Southampton hosted Chelsea at St. Mary’s on the first day of this New Year. There are two changes to the Southampton team. Firstly Morgan Schneiderlin is back from suspension and he is starting on the field, moving James Ward-Prowse back to the bench. Secondly we see that Gastón Ramirez is making his first league start this season, so Rickie Lambert has to start on the bench. There might be two reason for why Lambert is starting on the bench, firstly he might just be tired after all the game time he has had in the last games which also happen to take place in short time frame. Or it is because Ramirez loves to play through balls and Lambert might not be fast enough to run after them, but Jay Rodriguez is. So maybe Mauricio Pochettino is hoping that Ramirez will set Rodriguez up.
Within the first 2 minutes of the game Fernando Torres already creates two chances. Gastón Ramirez loses the ball to Torres so he gets his second run towards Kelvin Davis goal. Luckily Davis manages to block the ball both times.
In the 4th minute Chelsea gets their first corner. When the ball is coming towards the goal José Fonte knocks Dejan Lovren down to the ground. Lovrens mouth is bleeding and it turns out his tooth got loose. I hope this is not an act of jealousy since Lovren seems to have been standing more in the spotlight lately. It turns out it is not, since Fonte has blood on his own head as well. Lovren is tough so he just plays on.
In the 12th minute Chelsea’s Ramires runs towards the goal to get a one on one with Kelvin Davis. Davis decides to take a risk and run out of his goal to block the ball. If his timing is off, it will mean that Ramires will have an open goal in front of him and he can make sure that Chelsea takes the lead. Luckily his calculations are accurate and he arrives just in time to block the ball. This was a good save by Kelvin Davis.
The weather conditions for this game are far from ideal with a strong wind and heavy rain. This makes it harder for the players to play a top game and it is therefore understandable that the players find it hard to deal with those weather conditions.
Southampton gets a big chance in the 16th minute when Morgan Schneiderlin passes the ball to Adam Lallana. Lallana tries but the Chelsea defenders are right there to block it. After this chance, the Saints get two more good chances within 10 minutes. Gastón Ramirez plays a through ball towards Jay Rodriguez, who is onside and tries to break through the Chelsea defence. But with three defenders around him, he doesn’t make it. Then Calum Chambers manages to run up the field and he crosses the ball to Adam Lallana who, unfortunately, gets blocked by 3 Chelsea defenders. It was great chance.
Southampton seems to have more possession but they are just having a hard time breaking through the Blues defence. It looks like Chelsea knows how to stop the Southampton attacks, as every time the Saints get a chance to run towards Chelsea’s goal, there are always at least 3 Blues defenders waiting there for the Southampton player. So no matter how hard the Saints try, it looks like Chelsea has figured out their game play and will just be waiting in front of Petr Cechs goal to stifle each Southampton attack.
Ramires runs towards the goal again in the 34th minute but Kelvin Davis makes another good save. Davis seems to get more comfortable and starts to make better saves, who thought a goalie at the age of 37 could still improve his game play.
The second half starts with one change. Nathaniel Clyne is coming on for Luke Shaw. Apparently Luke Shaw injured his toe in the Everton match and this toe is bugging him too much now to play properly. Nathaniel Clyne isn’t fit enough yet to play a full game, but at least we have a great substitute option sitting on the bench. Hopefully it won’t be much longer until he can play full games again.
Five minutes into the second half Chelsea manager José Maurinho decides to make two early substitutions. Juan Mata comes off for Oscar and Willian replaces Andre Schürrle. These must be tactical changes to try and turn the match their way.
It only takes four minutes before Oscar receives his first yellow card. Oscar runs towards the goal and Kelvin Davis slides to block the ball. Then Oscar falls to the ground. Replays show that, if there even was contact between those two players, the contact was at an absolute minimum. Referee Martin Atkinson sees it right and makes a fair decision by giving Oscar a yellow card instead of a penalty. I really hate players who just try to dive to receive a penalty. What happened to fair play? At least now there was a referee on the field who saw it happening and made a fair call.
Chelsea scores a lucky goal in the 59th minute. After the ball deflects from Calum Chambers boot, it lands near Torres who just happens to be in the right spot and heads it into the bottom right corner from a close range. Maybe Davis is to blame as he should have tried a bit harder to block the ball, but then again we can also blame Chambers since he didn’t make a good enough clearance. Either way, it looks like Fernando Torres has finally broken Chelsea’s curse since he was the last Chelsea striker to score away from home and that was 13 months ago. That is right, no Chelsea striker scored in 2013 away from home, which is a pretty pathetic statistic.
One minute after this goal Mauricio Pochettino decides to bring on Rickie Lambert so he takes off Jack Cork. Hopefully by bringing on Lambert we can create more chances to get level. But again I don’t fully understand why Cork is the unlucky one to come off. I don’t think Morgan Schneiderlin and Steven Davis have been playing much better. Although maybe Pochettino doesn’t want to take Davis off on his birthday. And maybe Jack Cork has been playing a bit risky against his old team, but I don’t believe his game play was that aggressive that he was in danger of receiving a second yellow card.
Only four minutes after he has come on the field, Rickie Lambert gets the best chance for Southampton in the whole game. Nathaniel Clyne has the ball and crosses it forward towards Rickie Lambert who is near Petr Cech’s goal. Lambert heads it from the centre of the box but the ball goes straight to Cech. What a great chance this was and from an excellent heading player like Lambert we would have expected him to score. Unfortunately he couldn’t make it happen.
It is the 70th minute when Oscar has the ball and he tries to get past the Southampton defenders. While he is trying to rotate his way around the defenders, Calum Chambers falls down and Oscar manages to get past the other two defenders. Then he passes the ball to Willian who sure knows what to do with it. He shoots and he scores. Kelvin Davis didn’t stand a chance. This goal perfectly proves how important those two early substitutions were for Chelsea and how they have changed the game for them.
Mauricio Pochettino doesn’t allow Steven Davis to play a full game on his birthday, as he takes Davis off in the 75th minute so he can bring on James Ward- Prowse. Hopefully this last Saints substitution will make a difference for us.
It is the 81st minute when Oscar runs up towards Kelvin Davis goal again after Eden Hazard plays a through ball to him. Oscar makes a great run forward and manages to break through the Southampton defence. José Fonte notices this break through a bit too late but still tries to catch up with Oscar. Oscar shoots the ball with his left foot while Fonte tries to block the ball. Fonte makes a slight touch, just lightly enough that the ball deflects into the bottom left corner of the goal, leaving Kelvin Davis wrong-footed. This makes it 3-0 for Chelsea. Both those crucial Chelsea substitutions have scored now.
In the 93rd minute, Southampton gets the last chance of the game. Adam Lallana plays the ball to Gastón Ramirez. Ramirez shoots from the centre of the box with his left foot but just misses the top left corner. Unfortunately he couldn’t repeat what he did in the last game to give Southampton at least one goal.
Both sides have been strong in this game, but Chelsea has used their chances better. The Southampton defence just wasn’t strong enough to keep the goals out, while the Saints had a hard time breaking through the Blues defence at the other end. It looks like Chelsea were better prepared for the way Southampton play then the other way around and I do have to say that, in the end after the they made their first goal, Chelsea has been the stronger team.
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