Football Update: Barclays Premiere League 2010- Chelsea vs. Stoke City- First half report
English Premier League champions Chelsea got more than they bargained for against Stoke City at home. Most were expecting a drubbing from the blues, but Tony Pulis’s side played with some resilience. Chelsea however ended the half with a 1-0 lead despite missing a penalty. In general, it was all Chelsea but Stoke city did show enough resolve in defence to give hope to their fans that it would not be a repeat of the 7-0 shattering they suffered at the hands of Chelsea last season.
Chelsea started with an expected first 11, 4-3-3 formation saw Drogba, Anelka and Malouda at the top. Lampard, Mikel and Essien in the centre and Alex, Terry and Ferreira at the back
Ancelotti plays by the mantra of if it’s not broken why fix it. They scored 6 goals each in last 2 matches to the same team got the nod. Paulo Ferreira was the only change who came in for the injured Branislav Ivanovic. The latest 17 million pound signing Ramires was on the bench.
Stoke were boosted by the return of record signing Kenwyne Jones, while Andy Wilkinson got his first league start of the season. Ricardo Fuller dropped to a bench that also featured goalkeeper, Asmir Begovic,
Match started in expected manner, there was an ominous opening again from the hosts at Stamford Bridge, where a delightful Michael Essien through-ball found Ashley Cole clear on goal, and the left-back pulled his shot across goal and past the far post and opportunity passed him by.
Ryan Shawcross did his best to ruin what had been a fairly positive start for Stoke by bringing Florent Malouda down in the box and Martin Atkinson had no alternative but to award the penalty. Frank Lampard stepped up, but his effort was poor, though, and Thomas Sorensen got down to his left well to save. It was get out of jail card for Stoke so early in the game.
The hosts however, were not bothered by the miss and, continued to pile on the pressure against Stoke and Thomas Sorensen had to be alert to beat away a swerving Didier Drogba free-kick from range. Bizarrely, the Potters actually did get couple of decent chances of their own but did not make them count.
The continuous pressure from Chelsea paid off, they finally got the breakthrough. John Terry stepped out of defence with the ball and picked a delightful pass to set Florent Malouda through, the Frenchman fired first time firmly past Thomas Sorensen to give Chelsea the lead.
The goal did give the blue impetus and they built on the goal. Numerous blue waves of attack followed but Stoke held on firm and the half ended 1-0 to Chelsea.
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