Chelsea 2 - West Bromwich Albion 2

Summary:

Chelsea had never lost a home game under Jose Mourinho, but it took another extremely poor refereeing decision - this time by Andre Mariner - in time added on after second half added time to maintain that record.

Samuel Eto'o put the home side ahead in added time at the end of the first half when Boaz Myhill made a superb save from Eden Hazard and Liam Ridgewell dallied on the ball instead of clearing it.

But Albion fought back after the break, with Shane Long's first goal of the season levelling the scores when he headed home after Petr Cech could only parry the ball from Gareth McAuley's header. Stephane Sessegnon left Cech red-faced when he managed to squirm the ball underneath him eight minutes later to give Albion the lead.

Chelsea threw everything at Albion as the game neared full time, and after Chris Brunt had missed a great opportunity to extend Albion's lead, the allocated 4 minutes had run out when Steven Reid went shoulder to shoulder with Ramirez, whose blatant dive earned a highly contentious spot-kick which Hazard converted.

The point leaves Albion in ninth place - as it happens, two more would have made no difference at the moment anyway.

Mark Townsend:

We may have been robbed, but we didn't surrender. Angry about the referee - booked Long when Terry blocked him, failed to book another Chelsea player for trying to push Long into the dugout as Long chased a ball.

That referee was looking for a chance to do his bit for the "big" side for most of the game and he grabbed the last flimsiest excuse.

At least the coach didn't surrender before kick off (like at Anthill), Myhill was very good, Brunt could have been a hero by setting up our third, Olsson and McAuley were magnificent - well apart from a few mistakes by Ridgewell here and there the whole team were very good. Matched everything Special Needs ("It's not fair! We played on Wednesday") could throw at them -- apart from the referee.

David Baker:

Scandalous decision at Chelsea today. It's time the FA did something about the bias towards the so called big clubs.

In my view its time to bring in European referees to officiate in Premier League matches.

oshawabaggie:

Having recovered from a moment of ineptitude by Ridgewell, a courageous defensive effort was finally undone by an intimidated referee, who caved in to constant badgering by Terry and Co. to award them an injury time equalizer.

I suppose we should be pleased with the character of a team who could shrug off their first goal - a gift from Ridgewell, who, with lots of time to hoof the ball clear, was unable to extract his feet from knee deep cement and allowed the pest Eto'o to score with another fortuitous ricochet.

It was looking like another disciplined performance against a top team was going to bring delerium to the Albion World as we headed well past the 90 minute mark. Even a wasted effort by Brunt, who could have locked it up when clean through, didn't seem to matter as the seconds ticked away. But when Ramirez brushed against Reid and went down like a sack of spuds the ref got the opportunity to placate the Chelsea whiners and pointed to the spot. A very poor decision.

Great to see Long score, as he worked his arse off and gave Terry and Cahill a tough afternoon. McCauley, Ollie and Mulumbu were again massive in defence. Myhill, who has been Fosters equal in goal IMO, had a really good game again. Full marks to SC who came up with the right game plan, although I would like to have seen a spot for Berahino, at least as a sub.

Before the game I would have taken a draw all day long, but right now it feels like a defeat. Bring on Villa.

Paul Gainham:

Like many of you I am still angry about the finale to yesterdays game but have calmed down a little to look back assess our overall showing.

First thing to say is that Chelsea are NOT a great team, they were similar in many ways to the Man U team we beat 2-1, living on past glory maybe, thinking they can easily beat teams like ours, possibly, worrying that the gap they used to have has considerably closed, absolutely.

Talking to a Chelsea talking colleague of mine before the game, he said Chelsea would either win 3-0 or lose 1-0 and I agreed it would either go one of those two ways. Turned out we were both wrong with those extremities and the truth lay somewhere in between.

The overall possession statistics read 69% Chelsea, 31% us and yes in the 1st half we did sit back way too much and let them have possession but the reality was Myhill was not troubled apart from the shot that lead to the goal ? just WHAT was Ridgewell doing, just clear the ball man don?t stand and think! I have said many, many times he is a liability, yesterday he again showed how much a liability he is.

After a poor 1st half, we came out with more intent in the 2nd and began in parts to take the game to Chelsea and you could see they were rocking, did not expect it and were struggling to handle us at times. Long took his goal really well yesterday capitalising on a point blank save from Cech off a bullet like McCauley header and he also hit the post with a smart header. I hope he keeps this up, he was a real thorn in Chelsea?s side yesterday and my only criticism is that we did not give him enough ball on the floor to run at them. The middle of Chelsea?s defence is not awash with pace.

And then the finale. In the build up the ball went out left to Popov who raced to get to it to execute what looked like an attempted shot at goal. The result of that was Chelsea got the ball back, went downfield and won the most despicable penalty I think I have seen. Only Marriner will know what he was thinking and what he saw but the pressure these refs are under from the big clubs and idiots like Mourinho means they will always tend to favour them when incidents like this are presented to them. It has happened a thousand times before and will happen again and yet what can be done about it ? bring foreign referees in who are un-touchable by press / manager pressure?

Back to Popov, maybe naivety, maybe a silly thing to do but if had just put his foot on the ball, kept it and maybe run down to the corner flag, we would be celebrating a 2-1 win. Not blaming him, just observing that we maybe could have been smarter. We were under a lot of pressure for the last 20 mins and on too many occasions gave the ball away cheaply when we needed a cool steadying head to force us to keep the ball more.

I guess we should not be too disappointed, a 2-2 draw at the bridge is a credible result, but what might have been.....

Player Marks

• Myhill 9 This guy just gets better and better, some great saves yesterday
• Reid 5 Slow and vulnerable. Cover at RB is an issue for us
• Olsson 8 Great showing, stayed close to McCauley and organised
• McCauley 9 Immense, literally handled everything thrown at him. Great header for Long?s goal.
• Ridgewell 2 Said many times, he is a liability, yesterday proved how much
• Mulumbu 8 Dominated the midfield battle with Lampard
• Yacob 7 Steady, again looked a tad slow at times
• Amalfitano 8 All action game from him, not as effective going forwards as he has been but covered really well
• Sessegnon 7 Without the goal I would have given him a 5, did little but scored that oh so important 2nd goal
• Brunt 7 More involved showing, curse him for not laying the ball off to Anichebe or Morrison when he could, we could have gone 3-1 up
• Long 8 Much better showing from him, more engaged, hit the post and constantly hassled Terry

Subs

• Anichebe 4 Did not have much time but not even sure he touched the ball
• Morrison 7 Added his usual energy to the game
• Popov 5 Added some strength to the left but should have held the ball up late on.

Clarke 7 Sat back too much 1st half but came out and played 2nd

Referee 1 Enough said.

Mark Townsend:

From the moment Long's header hit the post until the final squabble before the 96th minute restart my heart was pounding, maybe because the first half was such a well organised set of two teams countering one another (yawn).

There were a couple of mistakes (not thinking here of Ridgewell's Ashley Cole tribute, being robbed waiting for the ball to reach his left foot). Throughout the game Long kept Terry and his sidekick busy. Terry's only talent was to try and be a big, immobile lump in the path of Long, his tactic of standing there to block the movement of Long was best demonstrated when he stood stock still while Long leaped above him to score. Late on in the game Long and Sessegnon were withdrawn then Amalifitano was replaced by Popov. Anichebe, up front alone, received very little support, so was quickly nullified and was not able to provide us with any relief from the mounting Chelsea pressure.

Popov came on to cover Ridgewell, which meant we were set up to defend our 18 yard line, well so I thought. With this overly defensive appearance Brunt was able to bring the ball out in a three-man counter attack, Chelsea did well, they covered the pass to Brunt's right and didn't need to worry about Brunt making a pass to his left. You could argue that two of our three players could have shepherded the ball to the by line and kept it there for 40 seconds. Brunt, perhaps wanting to cap his performance tried to settle the game to 1-3.

Then Popov had the ball and a good chance to run to the corner with it, he too, went for glory.

The referee had little control in the game, he was inconsistent in the first half, he was aware of the pushing and shoving that precedes a corner and Terry seemed to have told him to go away and mind his own business. Later in the game, when he had already lost control, the referee started to warn defenders about blocking/holding while waiting for a corner kick (coincidently or not, when Chelsea were applying pressure). I think this may have been what the (NBC?) commentator spotted when he suggested the Seal was looking to award a penalty. Let no one pretend the Seal was consistent in his interpretation of the rules in the Chelsea area and the WBA area.

The risk was there to see, the Seal had warned Olson, Brunt and others about his new, tougher interpretation of infringements in our area. We needed to keep the ball away from our penalty area and we didn't. It did look like the Seal wanted to give a penalty and try and look like he was in control, our players need to act accordingly - if they get the ball forward in the last minute then push it to the corner and dance around it like it's Murinho's handbag.

Seven bookings is a sign of a poor referee, his decisions were too bad and too inconsistent to be mistakes of judgement, but we had the opportunity to win that game. Giving a Seal the chance to fix the result was our own fault. Learn the lesson and move on.

Dave Watkin:

I?m breaking my self inflicted silence because I?ve not been so angry after an Albion match since the debacle of the abandoned game at Sheffield United.

I was uncertain, as I left The Hawthorns after the 1-1 draw against Arsenal, whether the last minute challenge on Shane Long was a foul. To say that I was irritated later that evening, when I tuned into ?Match-of-the-Day? and both pundits said it was definitely a penalty, would be an understatement. I saw with my own eyes at Stoke City how Youssouf Mulumbu was tripped from behind as he headed for goal and my fury only increased when Match-of-the-Day revealed once again that we had been robbed. However, the incident on Saturday at Chelsea was the most appalling yet. The TV replays clearly show that Ramires swerves towards Reid before falling to the ground, a clear dive ? with only seconds remaining what else would he do? Once more both the experts that evening concurred. Given the argumentative nature of the guests on MotD it?s almost unheard of for 100% agreement regarding three controversial incidents. The officials have cost the Baggies up to six points!

Any respect I had for Jose Mourinho has diminished. The Times reported on Saturday morning that on Friday night he called for the FA to extend its disciplinary clampdown by taking action against divers. Mourinho was quoted as saying ?If because of diving a football result is directly affected, I think the players should be punished ?, adding ?I don?t need to speak to my players because they don?t dive. I hate it?. His reaction after the match ?it?s a clear penalty? ? but then what else would you expect?

Much more seriously, I?ve been alerted to ToffeeWeb ? the independent Everton website, at www.toffeeweb.com/season/10-11/comment/fan/16339.html where in an article entitled ?Andre Marriner ? A Top Bloke!? published on 2nd November 2010, they report on a presentation he gave to a local boys football club, close to his home in Solihull. In a question and answer session Marriner said ?I?m a Villa fan, so I?m not allowed to referee any game involving Villa, Birmingham or WBA?. So he shouldn?t have been on the pitch and knew it. Surely the FA and Premier League have questions to answer ? I hope that Albion raise them. A Villa fan refs an Albion match and gives a last second penalty ? well he would wouldn?t he?

The questions I would ask are:

1. Please explain the decision to appoint a referee who only three years ago clearly stated his support for our longest and fiercest rivals.
2. What action will you take against Ramires for diving, particularly given the endorsement from Mr Mourinho for strong punishment?
3. What sanctions will you take against referee Mr Marriner for either his gross incompetence or worse still his suspected bias?

An enquiry into the favouritism shown towards the top teams would not go amiss, but perhaps that's asking too much.

Best wishes from a dispirited Dave Watkin.

Stuart Russell:

I couldn't agree more with Dave Watkin. Appalling refereeing decisions have now cost us a probable six points (all right we may have missed either or both of the two nailed on penalties we should have been given). Add on the dubious last minute penalty that Southampton were awarded and it's seven points. So instead of sitting an uncomfortable tenth in the table with 14 points, just 4 from the drop zone, we would now be third. We would have 21 points, Southampton would have 20 points, and Chelsea would also have 20. Arsenal would have 24. In this strangest of seasons, we would be in a challenging position having played all the "main" challengers with the exception of Man City.

All right, we may have benefitted from referees' mistakes ourselves but never so blatantly as the ones mentioned, and never ones that got all journalists, pundits and fans to agree.

Athz:

Why didn't the ref consult the linesman or 4th official? Because he is a seal. (We can highlight this against Villa - the team I like most to beat.) A shake up of referring decisions is seriously long overdue. Is it that football is too proud to learn from rugby on the process of how important refereeing decisions should be arrived at and communicated to the crowd?

Furthermore, the reported behaviour of Mourinho in the tunnel have set the agenda for the return fixture. How many will turn up in Micky Mouse garb?

The Albion have once again shown that they are bigger than the 'big' clubs on the days when they get their act together.