FA CUP : Chelsea vs Macclesfield : U dont get to play them every week!!!
Hattrick and a midflieder?!
A match against Macclesfield cannot come at a better time. Just when we are tired after a busy period of one-point football, we realise how kind the draw has been to us. For those who dont know, Macclesfield is trying avoid relegation in League Two and they are looking forward to the 400,000 pounds they would earn from this FA Cup match. What an interesting match-up this is.
Macclesfield Town are currently 23rd in their league. If you put all the leagues one above another, not only they have two football leagues between them and Chelsea and also they are 88 places below Chelsea. I saw somewhere that one of the defenders in Macclesfield is earning 600 pounds a week!! Macclesfield players are actually over-awed that they would be playing the Champions in their den. It is just ‘playing’ this match and not winning that is in their minds. No wonder!
So, with this kind of introduction to an opponent team, it is normal to expect a thundering win. I think Jose will and should rest some key players who deserve rest such as Essien, Lampard and Drogba. I wish Carvalho too gets some very well deserved rest but I dont see that happening as we dont have central defenders unless Jose tries to put Drogba in the central defence for this match alone! Could be wacky!!
He should play with Ben Sahar and Scott Sinclair in the bench or vice versa. Diarra should find himself on the pitch at last. Even with this team, Chelsea are miles ahead of the opponent in terms of quality and performance. Obi Mikel should play all 90 minutes and I absolutely believe that he is a special talent and tomorrow could be his day.
Macclesfield’s manager Paul Ince, one of the very few black football managers in UK, has just won the manager of the month award for Dec 2006. He brought in some kind of spirit in them and he hopes to give us a fight.
You never know what might happen. It is going to be a great day out for the club and it will earn us a few quid. But we are playing well and it is important we go there and stamp our mark on the game, and not be overawed by the stars, the stadium and the crowd. We are going to go there to try to win the game.
It would be nice to keep it close and not get beaten by six or seven. We want to make a game of it and make it difficult for them and show them what a good side we can be.
Day before the match Jose Mourinho said.
The team can be a bit weak but it will not be a bit weak because I risk or gamble or because I want to leave people out and give chances to other people. We are going to play with the best team we have but the players we have are the only players with the condition to play.
I am happy it is the FA Cup and Macclesfield and not the Premier League because we are going to have to play with the players we have and the players we have are not a lot at the moment. Because of difficult games against teams from that level, I am not expecting an easy match. In the past I always had on the bench ammunition to change matches. Tomorrow I have kids.
The kids he was referring to were, Sinlcair, Sahar, Makalamby and Michael Woods.
Again this match woul not be telecast live here. I would surely watch the delayed broadcast as I’m very eager to see Ben Sahar and Scott Sinclair play. In a match like this, where we think anything less than 4-0 is a shame, we gotta watch out. You know what FA Cup is famous for!
____________________________________________________
Game Update: 6-1
We brushed them aside, I should say. I feel sorry for Macclesfield Town. They did try their best and they were unlucky too. For me, in such cup matches, 1-0 is as good as 10-0. I would say that more than the scoreline, I was happy to see Lamps well-deserved hattrick (how many midfielders score hattricks?) and also to see Obi score. I’ve started liking this little brat.
I really really feel for Sheva. Against such an opposition, when we have scored 6 goals, where a midfielder scores a hattrick, he couldnt find the net. He was very unlucky. He will come good. I’m ready to wait to see the resilience of Shevchenko, so is Jose.
Mourinho said:
He tried very hard and that’s a step forward. It is frustrating for a striker to be in a team that wins 6-1 and is not on the goal-scoring sheet. In some other matches maybe he just accepts without a fight the moment he is living now. But today no. He chased the luck. He fought hard. He worked for the team. He got a yellow card because, without the ball, he was chasing people and putting pressure on and making it good for the team
Jose always believed that smaller teams should not be humiliated. He had said that if he gets a comfortable lead, we would not go on pounding them for goal after goal. After today’s match, he said this:
I thought we dominated the whole game but they fought well. I wouldn’t have been happy if we had scored more because a team like that deserve to leave with pride.
It’s a result that shows the difference between the teams but I’m not happy if a powerful team like ours smashes nine or 10 against a team like that.
I completely agree!
-taken from bluechampions : ‘the chelsea fan blog’-
