing any ability at game management so that they came back to 4-3 and could have equalised on a couple of occasions setting up nerve shattering end and danger of them going through on away goals. Fact that Hazard seemed to take a couple of knocks early on and was substituted c 60 mins (should have been earlier given games to come? ) didn't help, nor did Pedro going off (he'd been having a fine game) . Jorginho looked well short of confidence when coming on to boos. Not acceptable in my book whatever you think of him, he's our player, and it can only make his confidence fall even further. Callum H-O not given much time to impress, and was largely anonymous but we all know what a prospect he is.

Anyway, we got through and must have great chance of making final and showdown with Arsenal. The Prague supporters in fine form once in the stadium - I saw some kettled by police in the Fulham road on my way there, with beer cans etc strewn all over the road (and many had making much use of the Courtyard pub much earlier) - and the atmosphere was pretty good. But our second half performance and Sarri bringing on Jorginho to boos was an unhappy element of the evening.