QPR unsettle neighbours Chelsea
By Clive White
Sport.Telegraph, 6th January 2008
So in the end all that separated the haves and the have-soons was an own goal.
Rangers' new billionaire owners could be excused for thinking that success in
this football business could come wonderfully cheaply, if the laboured efforts
of their supposedly upper class West London neighbours was anything to go by
here.
Make no mistake, the FA Cup holders were hanging on at the finish against the
lowly Championship side. They even had to bring on three of their biggest
players, Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack and Joe Cole, to ensure that they
were not subjected to the dubious pleasure of a replay at Loftus Road.
Rangers have been busy in the transfer market lately, but there was little
that Messrs Ecclestone, Mittal and Briatore will have seen here to make them
think they need to shop anywhere else but in the bargain basement, at least
for a while. Had they been just a little bit bolder, a little bit more accurate
in their finishing the Chelsea manager Avram Grant would have not have able to
hide quite so smugly behind the defence that they had "done their job".
By their standards, Chelsea, because of injury, may be down to the bare bones
but what bones! The fact that Grant could afford to start with the above trio
on the bench said all that needed to be said about his side's squad strength
and to be fair they have coped splendidly these past few weeks. But the
centre-back pairing of Alex and Tel Ben Haim never looked comfortable yesterday
and one wonders what might have happened had Steve Sidwell not got back to take
the ball off the toes of Gareth Ainsworth after 11 minutes.
In an unfamiliar-looking 4-3-3 formation, with the wingers pushed on and
Claudio Pizarro playing deep, one wondered from where this side would get
their goals - or goal.
As it happened Pizarro got far enough forward in the 29th minute to work his
way across the face of the Rangers goal before finding space for a shot. The
ball struck the foot of Lee Camp's post, but unfortunately for Rangers the
rebound went back in off the diving keeper.
Just once did we see the real Chelsea in one quick, slick move just before
half-time when Shaun Wright-Phillips fed Salomon Kalou who in turn teed it
up for Sidwell, but the former Reading midfielder's shot cannoned back into
play off an upright. If anyone thought the loss of Rangers's influential
new signing Akos Buzsaky just five minutes into the second half with a
sprained ankle would unhinge the visitors they could not have been more
wrong. It proved the prelude to Rangers's best passage of play in the game
as Martin Rowlands, twice finding himself in space, unleashed drives
dangerously close to the target.
The truth is for all the plaudits given by Grant to Henrique Hilario after
the game his third-choice keeper didn't have a save worthy of the name to
make throughout. Chelsea, for the part, had just one real chance to make
the game safe, but Pizarro, for reasons known only to himself, took the
ball far too wide before checking inside and firing over. With Drogba now
off to African Cup of Nations, the arrival of Nicolas Anelka from Bolton
cannot come soon enough.
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