Minority Report v Chelsea (FA Cup 5th round)

You called our chances 'lucky breaks' or 'errors' on Chelsea's part, in the post I responded to. I pointed out how those chances came about, which had nothing to do with luck or error, and you've ignored that, and again in this post you're suggesting we were negative and hoping for a lucky break.

We had way more shots, more corners, won way more tackles, more aerial duels etc. They had a lot more of the ball, but the majority of that possession was in their own third (which they struggled to get out of in the first half). They took their one good chance, and won. Fair play to them. That's football. I'm not seeing negativity in that performance. I saw a clear identity, a real passion and desire from our players. We gave a team worth north of £500m in transfer fees a very good game with our circa £5m team. And we're 13th in the second tier.

 

When your opponent has 72% of possession, I would have expected some of the statistics you quote (tackles won, aerial duels won) to be in our favour. That is what happen when you have less of the ball. Many of the things that you say, I can have no real disagreement with. I would say though that many of the points that I make are based upon generalisations. In that case, it is always possible to pick out specific examples that will contradict my general point. I stand by my general analysis, and I stand by the comments that I have made since my report. Nevertheless, it is time that this thread was put to bed, because we are all starting to repeat the points that we have already made.

 

I’ll leave with this then - if/when the frontline clicks into gear, we are going to have a cracking end to the season. Will it though? We’ll see I suppose.

 

I hope you are right.

 

Ismael is doing a great job with the players at his disposal, in my opinion. We look far less likely to concede goals now. Indeed, our keepers have had very few shots to save in most games. We try to play good football in our opponents' half of the pitch, rather than passing the ball around pointlessly at the back, where one mistake can lead to a goal threat. So many teams have tried to emulate Spain and Barcelona at their very best, but most, even in the Premier League, fall a long way short in their efforts to do so successfully.

 

Agreed. The tactics were good tonight and the ratio of hoofing to football much more to my liking than lately. I thought it was a great team effort with shrewd match planning. I feel very disappointed with the outcome but not the performance. We are a clinical striker away from better things.