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A never say die attitude saw Latics come back from a goal down to draw against third place Chelsea, but with a bit more luck and another referee, we could well have taken all the spoils from this one.
The opening 20 minutes were dominated by Chelsea, keeping possession but not really being able to break down Latics defence. John Terry showed his frustration with a lazy looking Drogba by having their only meaningful shot of the opening quarter, but even that was never troubling Al Habsi’s goal.
Latics did start getting into this game after the opening pressure subsided and had decent efforts on goal from Conor Sammon and Victor Moses well saved by Cech. Mohammed Diame started to come into the game and was unlucky not score on the half hour.
The midfielder didn’t get the rewards his jinking run deserved as he saw his shot go narrowly wide of the post. Victor Moses was looking to add to his goals tally and had the arm of Ivanovic not got in the way, he may well have done.
Amazingly the referee decided for the second time in the game that this didn’t warrant a penalty when everybody else in the ground did. The half was rounded off with Latics wondering how they didn’t go in with the lead.
The second half continued in the same way, Chelsea were still to record a shot on target, whilst Latics were getting closer to the target with Moses, Gomez and Figueroa all testing Cech. That all changes as a long ball from Ashley Cole landed at Daniel Sturridge’s feet who only needed one touch before volleying past Al Habsi.
It was a shock to the system for Latics but their heads never went down a they continued plugging away at the 10 man Chelsea wall in front of them. The visitors soaked up the pressure as wave after wave of pressure came from Latics.
But it ended up with Latics benefiting from a fumble by Petr Cech to get their equaliser; Hugo Rodallega made a great run down the left and jinked inside past three defenders only to toe poke a relatively feeble shot straight at the Chelsea goal keeper.
Uncharacteristically though he spilled the ball and it landed at Jordi Gomez’s feet to tap in from three yards. It was nothing more than we deserved and credit to the team for going for the win in the final two minutes as well.
Franco di Santo went close before Victor Moses and Mohammed Diame had good efforts blocked. The game finished 1-1 but it could so easily have been a better scoreline for Latics.
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Oriol Romeu
Salomon Kalou
Daniel Sturridge
