Monday, February 6th, 2012
Chelsea was given an ultimatum by owner Roman Abramovich in midweek to prove their worth and win the title, but against Blackburn Rovers they stumbled again in the title race. It might have not been a defeat, but the draw could yet prove damaging to their hopes of taking the English Premier League title as it completed a miserable week for Carlo Ancelotti’s side.
Everything appeared to be a routine win for the Londoners as they started the match strongly and duly scored through Didier Drogba. It was a strong and clean finish from the Ivorian striker and put Chelsea firmly in command for the rest of the half. However, there were hints of complacency or just staleness as they laboured to create further clear cut chances. Even those that did come their way were not converted. Chief culprit of this profligacy was Nikolas Anelka who has now not scored in the last 11 matches – a far cry from his early form.
In the second half, Blackburn Rovers continued to not threaten until a sudden equaliser from nowhere. El Hadji Diouf headed in an equaliser and from then on, it was all Rovers. Sam Allardyce’s men pressured Chelsea relentlessly and put in a strong performance that allowed goalkeeper Jason Brown to have an easier time in goal as he was hardly called upon against Chelsea then. They did survive a late flurry from Carlo Ancelotti’s men when they almost scored through another powerful Drogba shot that was blocked and cleared off the line by the Rovers defender and goalkeeper. In the end, it was too little, too late and Manchester United could be heard celebrating the result that left Chelsea trailing by four points with a game in hand.
After the game, a clearly frustrated and disappointed Carlo Ancelotti had this to say about the title race:
“It will be more difficult now to win the title but it’s not impossible.
“We are disappointed because I think we lost two points here, and important points. We had prepared well for the game, we had tried to win to cancel out the game against Inter and for one hour we did well.
“It’s not an easy moment for us and we have to maintain our confidence and our composure. Manchester United are now top of the league and we have to run more and do better and leave this behind us as soon as possible.”
Match Highlights of Blackburn vs Chelsea:
Tags: Blackburn Rovers, Carlo Ancelotti, Chelsea, Didier Drogba, English Premier League, EPL live, Match Highlights, Match Review