Chelsea held to a draw by Spurs while Bolton and Wolves register crucial wins in the Premier League
It was another important weekend in English Football where Chelsea lost further ground to their title rivals as they failed to beat Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane and have now gone five games without a win in the league and
their title is fast slipping away from them.
But the good news for the Blues is the fact that they now have all their first team stars back from injury as both Lampard and Essien played in the game yesterday, with Lampard coming on as a second half substitute and Essien starting
the game.
It was a strange decision from Carlo Ancelotti when he announced his starting lineup with Drogba and Lampard named on the bench and Anelka leading the three pronged attack with Kalou and Malouda supporting from the wings.
The Spurs made the brighter start to the game and were playing with great verve, rewarded early in the second half when Roman Pavlyuchenko put them ahead with a cracking finish.
The teams went into the break 1-0 in favour of the hosts but Ancelotii brought in Drogba and Lampard for the second half in order to salvage something from the game.
It was Didier Drogba who brought the game to level terms in the second half but it was more the keeper’s fault than his precision that saw the ball cross the goal line.
A high ball into the box saw Drogba winning the jostle with Dawson and running with the ball to fire a thunderous shot straight at the keeper, Huerlho Gomez making a mockery of it and failing to parry the ball away, as it drifted
into the net.
Gomes then turned from hero to villain as he gifted Chelsea a stoppage time penalty and a chance to win the game but Dorgba’s misdirected shot was saved by the keeper to salvage some reputation after gifting a goal and a penalty
to Chelsea.
The result means that Chelsea stays in fourth position in the league level on points with Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United, who have two games in hand.
In another match on Sunday, a 10 man Bolton Wanderers beat Blackburn Rovers 2-1 at the Reebeok stadium to register their first win over their fierce Lancashire rivals in 12 years.
After a drab first half the game livened up in the second half when Mark Davies was given his marching orders after receiving his second caution of the day to reduce Bolton to 10 men.
Despite a man down, Bolton took the lead through Fabrice Muamba in the 64th minute when the midfielder fired a stinger low into the bottom left corner of the goal from inside the box to take advantage of some sloppy
defending by the Rovers.
In the 86th minute the on loan Manchester United striker, Mame Briam Diouf equalised when his deft chip over Jasklienen had seemingly got the Rovers a point from the game.
But Bolton hit back straight from the restart and Stuart Holden broke the Rovers heart in the very next minute when a long ball was masterfully headed down by Kevin Davies onto the path on an on-running Holden and the midfielder
made no mistake firing an unstoppable low shot to the left of the keeper.
In the early kick-off on Sunday, the Wolverhampton Wanderers secured a vital 1-0 win over Birmingham to climb out of the bottom three.
Stephen Hunt claimed the only goal of the night at the stroke of 45 minutes to make sure that his side went into the break with a slender advantage.
Ben Foster played the game in some inspired form and had it not been for his heroics in the goal, the margin of victory would have been a little wider for the Wolves.
This was the first clean sheet that the Wolves have managed to keep since April of this year but that was more down to Birmingham’s inability to create anything of note rather than their defensive efficiency.
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