After a horrid first half, our reserve squad led by Sami Hyypia pulled it together enough to give Harry RedKrap a run for his money and were unlucky not to come away with a draw. I'm not going to bother to talk about the first half because it's a waste of time, read my first half thoughts if you really want to know.
Thank God for Sami Hyypia. He put the team on his back in the second half and showed a lot of character. I was pleased and impressed with his display, capitalized by a great header goal. Paletta also played well and Insua, making his Premiership debut, though not great, was not wholly awful. Dudek deserves some recognition, despite allowing two goals, he made some great saves to at least provide an opportunity for us to draw even. That's about it for the good, now for the shite.
Zenden needs to go. Now. He was absolutely crap. I don't know any other way to put it. He turned over the ball and made bad passes consistently and overall looked like a Championship player. No offense to the Championship intended. I still don't know where he started, was it in the middle with Xabi and Momo? Sure seemed like it, though common sense says he started on the right.
What the hell is Xabi's problem? This is the fourth or fifth bad outing for him in a row. If he's got issues with where the team is headed, he needs to voice them, because it's effecting his play on the field. This was his day to step up and be the man, but he didn't. What happened to the vision he's displayed the last couple of seasons? Overall we looked a disgruntled bunch, the veterans appeared and played as if insulted to be included in a reserves squad, especially Xabi.
Robbie might as well had not showed up, because he was invisible most the match. Bellamy, whom I sure will feel the brunt of most fans' disdain, was really not that bad. He's just such an easy target for those who want to blame someone. Gonzo lived up to his name and was wholly ineffective. Momo was okay, he continued his bad decisions on the ball, and had an unsatisfactory performance overall, but it seemed like he was crowded by Zenden and Xabi a lot. Arbeloa didn't offer much either.
I don't know why the hell nobody tried to get the ball to Pennant when he came on, seems like that would be the plan. Do we have a plan? What the hell is it? Lately, it seems as if we take the pitch with no sort of game plan. I'm sure that we do, but we're failing miserably to execute. I don't understand why we can't learn simple things like spacing and positioning. It baffles me when we have three guys within ten yards of one another at any time, on the attack or on defense. It's fucking ludicrous actually.
Even with all our issues, we probably should have drawn or God forbid, won this match, we were far and away the better squad in the second half, but mistakes and the inability to finish cost us. Time to move on, Chelsea awaits.