Tonto

Fantastic goal at just the right time. We were starting to descend into 2004/2005 away league form.

Andy Gray thinks subbing a striker (who isn't playing particularly well) for a striker is a cautious move.

I missed the build up for that, but where were our fullbacks? How did Simao end up unmarked on the edge of the area?

Arbeloa having one of his better games so far.

And if we'd gone to Villa with that attitude they'd have said 'Oh, actually we won't sell for anything less than 22 million' and the whole process would have unfolded just as it did, but with bigger numbers.

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Good for you. Have a look at the goal. As McFadden goes down our left, Skrtel is tracking Forsell, Finnan is tracking Kapo. Forsell darts across the defence and Skrtel doesn't react. He ends up a good yard closer to the ball than Kapo, which isn't a great position to defend the cross. Not slating Skrtel, just think between him and Finnan they allowed a 2 on 2 situation to result in a player being completely unmarked.

LOL....getting a little worked up aren't you?

No. Nobody followed Forsell's run. He made it from our left. Like I said, general sloppiness from the two players.

Seemed to me that Finnan was covering Kapo but Forsell made a run across our line and wasn't picked up. Goal was scored from the position that Finnan would normally be expected to cover but the scorer came from the other side. I'd say both Finnan and Skrtel were a bit sloppy.

Excellent pen under enormous pressure from Ballack.

Exactly. I also think Kuyt was clever about what he did, keeping the contact as brief and innocuous as possible but still enough to put Hleb off, whereas Toure simply panicked.

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There's an utterly laughable piece in yesterday's Sunday Times by Hugh McIlvanney ranting about Kuyt's tug on Hleb last Wednesday as if it signalled the end of civilisation as we know it. Somewhere in between the demented ramblings the general thrust of the piece is that sneaky tugs and of this kind, or grappling as he calls it, are ruining the game and should be stamped out, particularly at set pieces. A few pages back, above the match report for Saturday's game is an excellent action pic of Bendtner scoring. It clearly shows Gallas pinning Plessis with a forearm driven into the back of his neck and, more importantly, Flamini very obviously has a firm grip of Crouch's wrist and is pulling pulling him away from Bendtner. The amount of force being used to do this is clear by the way Crouch's shirt is stretched and both Flamini's and Crouch's body positions. I couldn't find the same pic; this one shows Crouch but not Plessis.

This could get very interesting. The Chelsea - Man Utd game at Stamford Bridge could be decisive now and it's on the weekend between the CL semis.

...as well as the season where we had the best defensive record in the Premiership from set pieces.

Was just chuckling away to myself about that....

Crouch strikes a perfectly taken shot low and hard into the bottom corner.... Andy Gray: 'Crouch does rather scuff it...'

Finnan not involved in our attacking play at all. Needs to support Pennant a lot more.

We're using Crouch better than we usually do. When the ball goes up to him 2 or 3 players are immediately looking to run past him and get onto his flick ons.

We're playing some very good stuff. Short, crisp passing, good movement.

Arbeloa left back, Riise left mid, Plessis in the Masch role and Yossi in the Gerrard role?

Who would you like in Gerrard's current role if he drops back? I'd like to see how Yossi does in there, with Kuyt staying on the right, but this is probably not the game to experiment in.

Since the first half hour Babel hasn't shown much threat anyway so.....