In truth this FA cup dream probably begin to leak its colour as soon as the numbered balls spoke their destiny. Even an out of sorts and misfiring Chelsea are still the best team in the league, one of the best in Europe. In ways that told. Whilst we burbled and chuffed as best we could Chelsea's technical ability and practised fluency always threatened to transform into something cutting and decisive. Having a bench full of world cup stars doesn't do any harm either. The attempted game plan was obvious: Stifle the opposition as best you can, match them and you might have a chance. Shame that went straight out the window. In a parallel world somewhere maybe that too early goal came at the other end and we could hold like heroes. In this world however it just meant we were lost, looking to something we never believed was coming.
At times we actually did hold our own but in honesty there was never much threat to the Chelsea goal and only some lazy, over confident lack of completion from Chelsea kept the score at one in the end. We weren't helped by another inept performance from the awful Steve Bennet. To quote from myself a referee surely live in far too close proximity to Arsenal Chelsea to be allowed to officiate such games in the first place? Perhaps I'm being unfair on the man suggesting a London club bias. Perhaps he just really is that incompetent.
It always seems harsh to pick through a team and look at players---they are a team after all---but with the season lost there seems little left to do. Scores out of ten are however for the tabloids and those who would play such games. Impossible to apply consistently or even sensibly (would a 7 here have earned a 10 had it been the 1970 Brazil team as opposition. Should I gave an 8 or hold off because it doesn't leave enough room for improvement. Bah).
From the back then it is possibly ironic that our defence didn't look quite as shambolic as usual---possibly a certain Frenchman's absence helped that. The final line is as solid as ever and but for an unfortunate helping foot even the killing goal would have been miraculously parried. If Given seemed to briefly finally loose it with a team mate then he can be forgiven, for time and time and time again he has rescued the inadequacies of those supposed to make his job obsolete. That back four were of course somewhat patched together and forced upon us. Certainly there's a great doubt if those in the centre would find any place in the line up under ideal conditions. Carr looked as rusty as he is but give heart and tried. On the other side Baba was effective and the enigmatic right back was in one of his better moods (and therefore playing one of his better games) before limping off. In the centre...well, Elliot always tries, despite not actually being good enough (he wasn't good enough when we let him go and we should never have brought him back). He certainly should never have been sent off. That decision was just the final icing on the cake of a long line of awful refereeing decisions. Ramage looked somewhat out his depth, shocked by the goal he at least recovered slightly over time, which is to his credit. He was still sinking though. Babayaro's injury led to the introduction of a virtual stranger in Moore (there are those who seem to have written him off as some sort of waste simply for the misfortune of being injured! Give him a chance---what of Dyer, Owen et al?). He at least looked competent but it's far too early to judge. Given the current state of the squad he looks likely to get another chance come Charlton, as unfortunately does How Many Times Can You Fuck Up and still be an international Boumsong.
The midfield were probably supposed to be what, if anything, was going to give us a chance. Packed to combat Chelsea. Solano has only shown flashed of his old self since his welcome return to the club. Unfortunately this wasn't one of the games in which he did that, passes going astray though his shooting was at least getting progressively nearer to, if never actually on, the target. Parker should perhaps have shone more to show what Chelsea had given away but still was his solid, next season's captain self. Bowyer---well, he's not the Bowyer of the Leeds days. But at least he does try, and for a man who freely admits he'd prefer to be somewhere else, tries a lot harder than others at times. Still, he was pretty ineffectual. Ameobi understandably has many detractors. Personally I thought he actually had a half decent game for long periods, and actually offered something in the way of a threat. That said, he doesn't have a striker's instincts and no way is he a winger (though if he had a first touch...) Dyer on the other hand looks like he's found some sort of inspiration. His running with the ball (something player's increasingly seem to forget simply scares the hell out of defences) was our main (and almost only) threat. The famed energy levels seem to be returning too, given how long he's been out and how many games back. We can only hope his medical problems are finally behind him and he can keep this up. Finally Sol went off (rightly enough) to make way for Emre, who might well have been pondering exactly why he didn't start (again, given our lack of creativity, rightly enough---one could argue his introduction should certainly have been sooner). It's telling that suddenly we looked like we had a player with the skill and technical ability to not look out of place amongst the opposition's side, though really he had too little time to influence anything much.
Finally, the final line, the man up front, the legend. You don't get to be a legend without having been around a while. Shearer by now needs support, needs help, no longer can he do it all alone. From the off it was like he knew what weight, what hope lay so heavily on his shoulders one more time, and also knew that no matter how much he asked his body it just wouldn't give that much again. Perhaps things were summed up by the rebounding ball from Bowyer's shot. Terry was almost on top of the ball before Shearer moved, where once the ball would have simply appeared as if by magic at the great man's feet. Yet still he flung those ageing bones towards it, every last ounce of strain and urgency he could muster. Terry, an age too early for us, got clattered---but by the great, and I bet he doesn't regret that one bit.
(@22:03)
