It has definitely been a season to forget for Chelsea fans and it doesn’t seem to be any better. After the teams heroic display on Monday night, that maintained the clubs 26 year home record against Tottenham and ended the away teams title dreams. Many were hoping to go to the Stadium of light and get an easy result… but no, that is not how things are done at Chelsea football club. How can a team go to a relegation threatened team, play two defensive midfielder and still lose from a winning position.
Yet again, another managed has failed to keep to his promises after Hiddink declared in Fridays press conference that he will not be featuring any youth players in the remaining games of the season out of ‘respect’ to the other teams; despite not long ago he said he will take risks by developing some youth players for the seasons to come. Well it’s fair to say that he is all mouth no trousers as Loftus-Cheek, Kenedy nor Traore were to selected to face a team fighting relegation. A man who starts Matic and Mikel in midfield together is not a man who takes risks.
Diego Costa put Chelsea ahead in the 14th minute after Gary Cahill’s pass got deflected into the path of the Spanish international, who proceeded to slot the ball past Mannone from a tight angle. The fans were hoping that this was the start of a rout but after a number of wasted chances, Sunderland struck level with an incredible first time volley from Khazri that left Courtois helpless as the ball nestled the top corner. However, Sunderland’s celebrations were short lived, as in the 4th minute of stoppage time Azpilicueta spotted Matic making a run and the Serbian cleverly tucked the ball through the legs of the oncoming keeper.
The game went from bad to worse in the second half, as the players continued to waste glorious chances to put the game to bed. Chelsea were soon to regret this as in the 67th minute as two former blues linked up to level the game. Van Aanholt perfectly put it on a plate for Borini who calmly controlled it and put it past Thibaut Courtois with the help of a deflection from John Terry. Three minutes later the game was flipped on its head with Defoe putting the black cats in front, Baba looked to intercept DeAndre Yedlin’s cross but took the ball away from Terry and into the path of the clinical Jermaine Defoe, where the Englishman put the ball past the despairing Belgian in between the sticks.
From then on, the away side couldn’t get back into the game and were down to ten men as John Terry saw red after receiving his second yellow card in the latter stages of the game. With it being the second red of this season, he will miss the next two game and ultimately might end his Chelsea career on a low.
It was a shocking performance from Chelsea and it shows that some players cannot be trusted any more, play the youth in the remaining games of the season, with there nothing to play for.
