THE JOY OF SOCKS
Gallagher drives Cherries Nora batty with first headed goal
BOURNEMOUTH 1
Vina 21
CHELSEA 3
Gallagher 9, Badiashile 82, Felix 86
CONOR GALLAGHER’S socks appeal turned Chelsea into the darning buds of May.
With giant portholes cut into the back of his stockings to help his calf muscles breathe, England midfielder Gallagher may have looked like Last Of The Summer Wine fishwife Nora Batty with laddered tights.
But his third goal of the season – the first he has ever scored with his head – plus late bullseyes from Benoit Badiashile and sub Joao Felix handed the Blues their first win since March 11 and ended caretaker boss Frank Lampard’s torrid run.
All those street parties, all that bunting, seemed a bit excessive.
It was only three points at Bournemouth! But six consecutive defeats since his second coming at Stamford Bridge had left Lampard at the mercy of cheap-shot comedians on social media extending his surname to LLLLLLampard – and the 007 memes were on standby at Dean Court.
Now they can save their punchlines for another luckless stooge.
Gallagher was at the heart of a more clinical performance, especially around the box, where Chelsea’s attacking thrust this season has been so feeble that if they had punched your doorbell, nobody would have heard it ring.
This was only the fourth time in 46 games where they have scored three goals.
And Gallagher admitted the players needed to look in the mirror to find the underlying cause of Chelsea needing three managers this season, saying: “Absolutely – the players are the most important people because we’re the guys on the pitch.
“We have to look at ourselves, be better individually and as a team, and here we showed we’re a good
team. It’s a great feeling finally to win again – we were desperate to get a win, take the points and to perform well because recent games haven’t been good enough, but it felt a lot better.
“There are still things to improve on, but we can take the confidence from this and we’re really looking forward to the next game.”
Lampard led Chelsea’s day trippers over to acknowledge the travelling fans afterwards, and if he milked the acclaim like a dairy maid, who can blame him?
Gallagher added: “He deserves that because he’s been brilliant since he came in.
“Although we haven’t performed well enough, particularly in the last few games, he’s always been positive, training has been great and that hard work has now paid off.
“And to score three was great – he wanted us to be more ruthless and clinical in the final third, get more bodies in the box, create more chances and give ourselves a better chance of scoring more goals, which is what we’ve been lacking.”
And those socks (right) – what the actual? “Loads of players do it now,” he laughed.
“I’m not the only one! My calf muscles get tight in games and I don’t like it when the socks are too tight, so I just cut holes in them to release the tension, nothing more than that.”
Let’s not sugar-coat it: Although Chelsea just about deserved to win this game, it wasn’t all sweetness and light.
Fans who chant former owner Roman Abramovich’s name, when his mate’s warplanes bomb theatres with scores of children sheltering in the basement, warrant little sympathy.
And they booed Raheem Sterling – a flop since his £47.5 million move from Manchester City last summer – although his purposeful run did set up Felix’s goal.
So Chelsea aren’t out of the woods yet.
Anyone who says otherwise can put a sock in it.