EPL Week 2: Midfield Trio Propels Chelsea Over Sunderland
August 20th 2009 00:30
For the second time in as many games, Chelsea were unable to keep a clean sheet, surrendering an early goal to home-side Sunderland. This time around however, the opposition was no match to Carlo Ancelotti's star-studded squad whose three second half goals gave them a comfortable win.
Darren Bent scored his second goal of the season in the 17th minute after a weird deflection at the edge of Chelsea's penalty box somehow made its way to his feet. The rest of the game was all Chelsea as the Sunderland retreated to their own half of the pitch and resorted to desperate defending for most of the 90 minutes. One instance of their ultra-defensive stance happened after a Chelsea corner-kick. While goalkeeper Fulop had gone off his line to retrieve the ball, there were five – yes, five – of his teammates right in front of the net including three on the goal line.
As admirable as the Black Cats' efforts were, it was obvious that Chelsea were going to find a breakthrough sooner or later. Ballack was the first to score for the Blues after receiving a flick-on header to the far post six minutes after the break. Less than twenty minutes later, the visitors were up 3-1 with Frank Lampard scoring on a penalty and Deco firing up a beautiful strike which hit the post before crossing the goal line.
Chelsea thus have six points out of six and are looking good so far. The only flaw in Ancelotti's diamond-midfield is that without a natural left-winger, Chelsea relied too much on the right wing during their game at the Stadium of Light. Their play became a lot fluid once Ashley Cole regularly made his way up to the final third of the pitch. I wonder if Zhirkov will be the solution to that minor issue. Lampard had another poor game in my opinion. Hopefully, his goal will give him some confidence.
Chelsea line-up: Petr Cech; Jose Bosingwa, Branislav Ivanovic, John Terry, Ashley Cole; Michael Ballack, Michael Essien, Frank Lampard, Deco; Salomon Kalou (Florent Malouda, 75th), Didier Drobga (Daniel Sturridge, 83rd).
Darren Bent scored his second goal of the season in the 17th minute after a weird deflection at the edge of Chelsea's penalty box somehow made its way to his feet. The rest of the game was all Chelsea as the Sunderland retreated to their own half of the pitch and resorted to desperate defending for most of the 90 minutes. One instance of their ultra-defensive stance happened after a Chelsea corner-kick. While goalkeeper Fulop had gone off his line to retrieve the ball, there were five – yes, five – of his teammates right in front of the net including three on the goal line.
As admirable as the Black Cats' efforts were, it was obvious that Chelsea were going to find a breakthrough sooner or later. Ballack was the first to score for the Blues after receiving a flick-on header to the far post six minutes after the break. Less than twenty minutes later, the visitors were up 3-1 with Frank Lampard scoring on a penalty and Deco firing up a beautiful strike which hit the post before crossing the goal line.
Chelsea thus have six points out of six and are looking good so far. The only flaw in Ancelotti's diamond-midfield is that without a natural left-winger, Chelsea relied too much on the right wing during their game at the Stadium of Light. Their play became a lot fluid once Ashley Cole regularly made his way up to the final third of the pitch. I wonder if Zhirkov will be the solution to that minor issue. Lampard had another poor game in my opinion. Hopefully, his goal will give him some confidence.
Chelsea line-up: Petr Cech; Jose Bosingwa, Branislav Ivanovic, John Terry, Ashley Cole; Michael Ballack, Michael Essien, Frank Lampard, Deco; Salomon Kalou (Florent Malouda, 75th), Didier Drobga (Daniel Sturridge, 83rd).
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