CHELSEA DEMOLISH WEST BROM WITH A TOUCH OF BRAZILIAN INSPIRATION
Dunga visit inspires Chelsea in West Brom demolition job
JOSE MOURINHO must have been taking notes when Brazil manager Dunga visited Chelsea’s Cobham training ground for lunch on Friday. For there was certainly an air of the legendary Brazil sides about Chelsea as they took apart West Bromwich Albion at Stamford Bridge — in the first half, at least.
Two of their starting XI were Brazilian — Oscar and Willian — and Diego Costa was born there before switching allegiances to represent Spain. All three were integral to this punishing, pin-point passing performance.
‘Beautiful,’ was the word used by Mourinho to sum up his side’s firsthalf display. ‘The quality of our football was high,’ he said. ‘We were playing so well, so fast, so fluid. We made the pitch very wide. We create spaces to play inside. We scored two goals, we should score much more than that. It was fantastic.’
Indeed, the great Brazil side which won the 1970 World Cup in Mexico would have been proud of a move of the highest calibre that led to the opening goal on 11 minutes.
Oscar exchanged a tidy one-two with Willian down the left-hand side and then passed the ball to Cesar Azpilicueta on the overlap. The fullback played the ball back to Oscar who sent in a cross as nonchalantly as you like which Diego Costa controlled with his chest before finishing for his 11th Premier League goal of the campaign.
Only 25 minutes in and Chelsea were two ahead, although it could have been four or five at that point were it not for Ben Foster’s form in Albion’s goal. A simpler move, but as equally clever as the first, doubled the lead. Oscar played a corner from the left along the ground straight to Eden Hazard, who took one touch to take the ball around Craig Gardner before burying a low finish.
Four minutes later, West Brom’s afternoon became considerably worse when Claudio Yacob was shown a straight red card by referee Lee Mason for jumping in to challenge Costa. At this point, West Brom manager Alan Irvine feared the worst.
‘There’s been an 8-0 in the league this season and when you’re 2-0 down with 10 men at Stamford Bridge with most of the game to play, you fear the worst,’ he said. ‘It was important to get my players focused and make sure we didn’t end up on the wrong end of a high score.’
But Chelsea were already running the show as if they had a man advantage before the sending off.
The Brazilian Football Confederation said ‘there was a long conversation, with an exchange of ideas about foot ball ’ when Dunga met Mourinho. Yet Chelsea’s players made the most complex football ideas appear simple on the pitch.
Oscar struck an outside-of-the-boot curler from the edge of the box on 15 minutes, which Foster dived to keep out before smothering a Costa effort who had pounced on the rebound. Moments later and he was at it again. Oscar, seemingly everywhere on the pitch and this time on the right, reached the byline before passing back to Branislav Ivanovic. The full-back’s firsttime cross was met by Costa, who tried to side-foot home but the ball flew across goal and went wide of a post.
Still wave after wave of blue roared towards West Brom’s goal. Hazard sent a ball over the top, which Costa managed to control only for Foster to come hurtling out to block, then react fastest to punch the ball away from Oscar’s feet.
Foster thwarted Oscar again when another Chelsea move ended with the forward taking a touch and attempting an audacious back-heel. There were cried of ‘Ole’ from the Stamford Bridge crowd, midway through the first half, as a triangle of Cesc Fabregas, Azpilicueta and Oscar played the ball out from the left corner of their own half, with a cheeky flick from the Brazilian thrown in.
But whatever Mourinho told his players at the break reined them in and the second half was a far more solemn affair, still dominated by Chelsea. Whatever ideas he had shared the day before, this was vintage Mourinho, straight from his personal tactics book. Kill a team off then suffocate them with possession to ease to victory. ‘We decreased the intensity,’ Mourinho said. ‘It made it easier for them.’
Still their utter domination in Albion’s half allowed for breaks.
Five minutes after the restart John Terry was denied by Foster with a powerful header and on 73 minutes Fabregas threaded a pass between five players to set Hazard free inside the box. He shimmied to put the goalkeeper off, before taking a shot.
Yet again, Foster was in the way.