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MOTD: Chelsea 1-0 Everton

By on February 11, 2015

Jose Mourinho recently complained about his “very short squad.” Not literally in terms of height, mind you, but their depth. Chelsea indeed struggled without Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas in the starting lineup, though not in goal. For the millions of pounds they spend, they get two world-class goalkeepers — Petr Cech and Thibaut Courtois. And while Mourinho will almost certainly find fault with those filling in for the suspended Costa and benched Fabregas, it was a backup and a tall one at that, in Petr Cech, who saved them today.

“We have a very short squad, we don’t have a squad like other teams in the Premier League with options. options, options. We rely a lot on this group of players which we have.” — Jose Mourinho speaking in an interview with BT Sport, who exclusively aired today’s match live on BT Sport 1.

Out of all the positions in football, it may seem most absurd to have two world class goalkeepers. It is a wonder to many why Cech wants to stay as a substitute, and why Mourinho keeps him on Chelsea’s tabs. Nobody is asking questions anymore. For the millions that Chelsea spend to keep Cech’s hands at the club (on the bench for that matter), it isn’t being wasted, though today it was his feet that kept Chelsea in the game.

Chelsea dominated the match and went a man ahead because of Hazard’s trickiness in drawing multiple yellow cards in the first half, leading to Gareth Barry’s sending off right before Willian’s winner; however, by then Everton had been denied multiple times by Cech. At critical periods in the match Cech came up big, first denying Romelu Lukaku with his left foot early n the first half and again late in the second half. The second far superior, with the Czech goalkeeper having next to no time to somehow stick a foot out to deny Lukaku’s point-blank range tap-in.

Everton are hardly the side they were last season, but Lukaku’s runs in behind Chelsea’s high back-line and Ross Barkley’s creativity gave Chelsea enough to work with, while their defense held resolute for the majority of the match. That though can largely be pinned on Chelsea’s performance —Hazard’s electric dribbling and Juan Cuadrado’s solid debut meant Chelsea kept ahold of the ball but lacked in creating quality chances without Costa up front. Their single, winning goal ended up coming from Willian’s deflected effort from twenty yards.

Chelsea was frustrated so much in front of goal that Branislav Ivanovic’s handling of Everton substitute James McCarthy could likely earn the former a three-match ban.

Early on, Willian’s twenty-yard effort curled just over the crossbar, and Cuadrado also came close with a low, wide effort across the goal on the break. Nineteen minutes in Loic Remy missed a similar chance though at that point Lukaku’s chance a few minutes before overshadowed all of Chelsea’s. The big-man was slipped in down the channel between John Terry and Azpilicuta by Barkley, and fooled Cech with a near-post effort, only for the goalkeeper to get a leg on the ball to force it wide. Chelsea were visibly relieved in not going behind; that theme remained until the end of the ninety minutes.

As Cech also kept out Lukaku’s six-yard finish from Bryan Oviedo’s low cross, Chelsea can be relieved to get the win on a night which Tim Howard was also top-class. The American produced shadows of his career-defining performance at World Cup 2014 and denied second half efforts from Nemanja Matic and Willian at full stretch, also keeping out Hazard’s close range effort. In the end, the result went down largely due to the way the cards fell. The stars aligned, and an albeit below average Chelsea got the result.
Man of the Match: Petr Cech

Photo credit: Warrenfish on Wikipedia

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.