Wolves put in their best performance of the season away to the best home team in the country. Rolling it out from the goalkeeper, fluid football and plenty of possession against the highest goalscorers. That's probably the best performance from a visiting team Chelsea have seen in a while!
Almost everything seemed right. David Jones and Nenad Milijas looked like they'd been playing alongside each other for years. Why have they never played together before? Berra was outstanding at the back, as was Foley. Stearman hardly made a mistake all game, and a part from a couple of sloppy passes Ward was fine.
We always looked comfortable on the ball, playing it around and getting it into our wingers feet. Jarvis, not even playing in his favoured position was superb against probably the best left back in the world in Ashley Cole. When Stephen Hunt came on, he freed up a bit of space for him as they couldn't double up on him. We had some natural width and it looked good.
The only player who didn't play that well was Dave Edwards. He looks shot of confidence, you can see it in his passing. Too often he puts someone in trouble, a bit like Ward does. When Henry comes back, you'd expect him to drop to the bench.
Why can't Jelle Van Damme finish a game? He was solid, as usual and always troubled them in the air. But if he can't play more than an hour what use is he? It's very similar to last year with Milijas, and he's playing full games now so perhaps he's just blooding him into the Premier League.
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| Milijas has finished each of his last three games |
Foley - 8
Stearman -7
Berra -8
Ward - 6
Jarvis - 9
Jones - 8
Edwards - 6
Milijas - 7
van Damme - 7
Doyle - 7
Subs: Hunt - 7, Fletcher and Ebanks-Blake N/A.
If we can keep this standard of football up will we start getting some good results. We've got the league cup next to give players like Mouyokolo and Hunt a chance to get fit.
Yeah, Ward was his usual liability so why he wasnt taken off instead, with Jelle taking his place i dont know.
ReplyDeleteThat said, very very impressive performance and a joy to watch. If we keep those kind of performances up I'll feell a lot more comfortable about our chances of staying up.
Oh and Hunt was magnificent... cant wait to see him and Jarvis bossing the wings.
Mick lovees ward, I doubt he has considered playig JVD at left back for a while now. Maybe rightly so. Soon he might be ready, but not yet with the next three games coming up.
ReplyDeleteEncouraging performance, but nothing out of it. A lot more of a balanced side, so I hope we can continue with this team (Henry in for Edwards) and we will pick up points against the lower table teams.
Definitely a cause for optimisim.
As wel as we play, we ain't gonna get anything with ward in our side. Anyone, even Elokobi and we would look a better side. I'd much rather mancienne there however, much better player.
ReplyDeleteEncourgaing, but can we repeat it? I doubt it....
I'm by no means a fan of Ward but I can't see what he's being blamed for on this occasion. I thought it was a wonderful all round team performance in which everyone played their part. I'm assuming JVD had taken a knock and I thought the long overdue milijas/jones partnership in central midfield was a revelation. I hope Nenad now gets the run in the side his class so obviously merits.
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