MOTD- Chelsea 1-0 Stoke City

By on January 26, 2014

However much the 1-0 scoreline suggests that Chelsea suffered from the sale of Juan Mata to Manchester United and barely capsized Stoke City in the FA Cup fifth round, it couldn’t have been any more of a breeze for Jose Mourinho’s brilliant men to come away from the Britannia Stadium knowing that they had booked themselves a spot in FA Cup quarterfinals with the 1-0 win.  Really, in the end it was just a split between poor finishing and a lack of luck that kept Chelsea from scoring at least two or three, possibly four, maybe even five goals.  All you needed to do to figure that out was watch the first 100 seconds of the match, inside Chelsea had already come inches away from finding the target when Samuel Eto’o, on the turn, fired a low shot through the legs of Ryan Shawcross just wide from fifteen yards out.

Chelsea’s early dominance didn’t even falter as the first half reached it’s middle stages, with a fantastic Shawcross only just keeping the ball from falling to Andre Schurrle for a near tap in before Stoke gave up yet another good chance when Erik Pieters tripped up Samuel Eto’o twenty-five yards out from goal in what was quite a bland foul in the eyes of everybody, including referee Chris Foy, except perhaps Pieters himself, who protested vividly.  In the end, he was right to attempt to swing Foy’s mind, as the consequences of the free-kick were dire for Stoke as Oscar magnificently swung it into the top left corner with a beautiful hit that would have made even David Beckham in his prime proud to put Chelsea up 1-0.

The Blues’ began to grow even more as an attacking force, and moments after Frank Lampard somehow screwed a sitting tap-in wide Oscar was set in on goal down the left in the forty-first minute.  Although Asmir Begovic dove the wrong way in an attempt to block the shot, Oscar’s low effort still managed to miss, hitting the base of the post before bouncing away.  Mourinho’s side continued to go on hitting the post as the first half made way for the second period as Schurrle’s cracking effort from the right side of the box dinged away off the near post while Begovic was left heading towards France.  Lampard’s low twenty yard drive then forced Begovic into a good save down low to his left before John Obi Mikel scuffed the simplest of tap-ins from Oscar’s cut-back from the left wide of the far post in the seventh-seventh minute.  Yet Chelsea were just not meant to get a second goal apparently, and Stoke somehow held the scoreline to 1-0, a minor consolation in comparison to the disappointment of getting knocked out of the FA Cup, no matter how expected it was.
Man of the Match: Oscar

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.