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Guardian: Reds denied as referee spares Chelsea Kevin McCarra at Anfield Thursday September 29, 2005 The Guardian Even if Liverpool had to share the points they held fast to their reputation as the one English team who can regularly unnerve Chelsea. Jose Mourinho's side did duck a repeat of the defeat at Anfield that nailed them in their European Cup semi-final last season, but their general anxiety was far greater here last night. Though they guarded the goalkeeper Petr Cech well, it took the Italian referee Massimo de Santis to spare Chelsea a penalty. The kindest thing to be said is that he is certainly not the kind of official to let a bellowing Kop make up his mind for him. Unfortunately, he really should have this time. De Santis was unresponsive on three occasions, diregarding in particular the handball with which William Gallas blocked Jamie Carragher's header in the second half. Despite that, the home crowd could be satisfied by the maturity with which their team avoided being picked off on the break and by the manner in which they dominated the second half. "Boring, boring Chelsea," sang those fans at the end, gleefully contradicting Mourinho's pre-match assertion that it is Liverpool who "do not play with an open heart". A goalless draw had been widely predicted and the sort of passion that might have brought a second booking for Xabi Alonso or Frank Lampard was no surprise either, but Rafael Benítez's team must have shocked Chelsea with their sustained tempo and adventure. The fierceness compensated for the scrappiness and it must have taken a while before either team could recover the calm to reflect on the significance elsewhere in Group G of Real Betis's valuable win at Anderlecht. Minds will soon sweep on to the next clash between Liverpool and Chelsea, at Anfield in the Premiership on Sunday. By then Mourinho must come up with a way of preventing the opposition from developing the momentum that might just have rushed his team to defeat last night. Chelsea did have an impressive performer in Didier Drogba, who waged a solitary battle in attack, but it was telling that Ricardo Carvalho, called upon to defuse many attacks, was the best player on the field. Despite all the sophisticated scheming, a match can always humble a manager. This was a meeting of the European Cup holders and the reigning Premiership champions, but a heavy disguise was standard issue. The talent of the footballers went unrecognised before the interval and the carefully prepared strategies tended to malfunction. The crowd was more likely to be exercised then by bookings than by artistry. The sight of the refined Alonso first letting Michael Essien steal the ball from him and then, at the cost of a yellow card, snatching the Chelsea midfielder's jersey showed that even the most poised footballer could tumble into error. Each side cared far too much about this game for the good of their composure. Chelsea did stumble across a little fluency afer 32 minutes, as Drogba shielded the ball, turned and released Arjen Robben for a run checked only by Alonso's excellent challenge. The Dutch winger was temporarily heartened and when he veered inside Sami Hyypia moments later it took a good save from José Reina to put his shot over the bar. A goal then would have been a reward for breakaway football, though, and the gusto had largely been Liverpool's. Though each manager used a formation that can pack five footballers in midfield at a moment's notice, it was Benítez's players who were more geared to advance. They were not ashamed either to resort to the obvious. Everyone knew that the ball would be launched for the 6ft 7in Peter Crouch and, without resorting to the panic measure of starting with the towering Robert Huth, Mourinho had no simple answer. When the Liverpool striker headed down after 19 minutes the alarmed Drogba lunged at the lurking Hyypia in the area. The Chelsea striker certainly made no contact with the ball and must have had De Santis pondering the award of a penalty. But none was given. Chances were rare and neither Steven Gerrard nor Lampard powered the play reliably. When Hyypia accidentally chested a long ball into the path of the Chelsea midfielder after 18 minutes, Lampard skewed a drive from the edge of the area, misplacing his usual searing precision. It ought to have been Liverpool who made the breakthrough. Luis García, soon after the interval, might have dissuaded De Santis from granting a penalty because he shook off Paulo Ferreira's pull on his arm and kept on pursuing a through-ball that was collected by Cech. Chelsea's luck held in the 56th minute when Carragher jumped for a corner and Gallas, conscious of Djibril Cissé beside him, met the Liverpool defender's header with an extended arm. The referee somehow believed the contact had been legitimate. Three penalty appeals should have amounted to at least one spot-kick, but there were small, crucial satisfactions for Mourinho and Chelsea last night. Cech had not made a save of note and the team, reprieved by De Santis, remembered how to survive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Independent; Liverpool 0 Chelsea 0 Chelsea forced on defensive as stylish Liverpool make a point By Sam Wallace at Anfield Published: 29 September 2005 The first act of a compelling drama in at least four parts this season and the pre-eminence of Rafael Benitez's European champions continues to nag at the Premiership empire of Jose Mourinho. More adventurous, more risky and just the whim of the referee away from victory, Liverpool began where they finished last season: giving hope to those who seek to unlock the secret of Chelsea's domination. It was not the fire-breathing classic that these two sides contested in the second leg of the European Cup semi-final last season but then we may never witness the noise and the tension of that occasion again. Instead Liverpool, who had two convincing penalty appeals turned down by the Italian referee, forced Chelsea deeper and deeper back into their own half as the game developed, inflicting upon Mourinho's side the stifling restrictions that they have imposed on the rest of the Premiership. Where Liverpool failed was in dealing the final, decisive blow to Chelsea who were held together by John Terry in his typically inspirational manner. The noise of the Kop, their songs about Istanbul and the replica tinfoil European Cups that were waved in the direction of the away end were a reminder of the supremacy that this club, above all others in the Premiership, still feels it holds over the league's runaway leaders. In Europe, Liverpool are still Chelsea's masters; come Sunday, the roles will be exchanged. When Chelsea return to Anfield in three days' time the imperative to win will be much more serious for Liverpool if they are to maintain a viable Premiership title challenge. Then they will have to gamble a greater stake on victory, although Benitez was by no means cautious last night. His team's ceaseless possession forced Mourinho to change formation, reinforce his defence and endure a nervous finale to an uncomfortable evening. Yet so many waves of Liverpool attacks produced so few genuine attempts upon Petr Cech's goal. Liverpool's most promising chances to score were their two penalty appeals rejected by the referee, Massimo De Santis. The first, on 52 minutes, came when Luis Garcia burst between Paulo Ferreira and Terry towards the same end where he scored his controversial winning goal in last season's semi-final second leg. Dragged back by the Portuguese full-back just enough to allow Cech to claim the ball, Garcia was denied a penalty. The second appeal was much less doubtful and came three minutes before the hour when Jamie Carragher powered a header from Steven Gerrard's corner towards goal and William Gallas, who had just shoved Djibril Cissé out of his path, handled the ball. The decision to reject it was, in Benitez's words, "unbelievable", from a Spanish coach who buries his opinions and emotions deep, that is as severe a condemnation of an official as we are likely to hear. At the start of the evening, as the two sides warmed up, Benitez and Mourinho had stood on the touchline together - hands in pockets, expensive shoes toeing the slick green turf - deep in conversation. Like two ambitious young dukes discussing the division of an empire it was a remarkably amicable conversation, given the doubt that Mourinho had earlier poured on Liverpool's legitimacy as European champions. Unusually for him, Mourinho seemed to be doing most of the listening. No team, up until now, has quite matched his Chelsea side like Benitez's Liverpool on the big occasion and the same was the case this time. Peter Crouch's battle with Terry was absorbing - the reach and touch of those long legs against the sheer force of the Chelsea captain's will - while Gerrard and Frank Lampard both seized on any loose possession. Only in the directors' box did the comparison seem unfair - the old money of the personal fortune of the Liverpool chairman, David Moores, rendered measly compared with the £7.6bn Roman Abramovich banked yesterday for the sale of his oil company. Liverpool could take comfort from the absence of a significant contribution from either Damien Duff or Arjen Robben. In the first half, the Irishman was caught by an unpleasant studs-raised challenge from Garcia, not a midfield enforcer in anyone's book, but he failed to turn two lofted balls over the head of Djimi Traoré into meaningful attacks Similarly, Robben came to life just once, running at Sami Hyypia before stepping effortlessly past the centre-half and driving in a shot that Jose Reina did well to touch over the bar. Liverpool's best chance came on 19 minutes when Crouch headed down a cross into Hyypia's stride and the defender appeared to have been subjected to the slightest of trips by Didier Drogba as he miscued his shot. In the second half, Mourinho switched to a more orthodox 4-4-2 formation with the introduction of Hernan Crespo, but Chelsea found themselves clamped back in their own half and controlled in a manner that no other team has been able to force upon them this season. Xabi Alonso was outstanding in his distribution and managed one dangerous shot in the 82nd minute when Florent Sinama-Pongolle's cross was recycled to the Spanish midfielder on the edge of the area. The game's last act was Gerrard's free-kick over the bar. By then Liverpool were encamped in the Chelsea half and whether they can occupy the same territory come Sunday will have a serious effect on how this Premiership season unfolds. Liverpool (4-1-3-1-1): Reina; Finnan, Hyypia, Carragher, Traoré; Hamann; Garcia, Gerrard, Alonso; Cissé (Sinama-Pongolle, 7; Crouch. Substitutes not used: Carson (gk), Riise, Josemi, Warnock, Zenden, Potter. Chelsea (4-1-4-1): Cech; Ferreira, Carvalho, Terry, Gallas; Makelele; Robben (Wright-Phillips, 65), Lampard, Essien, Duff (Crespo, 75); Drogba (Huth, 90). Substitutes not used: Cudicini (gk), Cole, Geremi, Gudjohnsen. Referee: M De Santis (Italy). Man-for-man marking: How they rated at Anfield last night. By Glenn Moore Liverpool * JOSE REINA Flapped at Chelsea's first corner but brave punched clearance from Essien and decent save from Robben drive restored confidence. 6/10 * STEVE FINNAN Dealt so effectively with Robben's threat the Dutch flyer was substituted with 25 minutes remaining. 8 * SAMI HYYPIA Poor header gifted Lampard early chance but should immediately have won penalty when felled by Drogba. 6 * JAMIE CARRAGHER One lapse apart, he gave his customary sound defensive display and strong 55th-minute header might have brought a penalty when it struck Gallas's arm. 7 * DJIMI TRAORE Impressive in defence and on the ball. Snuffed out Duff and was untroubled by Wright-Phillips. 8 * DIETMAR HAMANN Competent if uninspiring. Held position well and proved a good foil for Alonso and Gerrard. 5 * LUIS GARCIA Anonymous for 51 minutes then eased past Ferreira but too easily tugged back. Reverted back into the shadows. 3 * STEVEN GERRARD Quiet by his usual standards. Makelele kept a close watch and a series of ankle taps may have dulled his edge. 5 * XABI ALONSO Caught in possession and booked after seven minutes. Thereafter classy as he switched the play. Never shirked a tackle despite yellow card, though perhaps lucky not to get another. 8 * DJIBRIL CISSE Utterly wasted on the flank where Gallas was equal to his pace. Withdrawn. 4. * PETER CROUCH Fine lay-off for Hyypia's penalty shout but otherwise well marshalled by Terry and Carvalho. 5 SUBSTITUTE * FLORENT SINAMA-PONGOLLE (for Cissé, 7 Little time to shine but turned Lampard beautifully to illustrate potential. Chelsea * PETR CECH Hard to judge as Liverpool so rarely penetrated defence. His composure always has a positive effect though. 6/10 * PAULO FERREIRA Escaped censure when he pulled back Garcia the one time he threatened to outwit him. Did not go forward often. 7 * RICARDO CARVALHO Committed a string of fouls but managed to avoid a yellow card. Otherwise good defensively. 6 * JOHN TERRY Missed header led to Hyypia penalty claim. Then impressive as ever as Crouch was kept well shackled. 7 * WILLIAM GALLAS Relieved at escaping punishment when his arm got in the way of Carragher's header. Had Cissé under control. 6 * CLAUDE MAKELELE Booked for clattering Gerrard. More careful after that but just as effective as England's action man was kept quiet. Distribution not as effective as usual. 7 * ARJEN ROBBEN Only once threatened, when he escaped full-backs to ghost by Hyypia, but he shot too close to Reina. Booked for dissent. 4 * FRANK LAMPARD Booked for poor challenge on Cissé. Quiet night and was outshone by Alonso. Embarrassingly beaten by Sinama-Pongolle late on. Poor free-kicks. 5 * MICHAEL ESSIEN A powerful presence but never remotely justified £24m fee. 6 * DAMIEN DUFF Wasted clever Drogba flick early on and it did not get any better. 3 * DIDIER DROGBA Willing but too often careless in possession and should have con-ceded a 20th-minute penalty. 3 SUBSTITUTES * SHAUN WRIGHT-PHILLIPS (for Robben, 65) Energetic, but little impact 5. * HERNAN CRESPO (for Duff, 75) Offside only time he saw ball. * ROBERT HUTH (for Drogba, 90) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sun: Liverpool 0 Chelsea 0 By SUN ONLINE REPORTER JOSE MOURINHO and Rafa Benitez will not care less - but this was another waste of 90 minutes. Two of the Premiership's best teams going head-to-head in a crunch Champions League match. But all we got was a repeat of last season's semi-final which was separated by a single goal over 180 minutes. What we would have done for a goal at Anfield... True, there was some thunderous challenges to excite the crowd. But Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso failed to live up to their reputations with a series of pot-shots that peppered the fans behind both goals. Mourinho and Benitez will both happily take the point which keeps them joint-top of Group G. But the abysmal display will only aid those complaining that football supporters are getting a poor return for their money. These sides face each other again in the league on Sunday - we can only hope they don't serve up another bore draw. They struggled to turn decent possession into anything of real substance in front of goal for the opening 45 minutes. Lampard's opening free-kick, after Alonso was cautioned for pulling Michael Essien, forced Jose Reina into a low save to his right. Gerrard and Lampard then exchanged inaccurate long shots, while Didi Hamann's inviting ball across the face of the Chelsea goal could not find a team-mate. Sami Hyypia went down in the box under pressure from Didier Drogba but referee Massimo de Santis waved away penalty appeals. Claude Makelele was next in the book after a foul on Gerrard before Alonso's curling cross tested Petr Cech. On 33 minutes the best chance of the game arrived for Arjen Robben who cut inside Hyypia before forcing Reina into a fingertip save over the bar. The second half did not provide much more in the way of goalmouth action although home fans believed they should have been awarded two penalties. First Luis Garcia's burst into the box was thwarted by Paulo Ferreira's tug on his arm. De Santis rightly waved away the appeals although Williams Gallas' handball from Jamie Carragher's header soon after should have been given. Robben and Lampard were both cautioned for careless tackles but the most dramatic incident of the half came when Carragher and Hyypia collided going for the same ball on the edge of the their own box. Damien Duff sensed a chance to pounce but Reina just managed to get his fingertips to the ball to clear the danger. Alonso twice tried his luck from distance in the final 15 minutes - his first effort well wide before Cech comfortably kept out his volley. Lampard and Gerrard summed up the night with another shot from distance apiece - which, you guessed it, missed their target comfortably. CHELSEA DREAM TEAM RATINGS PETR CECH HAD little to do but when called into action demonstrated why he is rated the best in the country. Composed. 7 PAULO FERREIRA STEADY, accomplished display but Liverpool’s lack of width made it a comfortable night for the Portuguese defender. 7 JOHN TERRY WILL not have an easier evening than this. With nobody to mark, he just did the tidying up when necessary. Booked. 8 RICARDO CARVALHO DID not have it all his own way as he man-marked Crouch but never looked in any serious difficulty. 7 WILLIAM GALLAS HAD Cisse in his pocket right from the start. Even matched French striker for pace, which not many are capable of. 8 CLAUDE MAKELELE AS ever, totally reliable protecting the Chelsea back four but he was kept busy by Gerrard. Booked. 8 MICHAEL ESSIEN A SUBDUED figure despite the big price tag. Drifted in and out of the game without making any real impression. 6 FRANK LAMPARD NOT at his commanding best but still had moments when he looked a real threat. Booked. 7 ARJEN ROBBEN ANOTHER Chelsea star unable to get into the game apart from a first-half effort that Reina tipped over. Booked. 6 DAMIEN DUFF DID not make the impact Chelsea were hoping for — much to Liverpool’s relief. Replaced after a quiet performance. 6 DIDIER DROGBA ALWAYS a nuisance but his histrionics did the big striker no favours. Went to ground far too easily. 7 SUBS: Wright-Phillips (Robben) 6, Crespo (Duff) 6, Huth (Drogba) 5. Not used: Cudicini, J Cole, Geremi, Gudjohnsen. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Telegraph: Lively Liverpool suffer stalemate By Henry Winter Liverpool (0) 0 Chelsea (0) 0 Liverpool won the Champions League final on penalties and last night should really have won this intriguing, if unfulfilling Group G tie on spot-kicks. Three times they appealed for legitimatelooking penalties but three times their pleas were ignored by the Italian referee, Massimo De Santis. Close contest: Djibril Cisse and William Gallas at Anfield If all draws are equal, this one seemed more equal for Chelsea. Away from home, and constantly under pressure from a fired-up Liverpool, Jose Mourinho's side were clearly delighted with the point and even brought on Robert Huth for Didier Drogba, centre-half for centre-forward late on as they shut up shop. Inevitably in a spat between the champions of Europe and the champions of England, few niceties were observed when loose balls were contested. Frank Lampard, John Terry, Claude Makelele and Xabi Alonso were all cautioned for nasty lunges. But the real offences, the penalty-box fouls on Sami Hyypia, Luis Garcia and then a hand-ball by William Gallas, went unpunished. Liverpool, who stay top of the group, take can take great pride from their performance, and their fans saluted Steven Gerrard and company at the final whistle, while deriding De Santis. South versus North, cash versus cachet, this absorbing collision of contrasting cultures unfolded into a fascinating tactical duel embodied in the battle between Makelele's defiance and Gerrard's adrenalin-fuelled ambition. As Liverpool kept a high line and a high tempo, as Gerrard kept running at Makelele, the hosts' enterprise made a mockery of Mourinho's belief that Benitez's side would sit deep and play on the counter. "They don't play with an open heart," insisted Mourinho as he walked into Anfield last night. "They wait for the opponents' mistake." Cautious? Liverpool? No chance here. Not with the Kop in full voice. Not with Gerrard so determined to pile into last night's visitors "because of the speculation about me and Chelsea for two years". With the outstanding Alonso and Didi Hamann the mobile holding men, Liverpool were set up tactically and temperamentally to flow forward. Gerrard played the advance clearing house behind the willowy and willing Peter Crouch while Garcia and Djibril Cisse attempted to insinuate themselves behind Chelsea's fleet full-backs. It was Mourinho's team who were prepared to wait and wait for a mistake, and they always exuded the menace of a breakaway goal. Following an Alonso foul, Lampard drilled in a free kick that Pepe Reina pushed away. Then Liverpool seized control, moving the ball around a pitch made perfect for passing football by a late-afternoon monsoon by the Mersey. Liverpool's commitment to attack saw Djimi Traore forsaking his left-back station after 16 minutes, gliding upfield and squeezing a good pass through to Gerrard. Liverpool's captain controlled the ball well but then, leaning back, lifted the ball badly over Petr Cech's bar. The force continued to be with the European champions, whose fans kept waving cardboard-and-foil models of the famous trophy at Roman Abramovich, Chelsea's smiling benefactor. Every art class in every Huyton and Croxteth school yesterday must have been taken over by boys making copies of the European Cup. Liverpool banner-makers had been typically busy as well, with one sign detailing the five European Cups won by Liverpool with the words "You Can Only Envy Us". But for the poor positioning of the referee, Liverpool should have had a penalty after 18 minutes when Drogba felled Hyypia from behind. Crouch screamed his disbelief at De Santis as the official ignored the offence. Nip and tuck, pace and parrying, neither side could find a way through. Chelsea have been constructed into a formidable machine by Mourinho, with the smoothest of midfield engines pumping through the industrious limbs and minds of Lampard, Makelele and Michael Essien. With Drogba struggling to win the physical battle against the stout-hearted Jamie Carragher, Chelsea lacked a high-class outlet, though Arjen Robben made inroads down the flanks. Racing on to one Lampard pass, Robben cut inside Hyypia and let fly venomously. Reina, reacting brilliantly, flicked the ball over into a relieved Kop. Liverpool's frustration with De Santis intensified after the break. Attacking the Kop, where legend had it they were so often awarded spot-kicks, they twice had appeals rejected by the Italian. First Paulo Ferreira appeared to pull back Garcia as he raced in on Cech. Then William Gallas clearly handled Carragher's header following a clever corner routine. With 17 minutes remaining, a mix-up between Carragher and Hyypia sent the ball skidding free across the Liverpool area. As Damien Duff darted in to exploit the mistake, Reina responded well, dashing out to flick the ball away. The moment encapsulated the night. Promise but no finish. Match details Liverpool (4-2-3-1): Reina; Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Traore; Hamann, Alonso; Cisse (Sinama-Pongolle 77), Gerrard, Garcia; Crouch. Subs: Carson (g), Riise, Josemi, Warnock, Zenden, Potter. Booked: Alonso. Chelsea (4-1-2-2-1): Cech; Ferreira, Carvalho, Terry, Gallas; Makelele; Essien, Lampard; Duff (Crespo, 74), Robben (Wright-Phillips, 64); Drogba (Huth, 90). Subs: Cudicini (g), J Cole, Geremi. Booked: Makelele, Lampard, Terry. Referee: M De Santis (Italy). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Times: The Times Chelsea given a helping hand By Matt Dickinson, Chief Football Correspondent THE rivalry between Chelsea and Liverpool is still a long way short of the malevolence between, say, Arsenal and Manchester United, but the more they face each other, the more they seem to be discovering that they do not like each other very much. Familiarity may not be breeding contempt, but after last night’s 0-0 draw in the Champions League at Anfield there was an accusation from Jamie Carragher that Chelsea lack dignity. The Liverpool defender had been riled by pre-match comments from José Mourinho and he was even more annoyed when he was denied a penalty after a clear handball by William Gallas “It was a definite penalty, a certain penalty,” Carragher said. “Before the game there was a lot of crying coming from their camp. They were crying about various things from last season and there were some sour grapes. But we have a little bit more dignity about this club than that and we will not cry too much about obvious decisions going against us.” Carragher was referring to Chelsea’s complaints after last season’s semi-final, when Mourinho argued that his team had been beaten by a phantom goal from Luis García. Last night he was the beneficiary of a large slice of good fortune in the first of several rematches, a feisty one, but there was never much hope of him holding up his hands and saying that luck had evened itself out. “I didn’t see it,” was all he would say of the 56th-minute incident when Gallas used an arm to block Carragher’s goal-bound header. Whether or not the ball would have ended up in the Chelsea net, it was a clear penalty. Liverpool’s immediate and vigorous protests suggested as much. Video replays bore them out. “It was clear and, watching the TV, it was unbelievable,” Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, said. “When you play against a big team, the small details are the difference. And that was a big detail.” He claimed that Gallas was fortunate not to have been sent off. Mourinho had said that the whole world was united against Chelsea and, after eight wins in a row this season, to see them chasing such an intense, high-tempo game would have been fascinating. As it was, they held on to a draw, but not with any comfort. Liverpool had played with dynamism and they will hope to provide a similarly rigorous test on Sunday, when Chelsea return in the Barclays Premiership. “We were better than them,” Ben ítez said. Although a draw was perfectly acceptable for both teams at kick-off, the history of last season, including the Carling Cup final and Steven Gerrard’s on-off transfer, dictated that there would be more to it than that. John Terry had admitted that he would feel a cold shiver walking back into the dressing-room where, five months ago, he had sat in tears after Chelsea’s failure to reach the Champions League final. It would, he said, be like returning to a room full of ghosts. There was no smiling, no chatting to Gerrard when the captains and England team-mates exchanged handshakes and when Frank Lampard injured Gerrard with a late tackle in the first half, the mood was set for a full- blooded, although frustratingly goalless, night. “It was a game for men,” Mourinho said. The players are developing a rivalry that could make life interesting if there is still something to play for when they meet at Stamford Bridge for the final match in group G in December. That seems unlikely as they sit tied at the top on four points, although Liverpool will believe that they should be outright leaders. They had two other claims to a penalty, but, on the day that Roman Abramovich put £5.1 billion into his savings account by selling his stake in Sibneft, the oil company, it seems that some guys have all the luck.

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The Sunday Times
Chelsea 2 Aston Villa 1: Lampard settles score for ChelseaRob Hughes at Stamford Bridge THE scoreline tells the truth. Chelsea were marginally better and the winners, albeit courtesy of a penalty 15 minutes from the end. But other statistics mask the performance: this win, their seventh in the seventh game of the new term, makes Chelsea the all-time best starters to a Premiership season. It also makes this Aston Villa team apparently the worst starters to a season in this division in their history. But statistics are bunkum because this was a tense and combative encounter, and it was not decided by the £200m of supposed extra value in blue, but by organisation, tenacity, fitness and hunger.
It is not Chelsea’s fault if this kind of mediocrity, or at least this pursuit of physical strength and organisation over entertainment, is running away with the Premiership.
The defeated manager, David O’Leary, praised the “character of the lads”, but said he did not buy into the thesis that sheer money and nothing else is transcending the Premiership.
“It’s down to the rest of us to take up the challenge that Chelsea have set,” he said.
That challenge, sadly, already has Manchester United 10 points adrift of Chelsea and Arsenal 11.
The interminable wait for somebody, anybody, to put the ball into the Chelsea net was finally over shortly before half-time. Poor Chelsea — which is a contradiction in terms. They were broken by a route one designer goal, very much on the principles that Jose Mourinho had built his five years in management, at Porto and Stamford Bridge.
It came after 44 minutes of chess football, high on work-rate but woefully low on improvisation. Villa goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen had made a routine save from a speculative 30-yard shot from Frank Lampard, waited for at least two men in claret and blue to get into the Chelsea half and then launched the ball out of his hands three-quarters of the length of the field.
Juan Pablo Angel directed his header from Sorensen’s clearance down into the penalty area and towards Luke Moore. Moore, a teenager schooled in the Villa academy and usually waiting for one of the foreigners to pull a muscle, had had a torrid time, being beaten in the air and on the ground by the force, the timing and the experience of John Terry. But this time young Moore’s perseverance paid off.
Terry if anything tackled with such venom that he caught not only the ball but also his teammate Paulo Ferreira. The two defenders fell to earth, the ball spun just a few feet away to the left and Moore, scarcely believing his luck, was quickly to it and from an acute angle produced a shot that beat Petr Cech, even though the goalkeeper got a hand to it.
The ball nestled inside the far post and The Sun newspaper, which had promised £10,000 to the first player to score against Chelsea this season, will be required to pay up.
Alas, for those who hoped that Chelsea might at last be about to be tested in nerve as well as skill, barely one minute elapsed before Villa had tossed away their hard-won advantage.
Lampard lined up a free kick 25 yards out, the defensive wall was inept and inadequate, and the England midfielder has scored more difficult free kick goals on the training ground.
With his right foot, Lampard stroked the ball through a yawning gap to the left of the wall, and straight through it went, beyond the unsighted, immobile Sorensen.
Before that? Organised tedium. Chelsea had appealed for a penalty when Gareth Barry tackled Terry in the area, but despite the histrionics by Mourinho which ignited a mass and mocking chorus from 40,000 who follow every move the puppeteer makes from the touchline, referee Barry Knight was unmoved.
There would be one more opportunity for Villa, squandered by Angel who, on the half-volley, missed the target from the edge of the penalty area. Very soon after that, Mourinho lost patience with his team and, with barely an hour gone, made all of his three substitutions.
It injected some urgency, not least because the darting Shaun Wright-Phillips was infinitely more “up for it” than Arjen Robben, whose sole contribution had been to draw a yellow card for a dive. Damien Duff, after 70 minutes, forced a reflex save from Sorensen and five minutes later the game was won and lost. Wright-Phillips began the move, Lampard took his pass and threaded the ball through the middle, and Didier Drogba, all menacing muscularity, stole a yard on Olof Mellberg.
The bearded Villa captain tried to tackle from behind but missed the ball. Drogba sprawled over Mellberg’s leg and a penalty was the only possible outcome. Lampard thrashed it into the net.
Villa were beaten, and their supporters chimed up with a pitiable chorus of “That’s why you’re champions!”
STAR MAN: John Terry (Chelsea)
Player ratings. Chelsea: Cech 6, Ferreira 6, Terry 7, Carvalho 6 (Wright-Phillips 57min, 6), Gallas 6, Makelele 7, Duff 5, Lampard 7, Essien 6, Robben 4 (Gudjohnsen 62min, 6), Crespo 5 (Drogba 62min, 5)
Aston Villa: Sorensen 6, Hughes 6, Mellberg 5, Ridgewell 7, Bouma 5 (Djemba-Djemba 73min, 5), Milner 5, Davis 7, Barry 6 (Hendrie 85min, 4), Berger 5 (Samuel 67min, 5), Moore 6, Angel 6
Scorers: Chelsea: Lampard 45, 75 pen
Aston Villa: Moore 44
Referee: B Knight
Attendance: 42,146
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People:
FOOTBALL: FRANK YOU & GOODNIGHT Chealsea 2 Aston Villa 1 Lamps snuffs out title race after Blues concede shock goal Frank Wiechula THE TEAM that had forgotten what it was like to concede a goal remembered just in time exactly why they are champions.
And Frank Lampard - the goalscoring heartbeat of Jose Mourinho's imperious outfit - weighed in with another dynamic double to extend Chelsea's mammoth lead over their chief rivals at the top of the Premiership.
Critics had vilified Chelsea, and the top division as a whole, for boring, safety-first football, but after this 90 minutes of theatre we want Moore, Moore, Moore.
Villa youngster Luke Moore had the temerity to breach Chelsea's Fort Knox defence - the first goal Blues had conceded all season - but that merely woke them from their slumbers.
Lampard popped up for a quick-fire equaliser and then coolly fired home a second-half penalty to make it seven straight wins for the champions.
Lamps is really lighting up Chelsea's season - again. Slow to recapture the form that made him player of the season last term, the England midfielder is now back to his best.
The victory means Chelsea have beaten Newcastle's record start to the 1994-95 season. And at this rate bookies will be paying out on a Chelsea title triumph by Christmas.
Counting the victory over Arsenal in the Community Shield, and the Champions League triumph over Anderlecht, Blues have now registered nine straight wins - a club record.
So who cares whether they let a goal in for the first time since an own goal from Geremi in May?
Villa striker Moore was the man who gave fresh hope, if only fleetingly, to the rest of the Premiership by breaching that seemingly impregnable Chelsea rearguard.
There were just 90 seconds left before the break when Villa keeper Thomas Sorensen's long kick was nodded on by Juan Pablo Angel.
Moore picked up the ball and Chelsea skipper John Terry initially made a fine tackle on him.
But Moore got a second bite when Chelsea right-back Paulo Ferreira fell over and collided with Terry.
With both Blues men on the deck Moore, from a tight angle, turned and shot and although Petr Cech got a hand to it, he couldn't prevent the ball going into the net.
Manager David O'Leary and the rest of the Villa bench jumped for joy as if they'd won a cup final. But the joy was short-lived. Less than a minute later Chelsea's Michael Essien won a free-kick on the edge of the box and up stepped Mr Dependable Lampard to curl in a low right-foot leveller.
Sorensen will be mad when he sees how the right-hand side of Villa's defensive wall - namely Patrik Berger and Angel - appeared to dissolve.
It was a frantic finish to a half which had begun quietly, although both Chelsea new boy Essien and Lampard had gone close in that opening spell.
Mourinho looked stunned when flying winger Arjen Robben was booked for diving by referee Barry Knight after the Dutchman's ankles were clipped on a typically mazy 16th-minute run into the box.
Other officials may well have pointed to the spot. Soon afterwards Mourinho was even more incensed when skipper Terry had his legs taken just inside the Villa penalty area.
England centre-half Terry, who'd collected Robben's pass, was shaping to shoot right-footed when Gareth Barry intervened from behind. The TV replays showed Chelsea had a strong case for a penalty but referee Knight waved play on.
That decision left Mourinho leaping up and down on the touchline as if he'd been attacked by a swarm of bees.
After being stung by Villa's opener and then equalising, Chelsea spurned several fine opportunities after the restart. Defender William Gallas headed a fine chance over from Robben's free-kick and sub Didier Drogba should have done better with a 67th-minute header from Ferreira's cross.
It was mostly one-way traffic and Sorensen did well to tip over from Damien Duff on 70 minutes.
But Drogba's strength and persistence paid dividends with just under a quarter of an hour to go when, from Lampard's clever chipped ball, the big striker burst into the box.
Villa captain Olof Mellberg was all over Drogba like a cheap suit and not even Knight could fail to award the spot-kick. Sorensen has gained a reputation for saving penalties - 11 of the last 15 he's faced have been fluffed - but not for a minute did you doubt Lampard would convert for his fifth goal of the season.
With Manchester United losing at home to Blackburn, and Arsenal and Liverpool both dropping points away from home, Chelsea have now put daylight between themselves and the rest. As short as 1-4 with bookies to retain their title before kick-off yesterday, they will be virtually unbackable now.
And if they beat Liverpool at Anfield next week it's surely goodnight Vienna for the rest. There's still a week before September is out but already they're all playing for second place. First place? It's already been wrapped up.
CHELSEA: Cech 7 - Ferreira 6, Gallas 6, Carvalho 6 (Wright-Phillips 57mins, 6), Terry 7 - Duff 6, Essien 6, *LAMPARD 8, Makelele 6, Robben 6 (Gudjohnsen 62mins, 6) - Crespo 5 (Drogba 57mins, 5).
ASTON VILLA: *SORENSEN 7 - Hughes 6, Bouma 6 (Djemba-Djemba 73mins, 5), Ridgewell 7, Mellberg 7 - Milner 6, Davis 7, Barry 6 (Hendrie 85mins), Berger 6 (Samuel 67mins, 6) - Moore 7, Angel 6. Ref: B Knight 6.
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Observer:
Wake and smell the coffee - Chelsea are entertaining
Will Buckley at Stamford BridgeSunday September 25, 2005The Observer
While it is difficult to feel sympathy for Chelsea FC - other than congratulating them for demonstrating to so many people who once voted for Thatcher the iniquities inherent upon unfettered capitalism - times are hard on their fans.They wait half a century to win the league, do so in some style, and are promptly informed they've ruined the game. Last season, Arsenal put together an unbeaten run and were hailed as the The Incredibles. This season Chelsea compile a better record and are called The Intolerables. It is a thin line between success and success.
Football, meanwhile, is a victim of its own excess.
The extent of the malaise illustrated by the fact that adherents had to point to the Carling Cup second round to show the game was in rude health. Which is rather like a supporter of the British Empire muttering 'Gibraltar' into his brandy.
The majority, however, feel the game is ailing. So ill, indeed, as to be almost unwatchable. Was it possible to stay awake for an entire Chelsea match? I resolved to do my best.
The opening five minutes were quiet, dangerously quiet. The game looked very 1-0.
On seven minutes Michael Essien stampeded through on the right and Thomas Sorensen nearly fumbled an easy save. On nine minutes nifty work from Arjen Robben set up a rather hesitant Frank Lampard.
Time passed. Robben was booked for diving. Jose Mourinho took to his feet and stayed there, perhaps he too was having difficulty staying awake. His system was so nearly right, but whatever was slightly wrong was sufficient to make it malfunction. And the suspicion was that the flaw in the machine was Lampard. Passes are going awry, runs are being mistimed, fatherhood has unbalanced him.
When Aston Villa attacked, which was rarely, they were offside.
Your correspondent was then nearly hit on the head by a miscued clearance. Just the jolt that was needed to make it through the tricky half-hour mark. Ricardo Carvalho to Hernan Crespo to Damien Duff. A extraordinary one-touch move conducted at such pace that the deftness of the artistry on show was disguised. But the shot went wide.
John Terry might have had a penalty. The home crowd awoke to shout abuse at referee Barry Knight. It was like a football match again. More poor refereeing and this staying awake would be a doddle. Maybe that's what the game needs - a bunch of David Ellerays.
What it got, and this was even more astonishing, was a goal from Luke Moore, who snaked through a sleeping Chelsea central defence and wriggled the ball past Petr Cech. What a sharpener.
It certainly had an effect on Lampard, who had obviously decided to wait for someone to score against his team before deigning to start his season.
In the 45th minute he was curling a free-kick into the net. And he should have made it two in the two minutes of added time but duffed his volley wide. After the goal-caffeine-nicotine rush the second half did not appear to present a problem.
William Gallas should have scored early on. Juan Pablo Angel might have taken advantage of sloppy Chelsea defending.
By replacing Carvalho with Shaun Wright-Philips and asking Essien to fill in as an ultra attacking left-back, Mourinho opened the game up. The gamble nearly paid off when Didier Drogba headed just over and, with the cards re-jigged, Chelsea were electrifying. Duff had an effort palmed over. The indomitable Essien popped up everywhere. Their efforts were rewarded with a penalty after Olof Mellberg fouled Drogba. Lampard scored. And for the rest of the match Chelsea played high-tempo perfect pitch football.
The gap at the top is bigger than ever and the top team have found their rhythm. It might be predictable, but it isn't boring.
Man of the match: Michael Essien - Indomitable in any position. Better for this team than Gerrard
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Telegraph:
Chelsea asked questions but come up with answers By Patrick Barclay at Stamford Bridge
Chelsea (1) 2 Aston Villa (1) 1
David O'Leary had promised to take Chelsea on and "ask questions'' of them. Aston Villa, responding to what you might call the Chris Tarrant style of management, did just as he requested of them and the champions' search for the answers proved entertaining. In the end, Jose Mourinho had to ask the audience - if his bench could be thus described - and one of three substitutes, Didier Drogba, duly earned the penalty that continued Chelsea's perfect start to the season.
Perfect, that is, in terms of each of their seven matches being won. They did let in a goal, the 20-year-old Luke Moore vindicating O'Leary's decision to pick him by putting Villa in front, albeit briefly, before the interval.
It had been 756 minutes since an opponent - Ruud van Nistelrooy - breached Chelsea in the Premiership, though Geremi's own-goal at Newcastle had come 88 minutes later, in the concluding match of last season. Frank Lampard cushioned some of the shock by equalising with a free-kick and it was Lampard who also hit the winner from the spot.
But Villa left with credit. All the talk had been fatalism in the Premiership, of teams arriving at Stamford Bridge bent on damage-limitation through caution. O'Leary got the balance right and there was no shame in an outcome decided by the difference in class between his resources and those of Mourinho, as demonstrated by the latter's use of substitutes who cost £50 million.
Lacking Milan Baros, who had been injured during the 8-3 victory at Wycombe Wanderers in the Carling Cup last midweek, O'Leary brought in Moore and went at Chelsea with two strikers. Moore and Juan Pablo Angel were under instruction that one should always pick up Claude Makelele in front of the back four. It was an attempt to disrupt Chelsea's rhythm - and it worked. For seven minutes. While Chelsea were warming up.
Villa did well not to lose heart during the ensuing phase, beginning with a burst of Michael Essien. The Ghanaian - surely the ultimate box-to-box player - needed a bit of help and smoothly it came as William Gallas, John Terry and Lampard eased the ball out of defence, Lampard feeding Arjen Robben, on to whose pass Essien, having covered half the pitch, strode. Thomas Sorensen required two touches to tame his shot.
Essien helped Lampard to earn a corner before rising to the kick and heading wide. While Chelsea's support were admiring the £24 million newcomer from Lyon, the travellers could only watch anxiously. Little or nothing stuck to Moore or Angel at this stage. Villa's mundane efforts to relieve the pressure on their defence with forward balls merely gave Chelsea a supply that Mourinho's men were quick to exploit. A fine example of this came when Ricardo Carvalho brought the ball down and struck it long for Hernan Crespo, whose backheeled flick let Damien Duff edge in front of Wilfred Bouma, where he stayed until Bouma's dogged attentions contributed to an inaccurate shot. Though the finish might have been better, the move had been direct football of the highest quality.
Against this, Villa did muster a glimmer of a chance, after Paulo Ferreira had failed to cut out Gareth Barry's pass down the line, but, although Angel seized upon the ball and crossed early for Moore, the youngster was stifled by Terry's tackle as he shot. Same old Chelsea, we thought. Yet their reputation for impregnability was only minutes from destruction. Sorensen cleared long, Angel rose to win the aerial challenge and Moore, reacting quicker than any of three surrounding defenders after Carvalho had tackled him, wheeled to shoot; Petr Cech got a hand to the ball but could not keep it out.
If only Villa could have preserved their lead to the interval. They had two minutes to survive. But in such situations it is unhelpful to concede a free-kick a few yards outside your penalty area, as Liam Ridgewell did in fouling Essien, especially if it is in a central position, and even more so when Lampard is available to take it. The England midfielder had already brought a smart save from Sorensen with one of these - only 30 seconds before Villa scored - and he went one better with a drive that, compounding Villa's culpability, went through the wall.
The floodgates, though, stayed closed and, 11 minutes into the second half, Mourinho made changes, sending on Drogba for Crespo and Shaun Wright-Phillips for Carvalho, the latter switch directing Duff to left-back. He was there for a mere six minutes. After Eidur Gudjohnsen had replaced the limping Robben and Mourinho opted for 4-4-2, the role fell to Essien. But Chelsea persisted and got their reward Drogba turned on Lampard's chip too nimbly for Olof Mellberg and Barry Knight gave the decisive penalty.
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Independent;
Chelsea 2 Aston Villa 1 Lampard weaves his magic to set a new Blue standard By Jason Burt at Stamford Bridge Published: 25 September 2005 Chelsea are the spider. They suck teams in, let them expend their energy as they get caught in the web - and then kill them off. Here they got tangled up themselves against an Aston Villa side who would not bite on that. Not one bit.
In the end it was the sheer belligerence and astonishing desire of Chelsea that won through with two goals from the relentless Frank Lampard earning a seventh straight Premiership victory - and with it a record at the start of a campaign, surpassing the six wins of Newcastle United in 1994. In addition they earned a club record of nine consecutive victories.
For once there was no clean sheet with the impressive Luke Moore, after 43 minutes and 20 seconds, becoming the first player to beat Petr Cech this season. The defeat was tough on Villa, especially as they had taken the lead. It also consigned them to their worst-ever start in the Premiership.
Their manager, David O'Leary, summed up the thoughts of everyone. "Did Manchester United get beat today?" he asked. "And Arsenal draw. What a beautiful day for Chelsea." Is there any way they can be stopped? "They would have to lose a lot of players and Mr Abramovich go skint in January," he said.
O'Leary's comments were the only ones offered to the press. Even though this was Jose Mourinho's fifth anniversary since he became a manager, an arrestingly short period of time given his amazing achievements, he would not speak outside the television studio. His self-imposed, whipped-up temporary vow of omerta - because he feels he has been misrepresented - does not do any favours. But it may just fuel that passion in his players. And he knows that.
There were his programme notes and he weighed into the debate about football's value - at a time when Chelsea are apologising for over-charging. "Entertainment is about two things," Mourinho wrote with disdain. "It's about quality of the game, and about competitiveness. If a game is 8-0, is this a beautiful game? Not for me."
By the same token he probably wrinkled his nose at Villa's 8-3 Carling Cup victory over Wycombe Wanderers while O'Leary himself weighed in with "my mentality is in no way to let everyone go out there and have a go and win 6-5 and all that crap". Fair enough, although O'Leary was a bit more thoughtful in saying of Chelsea's supremacy: "It's not their fault. It is down to the rest of us to take the challenge to them."
And to his credit, Villa did. With two strikers - despite the absence of Milan Baros and Kevin Phillips - they came to win. Mourinho, speaking to television later, acknowledged as much. "It's a difficult game to celebrate," he said. "It was a difficult game. They defended well but they did not come to defend. They came to play."
It took Chelsea time to wrestle possession and when they did there was a powerful shot from that bull of a player Michael Essien, which he followed up with a header while Damien Duff latched on to a punt forward. He was probably fouled in the area by Wilfred Bouma before shooting. A sense of injustice was heightened when Gareth Barry appeared to clip John Terry's heels. Again no penalty.
Moore then struck. He ran on to a flick-on from Juan Pablo Angel and as Terry challenged, and Paulo Ferreira slipped, and Cech ran from goal, only then to hesitate, Moore was a cool-hand Luke and rattled his shot into the net. Everyone was stunned. Unfortunately, so were Villa.
A free-kick was immediately won by Chelsea and Angel turned to sinner by breaking from the wall, lifting his foot and allowing Lampard's low shot to beat Thomas Sorensen. "The biggest thing is that it's not easy to score against them but we did not ask the question long enough by holding on to the lead," said O'Leary. Indeed, Chelsea levelled in first-half injury time.
After the break Chelsea pressed. William Gallas, unmarked, headed over while Duff half-volleyed a snap-shot which Sorensen tipped away. Mourinho, who throughout the contest had demanded greater tempo, and showed increased irritation, decided to shake it up. He shuffled his pack. On came Shaun Wright-Phillips, with first Duff, and then Essien, going to left-back. It looked chaotic, with Arjen Robben limping off with an apparent dead leg which may rule him out of the Champions' League tie against Liverpool.
Into that confusion finally stepped the substitute Didier Drogba, on for the ineffective Hernan Crespo. He burst through, and was caught by Olof Mellberg. This time it was a penalty. O'Leary protested that Eidur Gudjohnsen had handled in the build-up but Lampard, with that unerring manner of his, slammed the penalty into the corner of the net. Once more the spider had snared its prey. But, this time, only just.

sunday papers charlton away

sunday times:
Charlton 0 Chelsea 2: Robben fires up ChelseaJoe Lovejoy at The Valley CHARLTON made them work hard for 54 goalless minutes, but Chelsea then scored twice in quick succession to maintain their 100% start to the season and extend their lead at the top of the Premiership to six points. Alan Curbishley's team, assembled at a tiny fraction of the cost of Jose Mourinho's all-stars, were also unbeaten at the kick-off, but they were second best throughout, and can have no complaint with the scoreline, which barely does justice to Chelsea's superiority.
Hernan Crespo and William Gallas both rapped Stephan Andersen's uprights with the goalkeeper beaten, and another goal or two would not have flattered the defending champions unduly. As it was, they were happy to settle for the two scored in the space of five second-half minutes by Crespo, with what we used to call a typically British centre-forward's header, and a delightful curler from the 18-yard line from Arjen Robben.
After that, there was no way back for Charlton — not against a defence that has now gone nearly 10 hours without leaking a Premiership goal. The exact figure is 597 minutes, and for those of statistical bent, Chelsea are now unbeaten in 35 League games. With six clean sheets, they have established a new record start to a season in the top flight.
On Friday, Mourinho had called Charlton a "medium", rather than big club, which some at The Valley had interpreted as an ill-disguised euphemism for ordinary, and he was deemed to have added insult to injury by forecasting that Chelsea would finish 20 to 30 points ahead of them at the end of the season. Nobody was arguing last night.
For his part, Curbishley said Roman Abramovich's financial muscle was bad for English football. Small wonder the conversation between them was brief when Mourinho made a pre-match presentation to his opposite number to mark his 600 League matches in charge at Charlton.
As befits a star-studded line-up threatening to run away with the League again, Chelsea were confident and briskly assertive from the start, and their cohesive authority was such that they had created four decent chances before the game was 20 minutes old.
The best of these saw Crespo, sent through the middle by Michael Essien, run on with pace and purpose, only for his shot, from near the penalty spot, to hit the base of Andersen's left-hand upright. Chelsea were to hit a post again, after 48 minutes, when Frank Lampard's corner from the left reached the far post, where Gallas, at close range, could only bundle the ball against the upright.
Earlier, Lampard's goalbound volley was deflected wide and Crespo's 20-yarder brought a sprawling save from Andersen, who was then happy to parry another strong drive, this time from Robben. Charlton struggled to get out of their own half.
Andersen distinguished himself with a late positional adjustment to save a deflected free kick from Lampard, but the keeper had no chance with the majestic header with which Crespo belatedly brought some sense to the scoreline.
Fifty-four one-sided minutes had elapsed when Radostin Kishishev was hustled out of possession by Essien, whose lofted, angled pass enabled the Argentinian striker, leaping near the penalty spot, to nod the ball powerfully into Andersen's top left corner. Like buses after a long wait, the goals came two together, and Robben soon increased the lead, stroking home a lovely left-footer from the 18-yard line.
Chelsea were home and dry, and would have had a third, from Shaun Wright-Phillips, but for Andersen.
Like so many others, Curbishley was much impressed with Chelsea's all-round strength. "Seeing them at first hand, they're so powerful that they go into games believing that if they score, that's it," he said. "They are so disciplined, powerful and organised that their opponents have got to play as well as they can and then still hope for a bit of luck."
Unsurprisingly, he identified Manchester United and Arsenal as the two teams with the potential to compete. "The trouble is, this season Chelsea seem to have moved on again, and they're saying, 'This is the level we're at, this is what we do, it's up to you to catch up'." Don't hold your breath.
STAR MAN: John Terry (Chelsea) Player ratings. Charlton: Andersen 7, Young 6, Perry 7, Hreidarsson 6, Powell 6 (Spector 70min, 6), Rommedahl 6, Kishishev 6 (Holland 67min, 6), Murphy 7, Hughes 6, Thomas 6 (Ambrose 67min, 6), Bent 6 Chelsea: Cech 7, Ferreira 6, Carvalho 6, Terry 8, Gallas 6, Makelele 7, Duff 6 (Wright-Phillips 63min, 6), Lampard 7, Essien 7, Robben 7 (J Cole 79min, 6), Crespo 7 (Drogba 67min, 6)
Scorers: Chelsea: Crespo 55, Robben 60
Referee: H Webb
Attendance: 27,111
Chelsea set record with 2-0 victory
CHELSEA showed a clean pair of heels to the rest of the Premiership yesterday, establishing a six-point lead and a record start to the season with a 2-0 win at second-place Charlton,writes Jim Munro. The defending champions have won all six of their Premiership games without conceding a goal, those successive clean sheets from the start of the season setting a new mark in English football's top flight. Jose Mourinho's men now have eyes on Tottenham's longest winning sequence from the beginning of a season, 11 games, set when the First Division was the premier competition in 1960-61. Second-half goals from Hernan Crespo and Arjen Robben secured an entertaining victory, after which Mourinho's No 2, Steve Clarke, replied in dour fashion when asked why he thought some critics label the west London club as boring to watch.
"We don't think about it. It doesn't mystify us, we ignore it," said Clarke. "Ask our supporters if they are happy."
He also responded brusquely when it was suggested that Chelsea's highly-paid squad is only motivated by the size of the wage packets. "Money doesn't come into it," he said. "The players are all top professionals who want to win everything."
It was a day on which the stattos will have been sharpening their pencils with delight: Chelsea have now dropped just 12 points from a last possible 105, while midfielder Frank Lampard made his 152nd consecutive League appearance. That set a Premiership record for an outfield player and moved him within seven games of the overall record held by goalkeeper David James, established with Liverpool in the 1990s.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Observer:
Crespo leads Blues on march
Amy Lawrence at The Valley Sunday September 18, 2005The Observer
That's entertainment? Chelsea purport not to care but nobody in their right minds wouldn't prefer a touch of class to be added to the perfunctory demand for job done. If the rest of the Premiership consoled themselves that Chelsea have been unappealing in their triumphs thus far this season, the bad news is they won handsomely enough here.Their 100 per cent record goes on - at the expense of Charlton's - and there were positive displays from an attack in which scorers Hernan Crespo and Arjen Robben and creators Damien Duff and Michael Essien looked sharp and inventive for longer periods than they previously managed this campaign.
At the other end, the foundation stones were as unshakeable as ever. Six games without being breached represents the most miserly start to a Premiership campaign.
When will someone dare to have a go at Chelsea? When their closest challengers, who are at home, scarcely dare offer too many men in support of their lone striker it's difficult to see how the veneer of invincibility around their rearguard will be scratched. The in-form Darren Bent didn't have a sniff all afternoon.
It's a state of the football nation that shifting tickets for a duel between the top two, with Charlton relishing their finest start to a season and Chelsea reigning champions, should have proved such hard work. The 'Sold Out' signs only went up two days before the game.
Peter Varney, chief executive at The Valley, outlined strong concerns about 'warning signs' for the Premiership.
Pertinently, with Jose Mourinho's side popping in, Varney added it isn't just about money. 'Fear of failure and negative play must not take over. Football is an entertainment industry,' he said in his programme notes.
That's not, as we know, a philosophy shared by Chelsea's results-obsessed manager but they started adventurously enough here.
But Charlton held their ground, kept their nerve and tried not to get too riled by the maverick wide men, Robben and Duff, who switched and zipped and occasionally went theatrically to ground.
Just as Charlton began to settle, they were oh so close to being unstitched on the counterattack when on 20 minutes Chelsea should have taken the lead.
Radostin Kishishev lost the plot and the ball - not for the first time - inexplicably gifting it to Michael Essien. The Ghana midfielder reacted brilliantly, releasing Crespo in a flash. The Argentina striker bore down on goal and Charlton braced themselves to go behind. To their relief, though, Crespo's drive rebounded off the base of the post. A monumental let off.
Having hung in there, Charlton slowly found the confidence to press on.
They needed a spark to raise the tempo, and it came from Danny Murphy. His determined run to the edge of the penalty area might not have been perfect - he missed the opportunity to provide Bent with some rare service - but it quickened the pulse and got the crowd going. Dennis Rommedahl then took up the baton when he whipped a shot just wide.
Charlton had a feeling familiar to all Premiership teams - the bewilderment that comes with hitting the brick wall that is Chelsea's defence. John Terry excelled himself as usual. It may have been a trick of the eye but it did look suspiciously like he was the only man on the pitch who ever won a header, so persistent was his aerial dominance.
Chelsea came out strong in the second half.
William Gallas scrambled a corner against a post just after the restart, and then, when Chris Powell switched off, Crespo pounced and Andersen kept Charlton in the game.
Parity didn't last long, however. Chelsea disappeared over the horizon with two goals in five minutes.
The breakthrough came when Kishishev lost possession for the third time in a dangerous area and Essien lobbed the ball onto Crespo, whose finish was clinical.
Robben then seized the moment to score with a touch of finesse. Receiving the ball on the edge of the box from Duff, he jinked into enough space to find room to bend the ball into the far corner. A picture book strike from the Dutchman.
'That's why we're champions,' sang the visiting Chelsea supporters. Well, that and - even more crucially - the small matter of a defence which seldom concedes a chance, never mind a goal.
MAN OF THE MATCH
Hernan Crespo A classier customer than the powerhouse with whom he rotates, Didier Drogba, Crespo led Chelsea's line with authority, intelligence and coolness. Having hit a post early on when he should have scored, his temperament was undamaged. The killer instinct lurks constantly and he took his goal ruthlessly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------telegraph:
Reality bites for Charlton as Chelsea set record paceBy Roy Collins at The Valley (Filed: 18/09/2005)
In pics: Premiership action
Charlton (0) 0 Chelsea (0) 2
Champions Chelsea again embossed a facile Premiership victory with an entry into the record books, which is becoming such a familiar occurrence that they might soon need to recruit BBC Test Match Special cricket statistician Bill Frindall to log them all. The Beeb would surely agree to release him for, say, £24 million, the going rate for Chelsea imports, and call it £60,000-a-week for Frindall.
Flying high: Chelsea's Arjen Robben celebrates his winner Chelsea, while scarcely breaking sweat and not yet into their full stride, are simply too good for 99 per cent of their rivals, which looks like making it not just a long season for those with increasingly diminished ambitions of seizing their title but a tedious one for everyone else.
In any other season, an encounter between the only two Premiership clubs entering the second month of the season guarding 100 per cent records would have been a mouth-watering prospect. But if the end-of-season table never lies, the early-season ones are full of half truths and white lies and the Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, was only being honest, if untactful, when pointing out beforehand that second-placed Charlton would finish 30-odd points behind his team.
If the match crackled with expectation on paper, there was a depressing inevitability about it in reality. As valiantly as Charlton toiled for an hour, as willingly and unselfishly as they ran, one was always left wondering just when one of Chelsea's multi-million-pound imports, Hernan Crespo, Claude Makelele or Michael Essien, would produce that bit of magic.
Sharing that thought were the players and the manager of Charlton, Alan Curbishley, all of whom would have been invited to partake in a lap of honour had they managed to hold Chelsea to a goalless draw. The chances of that happening were scuppered in five second-half minutes when Chelsea calmly put this match to bed for their sixth successive win. First, Essien capitalised on the indecisiveness of Radostin Kishishev to deliver a cross that Crespo headed in, then Arjen Robben angled a peach of a shot into the top corner on the hour.
In the course of victory, Chelsea equalled the Premiership record of six straight wins at the start of a season, achieved by Newcastle United in 1994-95, although Mourinho's men have done it without conceding a goal - a new record. They can now set their sights on surpassing the best top-flight start in English football history, 11 wins by Tottenham Hotspur in the 1960-61 season. Chelsea are also only 14 games from equalling Arsenal's record of 49 Premiership games unbeaten; given the belief and arrogance in their camp, they will doubtless also fancy themselves not just to equal Arsenal's feat of going though the whole season unbeaten but doing so without conceding.
Mourinho annoyed some Charlton fans before kick-off by referring to their side as a "medium club", the verbal equivalent of patting a willing but inferior junior on the head. In truth, he was elevating the station of a club who have been too modest about their achievements and too restricted in their ambitions.
In their previous five seasons in the Premiership, they have set their sights only on avoiding relegation and have consistently switched off once that has been comfortably achieved. So it is as well that they are now daring to talk about a top-six finish since, after their flying start to the season, they could have expected to be in holiday mode by Boxing Day.
Charlton certainly did not need to drain the hop fields of Kent or bus in fans from adjoining London boroughs to fill the Valley for this one, their perfect start of four wins encouraging a full house of 27,111 to believe that they could give the champions a game, if not a bloody nose.
Curbishley said that his players have long since lost the fear factor when having the Premiership aristocracy around for tea, but there was a feeling that they were overdoing the bowing and scraping when allowing Chelsea to dominate with long periods of casual possession early on, one 20-odd touch passing movement almost ending with a sting in the tail when Frank Lampard volleyed wide.
Darren Bent and Jerome Thomas combined to give goakeeper Petr Cech an anxious moment, but when Essien muscled Kishishev off the ball and hurried it forward to Crespo, only the post saved Chalrton.
There is indeed a "medium" club feel to Charlton, particularly when they run out not to some ear-splitting rock number but to the gentle strains of When the Red, Red Robin goes bob, bob bobbing … though some of us find that more appealing than the brash, new money vulgarity of Roman Abramovich's Chelsea.
But the Blues are not to be denied at the moment, beginning the season at an even more cracking pace than last time. Already, their so-called rivals are relying on them suffering the mythical blip.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Independent:
Chelsea: League of their own
Curbishley's concerns over the great divide are brought home as Chelsea untouchables stretch their lead to six points By Mark Burton
All over before the Autumnal Equinox? Surely not... but it would be more promising for those intent on stopping Chelsea from retaining their title if someone could at least score against them. Charlton Athletic tried and failed yesterday, losing 2-0 at home to goals by Hernan Crespo and Arjen Robben as Chelsea brushed aside their nearest rivals to move six points clear at the top.
If it was Robben who offered a glimspe of hope to the chasing pack by becoming, along with Ricardo Carvalho and now Joe Cole, one of the Stamford Bridge dissidents who dared to question Jose Mourinho's management of his hugely talented squad, then it was the Dutchman yesterday who slammed the door on Charlton's hopes of slowing Chelsea's progress. Damien Duff - Cole's chief rival for a role on the left of midfield - set up Robben and he deftly made it 2-0 with a curling shot that virtually assured that Chelsea would finish the day with six victories out of six.
Charlton and their manager, Alan Curbishley, at least had some satisfaction in holding the champions in the first half. They finally surrendered 11 minutes after the interval when Radostin Kishishev lost the ball and Michael Essien chipped a pass that Crespo headed home.
The goal - and the match - underlined Curbishley's fears that the Premiership will become uncompetitive if Chelsea continue to move for the best players available, saying that the Stamford Bridge club's near- successful attempt to lure Steven Gerrard away from Liverpool, the newly-crowned European champions, was breathtaking. Essien was signed late this summer for £24.4m while Crespo was acquired in August 2003 for £16.8m, loaned out to Milan last season as surplus to requirements, but brought back this summer. After the second goal went in, Mourinho brought on £45m-worth of substitutes in Didier Drogba and Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Steve Clarke, Mourinho's assistant, made it all sound so matter of fact. "There's no comfortable victories in the Premier League," he said. "The first half was an even game. At half-time we had a little word with the lads and asked them to step up a gear - and I think it showed in the second half that we were on top. When you know you're in the ascendancy, you have to kill the game at that moment - and we did that."
Curbishley was resigned to the outcome, albeit from an opposite standpoint. "We'll take it on the chin," he said. "They've got so many match-winners and look how hard they work. It's a massive squad and the only problem is fitting them all on the bus."
Charlton Athletic 0 Chelsea 2 Valley of tears over Chelsea class gap By Steve Tongue at The Valley
Last year it was four-nil and could have been six, so you might say that the gap is closing between these sides. Not fast enough, however, to make this any sort of contest once Chelsea opened up in the second half, or to encourage any other club in the land with more genuine championship aspirations than Charlton, who had begun the season with four wins out of four. They finished well beaten, as their manager, Alan Curbishley, was the first to acknowledge.
"Chelsea are so disciplined, powerful and organised that they go into games believing if they score, that's probably it," he said, which was pretty much how things turned out. "They've got so many match-winners and look how hard they work. It's a massive squad and the only problem is fitting them all on the bus and keeping them all happy."
Joe Cole, a substitute again, is the latest dissident to make his unhappiness known, albeit through "a source close to the player". The solution for another Chelsea midfielder, Russia's captain Alexei Smertin, was to ask to be loaned out and Charlton have benefited hugely from his work alongside Danny Murphy in midfield. But under Premiership rules he could not play yesterday and was predictably missed.
Darren Bent, winning praise and prizes in equal measure after scoring in each of the opening four matches, was, on his own admission, up against a different class of defender here; Ricardo Carvalho gave him a good buffeting from behind, and John Terry was a colossus. Only Michael Essien, recruited for a mere £26m, challenged his captain as the afternoon's outstanding figure. "He will get better and better," said Chelsea's coach, Steve Clarke, of the Ghanaian, which is a frightening prospect.
When were the odds against a team lying second in the table ever as long as 6-1 to win a home game? That fact alone illustrated what Charlton and the other middle-ranking wannabes are up against in competing directly against the squad Roman Abram-ovich has bankrolled and the team Jose Mourinho has fashioned.
In the opening period of the game, Mourinho sat on an advertising hoarding admiring the view as his side pressed forward, forcing the first chance when Damien Duff passed Chris Powell with ominous ease and crossed for Frank Lampard to volley wide. Radostin Kishishev twice lost possession and deserved to be punished by Hernan Crespo, who had his first effort saved by Stephan Andersen and drove the second against a post.
Arjen Robben also had a fierce shot parried, but after 20 minutes Charlton settled and by half-time had earned an ovation from the largest Valley crowd since 1977. Jerome Thomas was a confident trickster down the left and Murphy again the creative force, though his set-pieces let him down. The home side's best moments were when Thomas hit the side-netting and then sent Rommedahl through to do the same.
Mourinho, having asked his team to put more pressure on Charlton higher up the pitch, resumed his seat on the hoardings at the start of the second half and was twice close to being brought to his feet. Lampard floated one free-kick to the far post, where William Gallas jabbed it on to a post; Robben touched another one to the England midfielder, whose low shot was deflected off a defender, forcing Andersen into a smart stop. Bent's drive over the bar provided only brief respite and in the 56th minute, Kishishev finally paid the penalty for losing the ball. Essien gratefully received it and, after steadying himself, picked out Crespo for a chip that the striker headed powerfully at goal, Andersen getting a hand to the ball without keeping it out.
Four minutes later Duff did well to hold off Powell in the penalty area and set up Robben for a deft curler into the top corner of the net. To emphasise the unfairness of it all, the champions then brought on £45m worth of substitutes in Didier Drogba and Shaun Wright-Phillips, who forced a good save from Andersen within a couple of minutes of arriving, following a classic Chelsea break out of defence.
Cole had to wait until the last 12 minutes for an appearance, which will hardly be enough to satisfy him. Curbishley tried to stem the tide by introducing Matt Holland, Darren Ambrose and the full-back Jonathan Spector, on loan from Manchester United (who must, with all their injuries, now wish they had kept him). Perry, defying his lack of inches, was closest to getting Charlton back into the game as he rose to head one of Murphy's better corners over the bar.
So, by the final whistle, Chelsea had played for 10 hours without conceding so much as a goal as well as 35 Premiership games without defeat; 15 more and they will beat the Arsenal record which many felt would never be challenged. But that, of course, was B J - before Jose.
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http://b90.blogspot.com/

morning papers anderlecht home

times : Anderlecht and fans pose empty threat to Chelsea By Matt Hughes Chelsea 1 Anderlecht 0 THE good people of West London may prefer to queue for petrol than watch the champions, but Chelsea roar on regardless. Just 29,575 turned out for this routine group G victory over Anderlecht, seven fewer than watched West Ham United beat Aston Villa on Monday, and any neutrals in the crowd may have wondered why they bothered. As with many of their Barclays Premiership encounters, Chelsea were simply too good for their opponents and eased past them without leaving second gear. Not that Jose Mourinho was complaining. "In the first half we played very well and the result was short for the way we were playing," the manager said. "They had not one single shot and we played good football. In the second half we waited for them to come and they never came. "I told my players we could not lose the ball and we had 64 per cent possession, so they did what I said. They [Anderlecht] had one shot that hit the post, that's the only shot they had." Frank Lampard, the scorer of the only goal in the nineteenth minute, offered a more balanced perspective. "It's a funny result," he said. "We were a little bit on edge because they kept breaking away and we were a bit frustrated. We can do better, but when you look at our record we've won every game [this season]." Mourinho had made great play of the threat posed by an Anderlecht side used to competing at this level, without mentioning that their recent experiences of the Champions League have resembled that of cannon fodder. The Belgians contrived to lose all six of their group matches last season and this was their eighth straight defeat, a competition record, prompting suggestions from some home fans that they were Sunderland in disguise. Chelsea have generally been slow starters this season, establishing control like patient matadors before moving in for the kill late in the piece, but last night they made quick work of it. They poured forward from the start, Arjen Robben providing a signal of intent with a sparkling run down the left in the first minute. Robben has been subdued this campaign as he recovers from a series of debilitating foot injuries, but, after switching flanks with Damien Duff almost immediately, he was a menace throughout, creating Chelsea's first opening in the fourth minute. His free kick from the left was volleyed into a crowd of players by Michael Essien, playing in a more advanced role after the return of Claude Makelele, with Duff's follow-up drive smartly saved by Daniel Zitka. Lampard blasted a corner from Robben over the bar before the same combination secured the inevitable breakthrough. After a foul on Duff on the edge of the area, Robben squared the free kick to Lampard, whose shot beat Zitka for pace and swerve. The goalkeeper should have done better, but such was the speed and late movement that Andrew Flintoff would have been impressed if he had been sober enough to see it, that is. Having scored an early goal, Chelsea reverted to type, content to keep the ball and tease Anderlecht rather than seek to add to their lead. Lampard brought another good save from Zitka in the 62nd minute and Essien shot just wide shortly afterwards as Petr Cech remained a virtual spectator, a long-range effort against the post from Anthony vanden Borre their only attack of note. The home fans drifted away happily enough, with Mourinho sympathetic to their plight. "Not many turned up because they are not rich," he said. "Ticket prices are high, but every spectacle is expensive. The opera and theatre are expensive. For the life of normal people it's expensive, but the crowd were fantastic." Just like the price of oil, a product with which Roman Abramovich is no stranger, the cost of watching Chelsea could do with being cut. CHELSEA (4-3-3): P Cech P Ferreira, J Terry, R Carvalho, W Gallas C Makelele, F Lampard, M Essien (sub: R Huth, 90min) D Duff (sub: J Cole, 77), D Drogba, A Robben (sub: S Wright-Phillips, 67). Substitutes not used: C Cudicini, H Crespo, Geremi, L Diarra. Booked: Wright-Phillips. ANDERLECHT (4-4-2): D Zitka M Zewlakow (sub: N Jestrovic, 81), R Juhasz, H Tihinen, O Deschacht A vanden Borre, Y Vanderhaeghe (sub: L Delorge, 89), M de Man, B Goor M Mpenza, Serhat Akin (sub: C Wilhelmsson, 70). Substitutes not used: S Proto, W Baseggio, B Hasi, P Zetterberg. Booked: Serhat, Vanderhaeghe. Referee: W Stark (Germany). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ telegraph Lampard sets Chelsea on their way By Christopher Davies Chelsea (1) 1 Anderlecht (0) 0 It was business as usual for Chelsea as they opened their Champions League account with a victory over Anderlecht, whose losing run in the competition was extended to eight ties. Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has given himself a five-year timeframe to win the Champions League for the second time. "Winning the Champions League will be the natural consequence of our team quality," said the Portuguese who led FC Porto to the European club summit in 2004. "This season we could do it and we will see, but it's a competition of such incredible quality you can never promise you will win it." Maybe not, but Chelsea certainly seem to have what it takes and it is impossible not to admire the way Mourinho has organised his no-expense-spared team. Tactically astute, strong in every department with a spirit that typifies the manager's commitment Chelsea, semi-finalists for the past two seasons, have the qualities to emulate Liverpool. Yet once again Chelsea were as much no frills as no thrills as they registered their sixth successive win and shut-out of what is shaping up to be another memorable season. Michael Essien almost marked his Champions League debut for Chelsea with a goal after five minutes. From Arjen Robben's inswinging free kick on the right the Ghana international forced a fine save from Daniel Zitka who then dived to tip Damien Duff's follow-up shot for a corner. Chelsea soon assumed control of the tie, using the pace of Robben and Duff to good effect on the flanks. However, Anderlecht's first worthwhile attack in the 11th minute could have seen the Belgians take a surprise lead - Mbo Mpenza's clever through-ball to Serhat Akin saw the Turkish striker clear of John Terry but his mis-hit shot bobbled for a goal-kick. It was no surprise when Frank Lampard opened the scoring in the 19th minute though there was an element of luck about his goal. Robben touched a free kick to Lampard, whose 25-yard shot clipped the heel of an Anderlecht player in the defensive wall, which was enough to wrong-foot Zitka. Despite the setback the visiting fans continued to be the more vociferous even though their team were giving them little to cheer about. Mourinho had broken up the central defensive partnership of William Gallas and John Terry, recalling Ricardo Carvalho for his first start of the season. Carvalho had been out of the side since publicly criticising Mourinho for leaving him out of the team that opened the season at Wigan. Gallas and Terry had yet to concede a goal but the France international switched to left-back in place of the injured Asier Del Horno. Claude Makelele was fit to resume his anchor-man role with Essien and Lampard completing a formidable midfield triangle. Chelsea's strength in depth was illustrated by the fact there was no place in the 16-man squad for Eidur Gudjohnsen with Hernan Crespo, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Joe Cole among the substitutes. But whatever XI Mourinho selects these days seem to do the job and against a side who had lost their previous seven Champions League ties Chelsea had Anderlecht on the back foot for most of a first half that did not deliver as much as it promised. As Chelsea had yet to lose at home under Mourinho the Belgian League runners-up faced a huge challenge after Lampard's goal gave the home team the lead and only a poor final ball plus wayward finishing kept their lead to one goal at half-time. Duff and Robben switched wings after the interval as Chelsea continued to dominate though Mourinho would have been concerned that having almost total control had brought only a single goal. Chelsea obviously thought Zitka was a weakness, attempting several long-range shots which all went off target. In the 62nd minute Lampard almost scored a second goal but this time Zitka punched away his 25-yard shot after Robben had tapped a free kick to the England international. In a rare breakaway in the 65th minute Yves Vanderhaeghe laid on an opening for Anthony Vanden Borre, whose shot was deflected by Terry against the diving Petr Cech's left-hand upright. It was a warning that the Premiership champions were vulnerable. Match details Chelsea (4-1-2-2-1): Cech; Paulo Ferreira, Terry, Carvalho, Gallas; Makelele; Essien, Lampard; Duff (J Cole 76), Robben (Wright-Phillips 67); Drogba. Subs: Cudicini (g), Crespo, Geremi, Diarra, Huth. Anderlecht (4-4-2): Zitka; Zewlakow (Jestrovic 81), Juhasz, Tihinen, Deschacht; Vanden Borre, Vanderhaeghe, Deman, Goor; Mpenza, Akin (Wilhelmsson 69). Subs: Proto (g), Baseggio, Hasi, Delorge, Zetterberg. Booked: Akin, Vanderhaeghe. Referee: W Stark (Germany). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ sun: Chelsea 1 Anderlecht 0 FRANK LAMPARD answered his critics by firing Chelsea's winner in their Champions League opener at Stamford Bridge. England boss Sven Goran Eriksson had suggested the midfielder needed a rest after two sub-par performances for his country. But Lampard vowed to play on and netted the only goal of the game on 19 minutes with a 20-yard free-kick. A vintage Lamps' strike, however, this was not. His shot should have been confortably saved but the swerve totally bamboozled Anderlecht stopper Daniel Zitka and ended up in the back of the net. Chelsea bossed the first half but found it hard to create clear-cut chances and were almost made to pay after the break. Anthony Vanden Borre's 30-yarder struck John Terry's outstretched leg and crashed back off the foot of a post with Petr Cech well beaten. Anderlecht came into this game hoping to end a run of seven straight Champions League defeats but they were on the back foot right from the start. With only four minutes gone Zitka produced a marvellous double save to deny Claude Makelele and then Damien Duff. Duff and Arjen Robben caused full-backs Olivier Deschacht and Michal Zewlakow constant problems down the flanks. Lampard latched on to Robben's low corner but fired over, while Cech was a spectactor at the other end for most of the half. The only worry for the Blues before the break came when a corner appeared to hit Terry on the arm before bouncing into the goalkeeper's hands. Moments later Chelsea broke the deadlock. Yves Vanderhaeghe fouled Duff and Lampard's swerving free-kick made a fool of Zitka. It was his third goal of the season and should have been the signal for Chelsea to go and kill off the Belgians. Lampard stung Zitka's fingers with a 30-yarder, but it was the visitors who grew in confidence. Vanden Borre's long-range strike came back off the post and Chelsea suddenly looked rattled. But despite having to soak up some pressure they hung on comfortably enough to keep their sixth clean sheet in six games this season. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- independent: Chelsea 1 Anderlecht 0 Blue machine grinds out victory but fans stay away By Glenn Moore Published: 14 September 2005 Football's hottest ticket felt distinctly lukewarm last night as less than 30,000 people bothered to watch the Premiership champions ease through their first European tie of the season. The gate was lower than Sheffield Wednesday attracted in the Championship and, but for an unusually noisy and enthusiastic travelling support, Stamford Bridge would have been one-third empty. It was another indication that football's attraction may be starting to wane, through the combination of high ticket prices - a factor Jose Mourinho pointed to - live television coverage and predictable matches. For an hour those who stayed away seemed the better judges as Chelsea, a goal to the good from Frank Lampard after 18 minutes, strolled though the match at half-pace against resolutely defensive opponents. Then Anderlecht struck a post, both sides realised the result remained in doubt, and the tempo upped from soporific to diverting. In the event, Chelsea held on to extend their competitive record this season to six wins in six matches without a goal conceded. But they were time-wasting and wilfully conceding free-kicks by the end. Mourinho, Chelsea's manager, blamed Anderlecht for the dull fare. He had a point. Chelsea are frequently functional rather than stirring but it is hard to thrill when only one side is competing. Even after Lampard put Chelsea ahead the visitors' continued to put bodies behind the ball. "We were waiting for them [to attack] and they never came," said Mourinho. "In the last 10 minutes they had a go but we were always comfortable and the result was justified. "Why should we force the pace? The supporters are happy with three points; they prefer 1-0 to 1-1." Of the empty seats Mourinho said: "It is because [supporters] are not rich. We have had consecutive matches and ticket prices are high. Everything is expensive for ordinary people, opera, theatre." Tickets ranged from £35-£60. Those who paid those prices saw Anderlecht threaten just once in the opening half hour. The game was still goalless when Bart Goor and Mbo Mpenza combined to release Serhat Akin behind John Terry. It was a decent chance but the Turk shot woefully wide. Chelsea had begun with greater intent. A clever second-minute free-kick from Arjen Robben resulted in a blocked shot from Michael Essien, the ball broke to Damien Duff, whose volley drew a sharp save from Daniel Zitka. Another set-piece broke the deadlock. After Duff was brought down on the edge of the area the ball was tapped to Lampard who drove through the wall. There was a suspicion of a deflection off a defender's heel but Zitka still looked badly at fault as the ball flew past him. Further chances were, though, elusive, especially from open play. In the 63rd minute the game received the tonic it needed. Anthony Vanden Borre chanced his arm from just over 30 yards out. His shot took a deflection off Terry's shin and beat Petr Cech, only to cannon back off the post. Mourinho immediately brought on Shaun Wright-Phillips while Frank Vercauteren added Christian Wilhelmsson. The Swede soon won a corner but it was the English substitute who came closer to making the difference. Having set up Essien for a shot he should have settled the tie in injury time but shot over. Chelsea (4-5-1): Cech; Ferreira, Terry, Ricardo Carvalho, Gallas; Duff (J Cole, 76), Essien (Huth, 89), Makelele, Lampard, Robben (Wright-Phillips, 66); Drogba. Substitutes not used: Cudicini (gk), Crespo, Geremi, Diarra. Anderlecht (4-4-2): Zitka; Zewlakow (Jestrovic, 81), Juhasz, Tihinen, Deschacht; Vanden Borre, Vanderhaeghe (Delorge, 88), Deman, Goor; Mpenza, Akin (Wilhelmsson, 69). Substitutes not used: Proto, Baseggio, Hasi, Zetterberg. Referee: W Stark (Germany). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ guardian; Lampard finds his spark to light up dull Chelsea Chelsea struggle to find top gear Jon Brodkin at Stamford Bridge Wednesday September 14, 2005 The Guardian Chelsea may yet become the strongest team on the planet but their fans are clearly not willing to pay the high asking price to watch every step along the path. Only 29,575 were here last night, among them a sizeable number from Anderlecht. Those who stayed away might be glad to hear they did not miss much: yet again Jose Mourinho's team won but failed to shine. It is becoming a familiar story but Mourinho will care little when his side have now won six out of six in the Premiership and Europe without a goal conceded. Only a post denied a limited Anderlecht an equaliser in the second half but Chelsea deserved the points that Frank Lampard earned. It was as well for them that the England midfielder's swerving 19th-minute effort went in when the goalkeeper Daniel Zitka ought to have stopped it, because their marked dominance of possession produced very few chances after that. Anderlecht's negative approach made life difficult but there is a lack of sparkle to Chelsea's game at the moment. They are happiest on the counter-attack when their quick passing and speed on the flanks can punish teams but Anderlecht opened up only in the last 15 minutes. When it was put to Mourinho that his team might have thrown more men forward to try to kill off the game, rather than controlling things and probing for chances, the manager was unrepentant. "The players did what I wanted them to do," he said. "I'm happy." Might the fans have expected more from this expensive side? "They're happy, three points," Mourinho said. "They prefer 1-0 to 1-1." It is not the style which kept the fans away. The low attendance said much for the way less attractive Champions League games are regarded and reflected high ticket prices. Non-members, including children, could not get in for less than £45. The cost of entry was picked up on by Mourinho. "They're not rich," he said. "We have had consecutive matches [after Sunderland at home on Saturday] and the ticket prices are, of course, high. For normal people this is expensive." Over the opening weeks of the campaign Mourinho's costly side have provided value in their results rather than performances. Those craving excitement will find it hard to envisage an open game at Liverpool in the next European fixture in a fortnight. "We were a little bit on edge," Lampard said. "It's not normal to hit top form early in the season but, when you look at our record, we have won every game." Mourinho is entitled to feel content when more attractive sides such as Arsenal are dropping points and so many opponents are setting out to frustrate his team. Anderlecht have an attacking outlook in Belgium but in these more testing surrounds they put the emphasis on defence and tried to counter-attack without much success. A five-man defence and three-man midfield not far in front ensured Arjen Robben and Damien Duff were quickly closed down, often faced with two men, and it was difficult for Chelsea to thread balls to Didier Drogba's feet or play clever passes around the box, as they like. It might have made sense to bring on Shaun Wright-Phillips before the 67th minute given that Robben was constantly coming infield into bodies from the right to stay on his left foot. The former Manchester City player did enliven Chelsea, notably setting up Michael Essien for a shot which was deflected wide, but he was also helped by Anderlecht's belated commitment to attack. Although Chelsea are scoring, it is not hard to see why Mourinho has tried to sign a centre-forward. Drogba was marginal and Hernan Crespo, who did not get off the bench, has not impressed. They were grateful to Lampard here. After a bright start during which Essien and Duff had shots saved, chances had dried up before Lampard's goal. Robben tapped a free-kick to him and his swerving shot appeared to clip an Anderlecht heel before beating Zitka, who later saved well from the same player. After the focus on his pallid performances for England, Lampard must have particularly enjoyed his third goal of the season - not bad for someone described by Sven-Goran Eriksson as a slow starter. It had been hard to envisage an Anderlecht equaliser until Anthony Vanden Borre's shot deflected off John Terry and struck a post with Petr Cech beaten. Though pushed back towards the end Chelsea stood firm. If playing badly and winning is the sign of a good side, Chelsea must be set for greatness.

sunday papers sunderland home

sunday times:
Chelsea 2 Sunderland 0: Geremi goal deflates bold SunderlandBrian Glanville at Stamford Bridge CHELSEA, one way or another, continue to win their matches, even though they made heavy weather of the first half against modest Sunderland, and took the lead to a goal that should have been prevented. The champions stay top of the Premiership while the newcomers remain bottom, having lost every game so far. Yet as Sunderland's manager Mick McCarthy sought consolation he observed: "In the first half, I don't think they looked much better than us."
Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, didn't think his team played well, but put it down to preparation. "They knew they were preparing for the game for 15 days and we had one day. They knew these matches are not easy for the teams with a lot of internationals."
Doubtless true, but McCarthy himself complained eight of his men had been away with international squads last week. He also legitimately lamented the fact that Sunderland gave away the first of Chelsea's two goals with a couple of embarrassing errors.
On 54 minutes, Sunderland keeper Kelvin Davis somewhat carelessly threw the ball out to Andy Welsh, on the left. The hapless Welsh failed to control it, and it ran to Geremi who promptly struck a fierce but surely not irresistible low shot from 22 yards, which somehow slipped past the diving Davis. A traumatising goal indeed.
When Alan Stubbs had to go off at half-time, Mourinho realised they would be more vulnerable in the air, and on came Didier Drogba, who eventually and dashingly headed his team's second goal.
McCarthy sympathised with Welsh. "He cost us 15 grand from Stockport and was brilliant, helping us go up. He's made a mistake. He'll learn from it." As for the errant Davis, "Kelvin's come in and he held his hand up. He's better than that. He should have saved it."
Sunderland did not look as though they were going to score had they played deep into the night, but Chelsea's first-half performance was disappointing to put it mildly. "We didn't play very well," Mourinho confessed.
In that barren first half Chelsea's pattern looked unbalanced. Hernan Crespo never looked very happy as the solitary spearhead, which he was in the first half.
For Drogba, the goal he scored after 82 minutes, when set up by Michael Essien and Damien Duff, must have been something of a relief or a consolation. He leapt typically and powerfully above the opposition to head Duff's immaculate left-wing cross between Davis and the right-hand post.
Chelsea certainly looked livelier after substitutions were made in the second half. After a very short spell in the centre, Arjen Robben reverted to the right wing, and it was good to see Joe Cole employed not on the flank, which is never his true speciality, but in a more central position where he could influence the play with his skills and invention.
He also, he should not forget, has a powerful shot that on 68 minutes severely tested Davis, who could only push it away. Shortly before Chelsea's first goal, Essien and Robben had set up Frank Lampard, who, perhaps unleashing all the frustration he felt after Belfast, walloped a tremendous right-footed shot against the bar. Robben himself, on 62 minutes, characteristically threaded his way from the right between two defenders and shot from a narrow angle, when he probably should have passed, enabling Davis to save at the near post.
We shall see if, with their expensive embarrassment of riches, Chelsea settle down into a regular first-choice team. On Tuesday at home to Anderlecht in their first Champions League game, they will be without their enterprising Spanish international left-back, Asier Del Horno, who pulled a muscle near the end. The consequence, Mourinho clearly and resentfully felt, was his having played international football last Wednesday.
STAR MAN: Frank Lampard (Chelsea)
Player ratings. Chelsea: Cech 6, Geremi 6, Gallas 6, Terry 6, Del Horno 6, Essien 6, Wright-Phillips 6 (J Cole 57min, 6), Lampard 7, Gudjohnsen 6 (Duff h-t, 6), Robben 7, Crespo 6 (Drogba 54min, 6)
Sunderland: Davis 6, Nosworthy 6, Breen 6, Stubbs 6 (Welsh 52min, 6), Hoyte 6, Bassila 6, Elliott 6, Whitehead 6, Miller 6 (Le Tallec 80min, 6), Arca 6, Stead 6 (Gray h-t, 6)
Scorers: Chelsea: Geremi 54, Drogba 82
Referee: M Dean
Attendance: 41,969 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
people:
ESSIEN LEADS BLUES CRUISE Chelsea 2 Sunderland 0 Jack Steggles THEY SAY the sign of true champions is the ability to grind out results when not firing on all cylinders.
In that case Chelsea can bank on retaining the Premiership title they won last season.
The moody Blues were a long way from their best - their battery of big-name stars clearly suffering a hangover from midweek internationals.
But they polished off Sunderland - keeping yet another clean sheet in the process - to make it five straight wins, the club's best-ever Premiership start.
Sunderland by contrast are suffering their worst. They are still without a point and have now lost their last 20 Premiership games.
And their cause wasn't helped by sub Andy Welsh who gifted possession to Geremi who went on to score Chelsea's opener.
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But Sunderland boss Mick McCarthy refused to blame Welsh and said: "He had just come on the field when he made a mistake and I'm not going to crucify him for that.
"We've now gone five games without a point, so can we survive? We've got to believe we can and if we don't it won't be for the want of trying.
"We're not looking for sympathy and the only way to put things right is to win a game, starting with West Brom next week."
To their credit the Black Cats refused to hoist the white flag of surrender and gave it a go.
But they lacked the quality to trouble even a below-par Chelsea and Blues keeper Petr Cech did not have a serious shot to save.
Chelsea were without Claude Makelele, suffering from a knock after playing for France against Ireland in midweek. And they left Damien Duff and Didier Drogba on the bench.
Makelele's holding midfield role was given to Michael Essien, and he proved the pick of a very ordinary bunch.
Skipper John Terry made a surprise return from a knee injury that threatened to keep him out for a month. He got through the game without being seriously tested.
Sunderland, who gave debuts to Justin Hoyte, on loan from Arsenal, and Christian Bassila, realised there was no point sitting back and waiting for the Blues to steamroller them.
Tommy Miller created a promising situation when he cut in from the right, but he spoiled it with a poor final ball.
Chelsea responded with a swerving shot from Aiser Del Horno that Sunderland keeper Kelvin Davis kept out with his feet. And it needed a great tackle from old warhorse Alan Stubbs to keep out Frank Lampard as he swooped on a through-ball from Eidur Gudjohnsen.
Lampard, criticised by Sven Goran Eriksson for recent England performances, was not having his usual influence on the game and Chelsea's rhythm suffered as a result.
When Arjen Robben led a Chelsea break he wanted one touch too many and the ball was nipped off his toes.
Sunderland's fans had more reason to get excited in a disappointing first half for the champions. And that was a situation Mourinho was clearly determined to do something about.
He sent on Duff in place of Gudjohnsen after the break, while Sunderland replaced Jon Stead with Andy Gray.
Lampard finally burst into life in the 51st minute when he seized possession after Robben had been upended to lash a 20-yarder that crashed back off the bar with Davis beaten.
And two minutes later Chelsea were ahead after a McCarthy substitution that backfired.
He sent on Welsh in place of the injured Stubbs and a blunder by the new boy gifted Geremi a chance he gratefully accepted.
Welsh let the ball run away from him when Davis threw it out and Cameroon international Geremi, making his first start of the season, curled a 20-yard shot under the keeper.
Joe Cole took over from Shaun Wright-Phillips and got himself booked for falling theatrically under an innocuous challenge. Drogba wrapped it up for Chelsea in the 82nd minute, climbing above Julio Arca to head home a deep cross from Duff.
But the manner of the victory was far from convincing and another worry for Mourinho ahead of Tuesday's Champions League game with Anderlecht was a late thigh injury to Del Horno which reduced Chelsea to 10 men for the last three minutes.
CHELSEA: Cech 6 - Geremi 7, Gallas 6, Terry 6, Del Horno 6 - Lampard 6, *ESSIEN 8, Gudjohnsen 6 (Duff 45mins, 7) - Wright-Phillips 6 Cole 57mins, 6), Crespo 6 (Drogba 54mins, 7), Robben 6.
SUNDERLAND: Davis 6 - Nosworthy 6, *BREEN 7, Stubbs 6 (Welsh 51mins, 5), Hoyte 6 - Bassila 6 - Elliott 6, Miller 6 (Le Tallec 82), Whitehead 6, Arca 6 - Stead 5 (Gray 45mins, 5). Ref: M Dean 6.
SHINER :LAMPARD Saw one of his trademark shots nearly snap the cross bar
SHOCKER :WELSH A poor blunder by the newly introduced sub that gifted Chelsea their first goalAttendance: 41,969
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Robben takes centre stage to lift Chelsea
Chelsea 2 - 0 Sunderland
Stuart Barness at Stamford Bridge Sunday September 11, 2005The Observer
The form book delivered the expected result as Chelsea maintained their 100 per cent start with a swaggering second-half performance.A rare goal by Geremi on his first start of the season set them on the way and they never looked back after that. But spare a thought for Sunderland, who resisted stoutly in the opening period and indeed for a time raised the prospect of ending a run that now extends to 20 successive Premiership defeats - 15 at the end of the 2002-03 campaign and five so far this time.
The visitors, who had Christian Bassila making his debut as a holding midfield player, certainly started without any inferiority complex, stroking the ball about cleanly and winning the first corner.
But when Chelsea, with John Terry making an earlier-than-expected return from injury, slipped into gear for the first time, Hernan Crespo brought the ball through threateningly, enabling Asier del Horno to strike a shot that ricocheted to safety off the right arm of Kelvin Davis.
Shaun Wright-Phillips and Arjen Robben swapped flanks with barely 10 minutes gone and Robben immediately posed problems, drifting past two players as he cut inside for a shot that deflected to safety off Alan Stubbs.
Stubbs was again in the right place as Eidur Gudjohnsen tried to thread a pass through the middle to Frank Lampard, the former Everton defender anticipating the danger well.
When Nyron Nosworthy's ball-winning challenge on Gudjohnsen set up Jon Stead for a shot driven straight at Petr Cech, it provided Chelsea with a further nudge that their opponents were up for the task. Then, as signs of frustration began to appear around the ground, the big centre-forward drifted wide to go past Del Horno and deserved better than to see his ball into the heart of the goalmouth go begging because of a lack of support.
If the first half had been a somewhat sedate affair, certainly from Chelsea's point of view, the opening 10 minutes of the second simply crackled, with a flurry of substitutions, Lampard striking the crossbar and the champions taking the lead.
Robben's switch into a central midfield role, albeit briefly, did most to energise his side as he began to run at defenders. Lampard responded with a thundering 25-yarder, the ball bouncing off the underside of the woodwork, hitting Davis and bouncing away.
Soon after, Davis experienced a nightmare few seconds. His throw-out went astray, Geremi drove goalwards from 22 yards with the outside of his right boot and the ball went in underneath the goalkeeper's body.
A booking for Joe Cole for diving was followed by the substitute having a shot fisted away by Davis, who was having something of a torrid time. His goal came under constant siege as Chelsea drove forward in waves.
Determination by Andy Welsh briefly relieved the pressure, but the combined attention of Geremi and William Gallas halted his run on the edge of the penalty box.
Sunderland's resistance was broken for a second time after 82 minutes when Damien Duff crossed and Didier Drogba climbed at the far post to squeeze in a header. inside the far post.
Man of the match Arjen Robben - provided the impetus for victory
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Chelsea 2 Sunderland 0 Drogba deepens Sunderland's gloom By Ronald Atkin Published: 11 September 2005 Jose Mourinho had forecast "a good examination" against bottom-of-the table Sunderland in the aftermath of his players' midweek international commitments, and so it proved - for the first half at least. Then the mercurial manager pitched Damien Duff, Didier Drogba and Joe Cole into the action, two goals were netted as the opposition buckled and the leaders go marching on, with maximum points and no goals conceded in five matches.
For Sunderland and their ultra-loyal travelling contingent of fans the news gets bleaker by the game. They remain without a point on their return to the Premiership and have now chalked up 20 straight losses in the top flight, including the tail-end of their relegation season two years ago. Claiming that his players had performed well, Mick McCarthy lamented, "The one big negative is that we keep getting beat." They were up against the meanest defence in the League but even so never looked like troubling Petr Cech, who had one half-hearted Jon Stead dribbler to collect.
"My players came back tired from 15 days away with 10 different managers and 10 different methodologies, some happy because they had won, some unhappy because they lost," said Mourinho. "And then they had to play against a team with 15 days to prepare for this game. "No wonder that today we didn't play well." Well enough, however, to brush aside the feeble challenge of Sunderland, who made plain their intentions by playing only Stead up front and stationing their new signing from Strasbourg, Christian Bassila, in front of the back four.
The good news for Chelsea was that John Terry, not fit enough to play for England because of a knee problem, got the rest which his manager wanted and returned to club duty. An undemanding return it was, too. But that was expected, so much so that Chelsea felt confident enough to operate with a three-man back line, losing one of that trio, Asier Del Horno, with a pulled muscle just before the end, which set Mourinho going once more about those dratted international demands which had put too much of a strain on his left-back.
The first half was so forgettable that Chelsea fans were muttering about their side's barren showing. They certainly looked off the pace, with Kelvin Davis being only marginally more employed in Sunderland's goal than Cech at the other end.
Duff came on for the second half in place of Eidur Gudjohnsen and Chelsea stepped up the pace and the effort. Five minutes had gone when Lampard struck the underside of the bar with a tremendous effort which bounced off Davis and three minutes later Chelsea were in front.
Andy Welsh, Sunderland's half-time replacement for Stead, failed to control a thrown clearance from Davis midway inside his own half and G�remi stole the ball from him, strode forward and unleashed a low shot from 25 yards which evaded the keeper's despairing dive.
On came Drogba (for Hernan Crespo) and Cole (for Shaun Wright-Phillips) as Chelsea took control, the only blip coming when Cole drew an immediate yellow card for an outrageous dive on the edge of the penalty area. Now the fans were happy, chanting "Stand up for the champions".
Davis, a busy fellow following the loss of Alan Stubbs with concussion, almost let an Arjen Robben effort slip between his feet but did much better to repel Cole's dipping long-range shot. Drogba was his usual profligate self, missing two good chances. First, he failed to apply his head to Robben's cross and then did not move quickly enough to Lampard's short pass.
But the other inevitability about the striker is that he doesn't miss too often, and, with nine minutes remaining, Duff crossed from near the left-hand corner flag and Drogba rose majestically above his marker to direct a downward header to Davis' left.
Mourinho offered a nod of approval to his defence: "It is good to feel that when we score a goal we will win. One day we will concede a goal, but that's not a drama." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
telegraph:
Chelsea fumble lines againBy James Mossop at Stamford Bridge (Filed: 11/09/2005)
Chelsea (0) 2 Sunderland (0) 0
Theories have been wrapping around Chelsea, the champions who have lost their lustre despite their 100 per cent record. Tired, lethargic, uninspired, getting away with it has been the drift and while a place out in front at the top of the Premiership should be the perfect answer to all the questions, the doubts remained.
Even in victory they linger. Defeating the worst team in the league, pointless and hapless Sunderland, was hard, workmanlike graft. For that Sunderland take some credit. They had a plan and they only began to waver after Geremi had given Chelsea the lead early in the second half.
Fans' favourite: Didier Drogba salutes the crowd after his goal Until then, Chelsea had fumbled. They had been unable to make an impression apart from a strike by Frank Lampard, still in the below-par mood that has baffled his England supporters, rattled the underside of the Sunderland bar.
It was easy to feel sorry for Sunderland and as manager Mick McCarthy led his players down the tunnel at half-time he was entitled to feel that the strategy, based on tenacity and teamwork, was working to perfection.
His team had run hard for the 45 minutes, frustrating Chelsea's all-stars, who were making Lampard's supposed tiredness look like a contagious affliction. Every move they made was countered in a first half of nil chances for either side.
Maybe the travelling internationals who fill Chelsea's blue shirts had left their enthusiasm on foreign fields while Stephen Elliott, the Ulsterman who helped to embarrass Sven-Goran Eriksson's feckless England on Wednesday night, appeared to have energy to burn.
Chelsea were missing Claude Makelele, who operates at a consistently high level in front of the back four, but that was only part of their problem. Michael Essien was a suitable replacement but with Ricardo Carvalho, Joe Cole, Damien Duff and Didier Drogba on the bench, you had to wonder what was going through Jose Mourinho's mind.
McCarthy's team, assembled at a cost of £7 million, a fraction of Chelsea's vulgar worth, had the honesty and comradeship that meant Mourinho would have to find something to break down their resistance.
He had seen Dean Whitehead and Elliott surfing past left back Aiser del Horno too often and although Arjen Robben and Shaun Wright-Phillips switched wings on occasion it was gong to take more than that to confuse the Sunderland defence where Gary Breen and Andy Stubbs stood tall and firm in front of a reliable goalkeeper, Kelvin Davis.
Mourinho's immediate response was to send out the Republic of Ireland trickster, Duff, in place of Eidur Gudjohnsen, whose influence had been minimal. Robben moved inside with Duff wide on the left.
Within minutes of the half starting Nigel Welsh replaced the injured Stubbs just in time to make the mistake that allowed Geremi to take the possession and drive the ball past Davis, low through a forest of legs after 53 minutes.
For the first time in the match the Chelsea supporters were on their feet, decibels soaring as they realised they were suddenly on to something good. Their afternoon could have been even sweeter had Robben not selfishly tried to score from an angle when Crespo's replacement Drogba, who gave Robben a verbal lashing, was waiting for the ball to be squared for a tap in.
Soon after, Drogba apologised when he missed a good chance, but he added the second, drifting in behind defenders to head home Duff's left cross on 82 minutes. They will need to step up the pace against Anderlecht on Tuesday.
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