I'm only doing this until Defoe for VDV and switching to 4-4-2, because a few seconds later we went 3-1 down and our heads dropped so ratings won't be fair because of the ghost goal.
Cudicini 7 Couldn't do anything about the real goal, couple of excellent stops in the lead up to the ghost goal, but I can't really lower his rating based on the ball not crossing the line and being given a goal, by that logic every striker that gets a goal cleared off the line would get improved ratings.
Walker 6 Couple of good defensive moments, but made a couple of minor mistakes too, didn't really go forward much. Bailed out Gallas when he left a cross for Kalou.
Gallas 6 Did well, couldn't really do much for the goal that was a goal. Small guy vs a huge guy is a strange mismatch. In ideal conditions King would have had Drogba rather than Gallas. Unfortunate slip early on that gave Drogba a free volley.
King 6.5 Yay, he's not broken. Under a week has passed and he's still capable of defending well. A couple of minor issues but a couple of great tackles/blocks.
BAE 6 Excellent off the line clearance which he's not going to get credit for officially. Made a couple of good tackles and was our best full back going forward.
Lennon 6.5 Had a couple of moments when he didn't stick to Cole ideally, but he always tracked back and did an excellent defensive job. Did well on the ball, had the better of Cole when going forward too.
Modric 6 Nice tackles, closing down. Did well to work with VDV, looked good going forward and would have had an assist early on if Luiz hadn't had fouled him when he tried to slide the ball through the Chelsea defence.
Parker 7 Excellent, the injury that got him a rest was looking like a blessing in disguise for a little while (although it would have been a very good disguise). Great work rate as always, great closing down, nice work offensively too. Was really good.
Bale 6.5 Played well, nice goal. Constantly had the beating of Bosingwa and had a great moment when he beat Ramierez, Bosingwa and Luiz in one run, although he got fouled a bit and the ball ran out of play.
VDV 6.5 Did well, but could have done a bit better with a couple of shots. Was supremely unfortunate to have Terry clear his header off the line, put in a lot of good work defensively. I think it was his ball to Ade that hit the post too, so he was very unlucky to not get 2 goals.
Ade 6 Didn't exactly sparkle, but put in a good cross to lead to VDV getting a header cleared off the line and got the assist for Bale's goal by getting brought down by Cech. Nice job letting the ball go when it hit the post, that was so unfortunate, it could have been brilliant.
Harry 6 To be losing 2-1 to a ghost goal is unlucky in the extreme, but he got the starting line up right, the players were playing well enough and if things would have been different we could have been 3-1 up instead of 2-1 down. As for Cudinici vs Friedel, it was rare for Harry to put morals ahead of anything, but I can respect him for that. I thought he'd go for Friedel, so my estimation of him as a man has grown, even if my estimation for him as a manger hasn't.
------------------
Taking into account the events after the 4-4-2 switch, Harry loses 2 points for handing control of the game to them. It was a gamble, and understandable, but it still was ill advised. That said, if we had lost and he'd left us 4-4-1-1 people would be complaining about a lack of action. Given we were playing against a 4-2-3-1 with Ramirez and Kalou on the wings for Chelsea, it would probably have been better to sacrifice a defender instead of handing control of the midfield to Chelsea. We are a possession based team (that can counter-attack), but we need that midfield, furthermore, they need that midfield. At least he got Parker off before Parker punched Obi-Mikel.
Cudinci took one wrong step after Lampard hit the free kick, despite it being miles out, so he didn't cover himself in glory.
The entire back four made plenty of mistakes after the VDV for Defoe sub. But the team's heads went down, BAE looked like he was going cry when he was just outside their box.
Parker kept trying until the end... Or until he got subbed off after Mikel kicked him. He's awesome. For all the negativity that signing old players can bring, Parker shows that sometimes it can work beautifully, he was so cheap and he's awesome.
Modric's passing went downhill when our heads dropped, but he also had to deal with being in a 2 man midfield against a fairly narrow 4-2-3-1 with hard working wingers, Ramirez is a defensive box to box player, so he had his work cut out in that position.
Defoe: It's unfortunate to come on and see your team collapse, it's not his fault as a person. I didn't really see much of him because we gave Chelsea the midfield, his one shot was a strange scuff that probably wouldn't have made it to the line. Defoe is great at what he does, but I don't know what's going to happen to him. Harry said after Norwich that we can't play a 4-4-2 because we're too open. So Defoe can only come on when we're losing and Harry wants to gamble, or maybe if a team is parking the bus. If we're losing to a good team, it's usually a bad idea to give up the midfield (especially if they aren't playing a 4-4-2), Harry has played a 3-5-2 before, but we have no CBs at the moment, so I have no idea what Defoe is thinking, maybe he's hoping the next manager plays him more?
The ref gave Chelsea a goal that didn't cross the line (they get one every year), he didn't see Obi-Mikel kick Parker (fudge knows why Obi-Mikel thought winning a game would be a catalyst for kicking people).... He protected Chelsea so fudging much. Well, against Barca they're going to get players sent off.
Our heads shouldn't have dropped like that, but that ghost goal fudged us. At 1-1 Harry doesn't go all out attack or fudge up our shape, he was obviously gambling and when they were winning 3-1 despite scoring 2 goals, you could see our players drop in performance and after 4-1 (which was really 3-1), we'd have had to score 3 goals to get to extra time and 4 to win, so there was no belief after that.
Di Matteo has continued his run of playing brick but getting results one way or another. Good luck to him against Liverpool. I hate Chelsea and Liverpool, but the tiebreaker for me is Di Matteo is like-able and KKKenny is an asshole.
