Source: Telegraph
Chelsea beat Fulham as fans focus on the whatifs
"It's so quiet at the Bridge," rose the chant from the Fulham end, a familiar piece of west London goading but accurate on this occasion, for neither three goals in a manic first 10 minutes nor an emphatic final scoreline could rouse the brooding home supporters from their torpor. [LNB]They had much on which to brood. The hypotheticals hung heavy in the still summer air: what if Chelsea had not fallen to a goalless draw here against Everton last month, what if they had not shipped two points with the same result at home to Hull in February, the result that triggered the exit of Luiz Felipe Scolari? Maybe then, without such carelessness, the goals for Nicolas Anelka, Florent Malouda and Didier Drogba could have been of more consequence, allowing Chelsea to reduce cut a six-point deficit to United rather than shoring up the same margin over Arsenal. [LNB] Related ArticlesPremier League tableTelegraph player raterSport on TVPremier League actionRound-up: Chelsea and Arsenal on fire as West Brom slide towards the dropGladiator Didier Drogba inflicts pain on ArsenalThe stakes were not as high as Chelsea would have wished. But still Hiddink fielded a remarkablly strong line-up, such linchpins as John Terry, Frank Lampard and Michael Essien all present and correct amid the manager's anxieties about holding on to third place in the Premier League. It was an audacious gesture, only four days before a decisive Champions League confrontation with Barcelona, where Hiddink promised to "take more initiative." He admitted to some reservations about this half-paced win over Fulham, saying: "We are happy with the result, but I do not want to shut my eyes to moments when we let them play." [LNB]If the atmosphere here, due to the one-sided rivalry, was a touch laid-back, some of the defending was positively horizontal. It needed only 51 seconds for Anelka, executing the deftest one-two with Drogba, to produce a consummate clipped finish for Chelsea's first goal and so lay to rest any lingering murmurs about their negative tactics at the Nou Camp last Tuesday night. True, Chelsea do not and probably will never have the attacking flamboyance of Barcelona, but all three of their strikers had been involved in a silky first-minute move, Malouda supplying the initial ball for Anelka. One for those cantankerous Catalans, clearly. [LNB]A pity, then, that Chelsea were too distracted to pay the same attention at the back. The masterclass - a kind way of describing it, admittedly - in bloody-minded resilience that they had given in Barcelona was but a distant memory as they found themselves unpicked by Fulham's less feted forwards. A harmless-looking pass by Danny Murphy was sufficient to split the defence, Erik Nevland, later removed from the field with a dead leg, surging clear on the right to angle a fierce shot across the face of Petr Cech, the goalkeeper showing fresh signs of vulnerability. [LNB]The lapse did not cost Chelsea. Their waves of attack were crashing over Fulham with increasing frequency and it was scant surprise when Malouda, enjoying a revival from his abject form earlier this season, lashed in Drogba's low cross to restore a lead they more than merited. As Roy Hodgson, the Fulham manager, put it: "When you're playing against a team as accomplished as Chelsea, you know that you're going to have major problems on the counter-attack." The trouble was that it was only the 10th minute; Chelsea were in danger of exhausting all their energies for when they would really need them, back here on Wednesday evening against Messi and his merry men. [LNB]Drogba, naturally, was pivotal to Chelsea's confident play. The Ivorian, rejuvenated under Hiddink like Malouda, is the figure in whom the team's hopes of a decisive goal against Barcelona are invested, and he he displayed some of his most lethal form in this game while hardly slipping out of third gear. Having had a goal ruled out for offside, when television replays proved that it should have counted, he felt he had earned a penalty when Paul Konchesky brought him down inside the area. No sooner had Alan Wiley, dismissed the appeals, than Drogba was forcing another last-gasp intervention when clear on goal, this time from John Pantsil. [LNB]The striker's reward had to wait until the second half, when a superb counter-punch by Anelka culminated in Drogba, seizing the perfect cross from the Frenchman, steering his shot beyond the onrushing Mark Schwarzer. Lush, lazy skill; it was a combination with all the languor that defined the afternoon.[LNB]
