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Chelsea hosted West Ham in the pouring rain, and weren't able to find the back of the net despite playing the bulk of the game in West Ham's end. Luckily, West Ham didn't offer even the slightest hint of attacking competence, and this game ended with both sides taking home a point.
The first half was a fairly dull affair, as is often the case in games involving Sam Allardyce*. His plan for this one seemed to involve sitting deep, wasting time, and giving it a go on set pieces. As he's made a career of doing just that, this really shouldn't have caught Jose Mourinho by surprise.
*My spell check software suggested 'Mallard' for Allardyce. Appropriate.
Despite knowing exactly what West Ham were going to do, Chelsea spent the first 45 minutes doing very little to cope. Slow ball movement, too many touches, and quite a few harmless long shots did very little to test the Hammers.
The second half kicked off with both Frank Lampard and Nemanja Matic warming up, and the pair came on after 17 minutes. Mikel and Cesar Azpilicueta were the ones to make way, as the manager clearly realized West Ham weren't overly dangerous today.
Chelsea looked much better in attack after the subs, but still weren't able to find the elusive goal. Demba Ba came on for Oscar with just over ten minutes to play, but in the end, it just didn't matter. Here are a few thoughts after this awful, awful game:
- How is Tony Gale still employed? He's easily the worst in the business, and made the Gus Johnson experiment look like a brilliant idea.
- With Nemanja Matic and Frank Lampard available, we really need to stop using a pivot of Ramires and John Obi Mikel against teams willing to sit back and play for a draw. Both are useful players, but quick, accurate ball movement isn't a strength of either.
- Andy Carroll once cost nearly the same amount of money as Chelsea just accepted for Juan Mata. This thought kept occurring to me over and over and over during this match.
- How worthless are Spurs?
- Hopefully this is the last time we'll be seeing Big Sam for a while, as even if West Ham aren't relegated, one would think he'd still be a viable candidate for the sack.
