Chelsea relied on three goals in the last five minutes to finish the job against Championship side Portsmouth, and claiming a FA Cup fourth round place.
Chelsea assistant manager Roberto Di Matteo said earlier this week that Chelsea would take the FA Cup very seriously. This was backed up from the team that was announced to play against money troubled Portsmouth, with no youngsters starting for the Blues. From that you would have thought that Chelsea would easily waltzed past their visitors with ease.
However, Chelsea didn’t even look like they could be bothered to play, and the game was a far cry from the action and excitement that the Manchester clash had brought earlier in the day. Andre Villas-Boas’ side lacked both character and a cutting edge against their opponents and dragged themselves through much of the game.
Portsmouth have struggled this season in the Championship as they did in the last, but could have taken the lead after just thirty seconds, with former Stoke man Dave Kitson bursting past the poor David Luiz after John Terry’s slip, but couldn’t even trouble Cech, flashing his shot wide of the post, with the goal gaping. Aaron Mokena, who played against Chelsea in the 2010 final, flashed a header wide from a Liam Lawrence corner, before Chelsea really began to take control of the game.
With Didier Drogba out in Africa, and Daniel Sturridge injured, AVB had to call on the services off Fernando Torres, who looked for his first goal since October, but he was given no help from his teammates, and was given neither the chance nor the delivery to help him rekindle his goal scoring ways. He was given one chance though, forcing a good save from Henderson between the Pompy sticks from his powerful header after Malouda floated in a cross.
Chelsea could not turn all their possession into chances and so ended a very pitiful, boring and very forgetful first half. Chelsea will have been very unhappy that with all their top players on the pitch, they could not test Stephan Henderson more than just poor long-range efforts.
So after that poor first half, Chelsea finally got going and with AVB handing Florent Malouda his first start since November, tearing down the left hand-side before looking up, and cutting back to Juan Mata, who poked the ball past Henderson at the near post.
But Portsmouth were not going to go down without a fight, and Liam Lawrance saw a free-kick go narrowly wide, Daivd Luiz, who looked very shaky all game, gave the ball away and Petr Cech needed to be alert to save from Marko Futacs, before John Terry became a hero, lunging down to header off the line from Rochina, before Cech sprawled across to deny Futacs once again.
Chelsea looked destined to crawl across the finish line, before AVB introduced Oriol Romeu, the young Spaniard, who has thoroughly impressed this season, who allowed Ramires more space to move, which is exactly what he did. Juan Mata bombed down the right, before flicking in a ball, which was nodded down by Torres before the on running Brazilian poked in.
But the midfielder was not finished yet, embarking on a slalom-like run, feeding Torres, who returned the favour, to finish once again.
And to add insult to injury, Ramires found Lampard on the edge of the box, who drove low from outside the box.
So, it was a very harsh result on Pompy, who tried and tried to find something, but the Chelsea defense limped through. Luiz still looking poor, and I’m sure Gary Cahill may not be the answer, but it’s the one that Chelsea have picked. One thing is for sure, Chelsea need to buy a new right back, winger and a decent playmaker in this window, and deadline day will be very interesting for Chelsea.
Many people say that AVB is a tactical genius, however, how can a genius not see the very obvious, which is that Juan Mata needs to be given more freedom? Surely he could help Fernando Torres more if he was feeding balls in from behind him?
The good start to 2012 continues for Chelsea, and with relatively easy games for the rest of the month, you would feel that perhaps, just perhaps, Fernando Torres could rediscover that eye for goal.
Man of the Match: Ramires (Chel)
Stats of the Match: Juan Mata has now scored on his debuts in the Premier League (Norwich), Champions League (Bayen Lev) and the FA Cup (Portsmouth), and all his goals for the Blues have come at Stamford Bridge.
