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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.