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Latics again put up a great show with flowing football and good link up play and attacks. But like last week at West Ham, we just couldn’t find the breakthrough. The mightily impressive Amr Zaki must wonder what he has do as Petr Cech pulled out two great saves to deny the Egyptian.
Chelsea rarely threatened Pollitt’s goal, in fact the first save he had to make was in the 66th minute, a rasping drive from Pollitt was a last minute replacement for Chris Kirkland who was forced to pull out after tweaking a muscle in the warm up.
The match started off brightly for Latics as we passed the ball around comfortably until in the third minute the ball bounced up on to Lee Cattermole’s arm and the referee gave a free kick on the edge of the area. Up stepped Anderson Deco and struck a magnificent drive up and over both the wall and Mike Pollitt to register his first goal for his new club.
Latics weren’t down hearted and proceeded to take the game to Chelsea and could have equalised on numerous occasions. Zaki had the first opportunity but his wicked shot was smartly pushed around the post by the Chelsea keeper.
Valencia was having a quiet day by his standards but Palacios and Koumas dominated the midfield and bossed the show. Heskey had a tame header saved easily by Cech and Palacios saw his lob go centimetres wide of the post.
At the other end, whenever Chelsea tried to go forward, the defence closed the door for Anelka and Co. The first half finished with Jason Koumas hobbling off the pitch and he wasn’t to return for the second half.
As a contest the second period started off very slowly with Daniel de Ridder not imposing himself like Koumas did and that left a void that Chelsea tried to capitalise on. Lee Cattermole saw his shot sail high into the stands, whilst Heskey and Zaki were linking up well to force pressure on the Chelsea goal.
The crowd at the JJB were magnificent all match and the players were giving their all, but that final touch was letting them down. The set pieces were also dreadful and need a lot of work.
Most of the free kicks and corners in the second half either didn’t get past the fist man or went straight into the keepers hands. Ten minutes from time and Bruce started to mix things up by bringing on Henri Camara and Olivier Kapo in a 343 formation.
But even with the extra firepower we couldn’t find a way through and Chelsea escape with the three points. There is something for sure though, if we play like we have over the last two weeks for the rest of the season, we will win a lot more than we lose.
Next up is Hull City and Latics have to view this as their best chance so far this season to get some points on the board.
Report by Jayt
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Anderson Deco
John Terry
Jason Koumas
Daniel de Ridder
