Hull 1-1 Chelsea: Set Piece does us again!

With a chance to extend our lead to four points at the KC Stadium last night we blew it with some sloppy defending from a set piece once more. We still took an additional point last night to extend the lead over United to 2 points but we all know it could of been and should of been so much more!.

But you have to say credit to Phil Brown and his Hull side. His players went out and played for him and the supporters and gave arguably their best performance this season. They made it difficult for Chelsea last night and as Carlo Ancelotti said after the game last night, "A draw was the right result!".

Don't get me wrong Chelsea fans we had our chances last night through headers from Ballack and Drogba and a Sturridge shot late on, but apart from that not alot was clear cut. Boaz Myhill made some great saves to keep Hull in the game but it was nothing more than they deserved.
As stated in my match preview Didier Drogba came back into the side so it brought up some questions beforehand of how we will line up. Would we change our shape and revert back to the 4-Diamond-2 formation or would we stick with the 4-3-3?. Well we stuck with the 4-3-3 as Joe Cole made way for Anelka to move wide right, Malouda left and Drogba through the middle.

Anelka obviously isn't keen on playing there and his performance showed that last night as he was nowhere near as effective. Ok, he won the free-kick that led to our equaliser from Drogba with his well executed free-kick. Apart from that he wasn't really in the game apart from a shot low down to the keepers left for an easy save in the first half.

Ashley Cole was rested to the bench after collecting a knock last week so Yuri Zhirkov played at left back and did ok. Deco came back into the starting eleven in the Anchor position and to his credit put his foot in at times when we needed him to.

But Ancelotti HAS to look at our defending from the corner that saw us go a goal down. (You can see the highlights of the game for a short time at the "Featured Video" section of my site). The cross came in and their defender up for the corner was left totally unmarked. Ballack mistimed his jump and they scored with a free header from 6 YARDS OUT!. Its stupid mistakes like these that cost us at time and have cost us this season and we need to sort this out for the title run in.

I still am wondering about the formation and team selection last night. Should we of stuck with the same formation and introduced Didier back into the fold from the bench? Should we of gone with the 4-Diamond-2 instead of the 4-3-3 we started with?. Should Joe Cole of started? These are questions we are all probably asking this morning and there is only one person who can come up with those answers.

One thing is for sure, we need to work this week on sorting out those defensive problems from set plays and re-group and up our game ahead of the Arsenal game this Sunday. On another day we could of scored 3 or 4 but the fact is we didn't and we need to get back into the groove.

Let's hope we learn from our mistakes and get our act together as it was ANOTHER chance to extend our lead to the maximum and we blew it again! What is it about the Premier League this season?

CAREFREE & KTBFFH EVERYONE!