Spurs 1 Chelsea 5 - Ratings, Review and Another Redknapp Rant

A cagey first half in which Spurs had the better chances. Rafa had a header cleared off the line by Terry, and hit the post a bit later on after Ade failed to turn in the simplest of crosses.

Then all of a sudden Chelsea hoof the ball up to Drogba who holds off Gallas, turns him easily and lashes it past Cudicini into the top corner. 0-1

The second goal was a farce. Chelsea take the corner, Cudicni makes a save, Terry jumps into and knocks over three Spurs players, Mata pokes it goalwards, the ball goes somewhere near the line and the ref takes a guess and gives a goal. 0-2.

Not over the line...

Our one goal came from a great through ball from Parker to Ade. Ade was one on one with the keeper, looked like he was about to mess it all up when he was brought down by Cech. The ball bobbled to Bale who passed it into the net. I'd rather he hadn't. Don't score that goal and the ref has to give a penalty and send Cech off. Chelsea would have been down to 10 men for half an hour. Still, Bale put it away and it was 1-2.

Redknapp goes 442 again, despite us being embarrassed by Norwich last weekend using that formation. The team immediately look appalling as Chelsea score a chip, free kick and nutmeg in the last 15 minutes to make it 1-5.

(We usually have some player twitter reactions here, but unsurpisingly, none of them have been on twitter since yesterday)

Player Ratings
Cudicini 5 - Let down by his defence, could have done better with some goals.
Walker 5 - Wasted many many attacks.
Gallas 4 - Beaten easily by the Chelsea attack
King 4 - Continues to destroy his Spurs legacy.

BAE 5 - Casual.
Lennon 6 - Tried a bit, can't cross, still couldn’t be arsed to defend.
Modric 5 - Anonymous. Again.
Parker 6.5 - Reasonable game, looked like he was up for it. >>>
Bale 6.5 - Scored a goal, did some good stuff on the left and wandered around the pitch aimlessly when he wasn't on the left.
VDV 6.5 - Had the most chances of anyone in the first half.
Ade 6.5 - Should have put us 1-0 up from VDV's cross. Battled hard at times but not really to much effect.

Subs
Defoe 4 - Hardly touched the ball. Not his fault, but was the catalyst for the downfall.
Sandro 4 - Late on.

Who knows what might have happened if the second Chelsea goal wasn't given and Cech was sent off. With the score at 1-1 and Chelsea down to ten men it could have been very different. But ultimately, Spurs ran out of ideas, couldn't break down Chelsea and had their arses handed to them and I suspect that would have happened even if Chelsea had gone down to ten men. We are toothless, devoid of ideas and flailing aimlessly in the wind. When things don't work, our only solution is to mess things up even more.

Unemployment...

Dammit Redknapp, this is the best team we have had in ages and you are making a right royal balls up out of it. I'm holding back on my judgement of the season until it's over, because a cup semi final and top 4 finish is pretty reasonable. But if we finish outside the top four after being 13 points clear of fifth place only inevitably to be told it's where we deserve to be, well Mr Redknapp, I'll drive you to the England job myself.

And if it annoys you that we moan about not doing better than we are it's because this is Tottenham, we don't want to be hovering around 4th, 5th, 6th place every year. We want you to use the amazing squad we have and take us forwards, make us better, get us in the Champions League, get us challenging for the league. If you are not as disappointed as us when these things don't happen and you are content to see Spurs finish 5th because "that's where they deserve to be" then you are not one of us Mr Redknapp, and you do not belong here.

One final silver lined bit of straw clutching, the last time we lost an FA Cup semi final we turned the corner and broke into the top four with some powerful performances. Who knows...let's hope for the same again this year.


Connect with Tottenblog Hotspur:

Follow @tottenblog