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| Julian Finney / Getty Images |
Chelsea breaks Manchester City's undefeated run this season and get s crucial three points against the league leaders. City started strong and got the goal as the result. But Chelsea got settled and improved after the first 20 minutes. Meireles equalized after Sturridge exploited City's defensive weakness on the left. The game became very one-sided (for Chelsea) after Clichy was sent off for a foul on Ramires. Lampard, off the bench, grabbed the winner with a penalty.
Michael Cox of ZonalMarking has already given his analysis on the game (here) and I have very little to add to that. But I would like to expand one of the points he made in his analysis. He writes,
Chelsea should be given great credit for their patience and calmness with the ball when they had a man. Never did they resort to hanging it up for Drogba in the box – instead they went from flank to flank, spreading the play and creating overloads down the flanks.Cox is exactly right. We were very patient in our build up when we had the man advantage and it paid off nicely. Case in point, the build up that lead to the penalty, when Sturridge's shot hit Lescott's hand. It was an attacking phase made up of 15 passes and it took almost a whole minute of continuous possession. Here's the second by second break down.
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| Picture 1. Build Up Phase One |
[80:09] Hart takes a goal kick.
[80:12] Terry beats Yaya Toure for the header.
[80:14] Ramires collects the ball from Terry's header. Pass 1.
[80:16] Ramires passes to Terry. Pass 2.
[80:18] Terry passes to Mata and makes an overlapping run ahead of Mata. Pass 3.
[80:23] Mata dribbles and passes to Terry. Then, makes a run forward. Pass 4.
[80:24] Terry tries to slip a pass to Mata but the pass is unsuccessful.
[80:26] Terry gets the ball back right away. He passes back to Romeu. Pass 5.
[80:29] Romeu finds Ramires at the center circle. Pass 6.
[80:32] Ramires switches point of attack to the right by passing to Bosingwa. Pass 7.
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| Picture 2. Build Up Phase Two |
[80:35] Bosingwa passes to Sturridge on the right flank and continues his run forwad. Pass 8.
[80:38] Sturridge passes to Bosingwa. Pass 9.
[80:43] Bosingwa attempts to find a way forward but can't. He returns the ball to Sturridge. Pass 10.
[80:47] Sturridge passes all the way back to Romeu at the center circle. Pass 11.
[80:49] Romeu finds Cole and switches the point of attack to the left. Pass 12.
[80:51] Cole passes forward to Mata. Pass 13.
[80:56] Mata dribbles towards the middle (as he often does) and finds Lampard who is at the edge of the D. Pass 14.
[80:58] Lampard takes one touch before passing to Sturridge in the box. Point of attack switches again to the right. Pass 15.
[81:00] Sturridge cuts on to his favorite left foot and shoots. The ball hits Lescott's hand. Penalty won.
[81:46] Lampard scores from penalty.We needed to be patient and we were. Otherwise, we might not have found the winning goal. Or worse, we could have conceded to a City counter attack if we carelessly pushed too hard and too fast. Instead, we probed the City attack from different angles and struck when the chance opened up.
Carefree, wherever you may be...
Very nice to see a whole goal fleshed out, so we can see the process. This is particularly insightful as it was a common pattern after the red. Too often in the past you see teams don't take advantage of their extra player, and just rush to the goal. I think this is what AvB was referring to when he said "the players took great initiative today".
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