Chelsea going through could be good as it happens

[chicken_badge]

Clutching at straws with some of those GGG:

Arsenal home - both goals. Handball / dodgy keeping outplayed them, deserved the points
Fulham away - obvious
Wigan home- In the fact that they missed that sitter right near the end - would have been 3-2 ok we deserved to win (clutching? ) three points never in doubt either way
Wigan away - could have drawn that easily they murdered us in the last 25/30 mins so I'd say deserved points but lucky to come away with them.
Blackburn away - again they dingdonged on us in 2nd half so good defending or luck on our side? both these games, Man U have been winning titles like this for years and no-one calls them lucky
Bolton home - Cahill sending off yes we should have won anyway but lucky sending off terrible decision but nothing to anything less than 3 points for us if he stayed on
Liverpool away - they were much better than us really. Great defending but they had better chances and were unlucky to win. Had we stolen it with Bale we would have robbed them. Just an excellent away performance. Got the offensive side of the game wrong, but did not deserve to conceed. 1 point correct result
Saudi Sportswashing Machine away - draw was a good result. We were unlucky that we didn't win it but they could have won it right at the end, so I think we were lucky and unlucky we were winning with what 5 mins left?

Basically im saying some of our wins we had elements of luck on our side.

I'm not saying we were really lucky in these games I'm just saying we had some luck on those days. It appears we didnt have any luck in the united, Chelsea, stoke, everton, wolves, city but im sure in instances in those games we were lucky but overall unlucky so how do you define luck with regards to football matches?

Fulham apart, I dont think any of those results were due to luck.
Only one big decision wrong and thats the Bolton one... and only "big" because it was such a bad decision, rather than how costly it was.
Compare that to Balotelli, where you could forgive the ref as he didnt see clearly what happened, but it won the game for City.

And in no way does that equate to this:

I don't think we've been lucky at all.

Stoke - five or six massive decisions against us in one of the worst officiating perfirmances of recent times.
Chelsea - two or three crucial decisions against us.
Wolves - two big decisions against us.
Emirates Marketing Project - two big decisions against us.
Man Utd - goal disallowed for accidental handball. Fair enough but....
Everton - identical accidental handball by Baines but no penalty.

Anyway, I say its good that lot are through. They are unlikely to get to a final, unlikely to beat Madrid and/or Barcelona and/or Bayern if they need to.
Like Liverpool's cup runs, its papering over some serious cracks.
And if you look at their next month:

(Nicked off paxtonwolf in the Midweek games thread)

Chelski fixtures
Sat 17th Leicester
Weds 21st City
Sat 24th Us
Midweek CL Q/fl 1st leg
Sat 31st Villa
Midweek Cl Q/fl 2nd leg
Sat 7th Wigan
Mon 9th Fulham

Throw in another rearranged game v Saudi Sportswashing Machine and maybe even another 2 CL games

That's a horrific three or four weeks and you will only come out on top in those Premiership/CL games by being tactically sound and not just 100% raw passion.
It looked like Chelsea won last night by going all out against another team with a hell-for-leather approach.

Almost every top side has had ONE big result this season, where they have crucified another CL side (Man U 1 Emirates Marketing Project 6, Man U 8 Arsenal 1 etc) except us, unless you count Saudi Sportswashing Machine 5-0. I think Stamford Bridge could be our big moment.

 

[PochettinoPochettinoPochettino]

Fair enough fella. I'm not going to continue digging a hole, maybe I'm wrong then.

Them going through will clearly give them confidence, but it will also give them 2 extra games bang in the middle of our game.

We haven't done well against top teams when they are below par of late, so even if Chelsea are strong I'd fancy us as we do get some joy at Stamford bridge it's normally goalkeeping mistakes or individual mistakes that lose us the game. I'd like to think we are stronger this year!

 

[chicken_badge]

Mate I think it was a useful post what you put, other people will talk about swings and roundabouts but if that's the extent of "our luck" then it just underlines how harshly we've been done this season.

I don't think the refs are against us, I DO think we have just been unfortunate in the whole scheme of things. So I also think we are due a break, hopefully that's all round he corner in the next few matches.

 

[Pirate55]

We were NOT the better team in any 3 of those games. The sooner people make peace with that - the sooner we can move on and seek to improve.

We certainly werent the better team in any of the last three games. We imploded against Arse as soon as they scored their first goal and never competed in the second half at all. We just about held our own in the first half against Manure but again as soon as they scored we were second best at everything. At Everton we were dismal in the first half and could have been three down at half time. We played a bit better in the second half but if we are honest never looked like scoring. So we were distinctly WORSE in at least a half of each of the last three games.

 

[jimmyb]

We certainly werent the better team in any of the last three games. We imploded against Arse as soon as they scored their first goal and never competed in the second half at all. We just about held our own in the first half against Manure but again as soon as they scored we were second best at everything. At Everton we were dismal in the first half and could have been three down at half time. We played a bit better in the second half but if we are honest never looked like scoring. So we were distinctly WORSE in at least a half of each of the last three games.

Arsenal - no argument....we were second best.

Man Utd - "just about held our own in the first half"??? Load of nonsense. What game were you watching? There was only one team in it until some sloppy marking at a corner gifted them a goal, totally against the run of play. Even in the second half, there was only one team in it for the first 15-20 minutes. But we didn't make our pressure and chances count, switched off in defence yet again, and then it was game over.

Everton - yep, we were rubbish in the first half. As you say, could have been three goals down. But only a "bit better in the second half"??? We battered them. By the same logic you use for the first half, we could have been five goals up by the end.

 

[paxtonwolf]

Arsenal - no argument....we were second best.

Man Utd - "just about held our own in the first half"??? Load of nonsense. What game were you watching? There was only one team in it until some sloppy marking at a corner gifted them a goal, totally against the run of play. Even in the second half, there was only one team in it for the first 15-20 minutes. But we didn't make our pressure and chances count, switched off in defence yet again, and then it was game over.

Everton - yep, we were rubbish in the first half. As you say, could have been three goals down. But only a "bit better in the second half"??? We battered them. By the same logic you use for the first half, we could have been five goals up by the end.

Totally agree with all that, definitely should have at least had 2 draws. and what really makes it worse, is Arsenal have ground put an extra 4 pts with those consecutive injury time winners
So fine are the margins, we could have been sat here 5 or even 7pts clear of 4th place right now, and there would be a lot less pressure going into this next 8 days

 

[SteveAWOL]

Totally agree with all that, definitely should have at least had 2 draws. and what really makes it worse, is Arsenal have ground put an extra 4 pts with those consecutive injury time winners
So fine are the margins, we could have been sat here 5 or even 7pts clear of 4th place right now, and there would be a lot less pressure going into this next 8 days

Harry just seems to have run out of luck recently plus we've seen why none of our Strikers can be considered World class.

Defoe was inches away from giving us the 3pts against City but then a defensive error gives them the 3pts... We somehow get a 2 goal lead against ARSEnal but then RvP scores a great equaliser to give them the momentum going into half time... Rooney scores a header from a well executed/poorly defended set-piece to give ManU the lead against the run of play... We go in at half time only 1-0 down at Goodison and proceed to batter them in the 2nd half but just can't quite find that vital goal...

Fingers crossed that Harry' luck will return and our strikers can show a glimpse of their best form so that we can take the 3pts from Stamford Bridge for the first time since February 1990... [-o<

 

[Hotshot-Tottenham]

oh yeah i realise we are massively behind in terms of decisions not going our way. just trying to be as objective as possible.

you're right there are very few nailed on wrong decisions that have gone in our favour.

just look at some of what chelsea got away with around xmas time aside from the cole handball - luiz should have gone after 5 mins at Saudi Sportswashing Machine, the stone pen Emirates Marketing Project should have had for 2 nil and fat frank cutting that wolves player in half and then going on to get the late winner. it makes you wanna cry.

to that end, we could just strip it back to Ade's 4 (iirc) incorrectly ruled offside goals?

they are black and white definites, no grey area.

how many points have those cost us, all things being equal. 5?