Slavia Prague 0-1 Chelsea - It wasn't the best performance but job done!

A late goal from Marcos Alonso took the spoils in this one last night and has given Chelsea an advantage ahead of the second leg of the Europa League quarter-final next week. Unfortunately, Chelsea’s poor overall performance has been overshadowed by idiots singing a pub that takes all the headlines. 

First and foremost, just to comment on these stupid individuals. The important point to note is that you can never control everyone and there are other groups of supporters from other clubs that have the same issues, but Chelsea are getting battered in the media right now. Bearing in mind all the previous negative press we have had, why continue to do it? They should receive life-time bans and by the sounds of it they will be. Good riddance.

Back to the game and we must credit our hosts Slavia Prague who really gave it a good go last night. Forcing Kepa into two good saves in the second half, they made life difficult for us here tonight and it must be acknowledged. They were well organized, they were disciplined and were more than willing to work hard right to the point where they conceded the goal which, as was more than evident, took the wind out of their sails, but they were really impressive here and it has to be said.

Plenty of opinion on social media last night after the game spoke of the fact that we were poor in the game with plenty of players not playing well at all. I must agree with that to a point – Pedro was literally non-existent and looked disappointed with himself knowing that he had not played well at all - he would have been better to check out australia pokies online rather than head out on the pitch for this one. Willian was good in different moments of the game but looked like he was struggling to be motivated initially. Having smacked an excellent effort onto the crossbar midway through the first-half, it seemed to wake him up and it’s important to note that he played a lovely ball into the box for our goal.

I thought out back-line did well, Toni Rudiger is Toni Rudiger, Andreas Christensen was calm and assured as expected, Cesar Azpilicueta played well, and Marcos Alonso had one, two or three dodgy moments but did pop up with the all-important goal. The way the game had been heading, with little real clear-cut opportunities created apart from a Toni Rudiger volley saved low down by their goalkeeper, you would have been better off spending your money at rivernilecasino rather than placing your bets on this one.

In midfield all were busy and it’s important to note. The understated Mateo Kovacic worked hard with little end product, Ross Barkley was busy and looked as the most dangerous breaking forward with Jorginho tidy. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much ground he covers in that position but did well.

Olivier Giroud had little service in the game if we are honest, that was until Eden Hazard came on. As soon as he did, he got more involved and became more of an influence.

At the end of the day we would have taken any victory before the game kicked off and we would have preferred that Eden Hazard, N’Golo Kante and Ruben Loftus-Cheek were not needed but they were and influenced the game when they did.

We take an advantage back to the Bridge which is what we wanted, and we must be the favourites to make our home advantage count to go through. Job done despite not being the best performance. Roll on next week!

UTC!

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