Green haunted by long standing faults - knee jerks

Antti Heinola summons the strength to put together his six talking points from Sunday's heartbreaking late defeat at home to Chelsea.

One of those results

They often come in a relegation season, and usually at this time of year too. Despite everything, despite the numerous disgraceful displays and moments of shocking incompetence, there often comes a time when the team collectively seem to galvanise, sort out their shit and utterly play out of their skins. The fans roar them on. They find new heights of performance. We're as one. And then, somehow we still lose.

We've seen similar games at Coventry and at Villa. The Man Utd 1-1 draw wasn't quite the same, but it's not far off. It's a killer blow. When we play poorly, we lose. When we pay well, we lose. On this occasion we were near-faultless for 88 minutes and then one tiny, silly mistake changes everything and the rising hope fades. The number of points we've lost in the last five minutes of games this term is so large I don't want to add it up, because it'll make me cry hot salty tears of unbearable sorrow.

Ramsey's One-Wing Wonders

One for the teenagers there. I find it difficult to know what kind of boss Chris Ramsey might be in the long term, because really he's been firefighting since he took over and in the majority of games he's had so little options available to him all you can really do is sympathise. This was a prime case in point.

On the face of it, you think: 'Well, we all know Clint isn't a Premier League left back these days...' but who else was there? And we definitely all thought: "Nah, he's not playing Karl Henry left mid, is he?" But what choice did he have? Real, reliable choice I mean? He's been badly let down by all three left midfielders (Hoilett, Kranjcar and Traore) that were available, so what else could he do? And actually, enormous credit goes to Ramsey for his plan that not only worked, but that was carried out phenomenally well by the ten outfield players. Henry isn't a left winger, so he tucked right in and in the first half especially we just ignored the left side. Instead, we pushed Chelsea inside, cramped them up, and completely denied them space all over the pitch. We harassed and harried and never gave them a moment's peace and they never settled. And we did all this playing two up front against the best (if uninspiring) team in the league.

In short, Ramsey had a plan and the players stuck to it brilliantly. Well done the boss, well done the team. Very hard luck on the result that everyone richly deserved. Ramsey's bizarre home record seems particularly harsh on him - we've been in all those games and yet lost every one.

The goal

I find it hard to be too angry at Rob Green. He's one of our most consistent performers, he's been great at times this season, and one errant kick will certainly not be the reason we go down. However, I've always thought Green has four major faults:
1 - Doesn't come out and claim balls that should be his often enough - three times in the first half today he put our defence under pressure by not coming for balls that were his. Look at Courtois (an unfair comparison, I know) as the absolute master at ruling his box.

2 - Too often beaten by low shots from distance.

3 - Prone to a rick - this has been throughout his career, at Norwich, West Ham, England and with us. He is just a keeper who does, every now and again, make bizarre mistakes. Does being a keeper come too easy to him? Are they mistakes of complacency?

4 - Kicking.

Today, it was a combination of three and four. I have never, ever understood why, when he kicks the ball from his hands, he puts backspin on it by cutting underneath it. I've said it since he joined. It's totally bizarre and I cannot see how it benefits us. But to do it here, against that vicious swirling wind, was just inexplicable. And if it was just once this season, you could put it down to bad luck, but that's at least the third goal that's resulted from a very poor kick out. Great bloke, great keeper, but after all the work everyone had put in, that was a hammer blow. He knew it, we all knew it. I know the players couldn't even look at him afterwards, but I hope back in the dressing room he had a few arms round his shoulders, because let's face it, this season there are very few players who can say they deserve much above a 'C' for their overall contribution - and he's one of them.

Barton and Phillips

Everyone played well. Everyone. These two though were just a little higher than the rest. Barton is clearly trying to make up for that Hull red (a far more costly error than Green's, it must be said), and is outstanding at the moment. He was tireless today and incredibly disciplined - barely giving away a free kick despite snapping at every Chelsea heel from Cahill to Drogba. And Phillips was excellent too - super energy, good delivery from set pieces and open play, very, very unlucky not to score, and great belief in himself both on and off the ball. The shrinking violet we so often saw last season and this has been squashed, ground into oblivion, and now we have a vibrant attacking winger who seems to have no fear. Let's hope we hold onto him.

Defending

There was a great thread about Steven Caulker on the board this week. I was firmly on Neil's side in his analysis of why Caulker is a good player and why we must persevere with him and was delighted when he backed that up today with, along with the rest of the defence, an almost flawless display. And the difference was obvious: we defended as a team.

So often this season there's been a disconnect between defence and midfield, midfield and attack. The midfield never supporting the strikers, but somehow not really protecting the defence either. Today was different and it showed. Everyone knew their job and stuck to it. And as a result, weirdly, it must have been one of the easier games this season for Caulker and Onuoha. While they could never switch off, they were never left exposed and we always had numbers back to deal with Chelsea counters. It's that kind of collective effort that's been so often lacking this season. As a result, Chelsea only made one genuine chance all day - the one they scored from. Hazard was nullified, Fabregas played poorly, Drogba never had a kick, Ramires was hounded out the game. And on and on. And we still created a couple of our own chances. Well done all, but big congratulations to the back four for a very confident and solid display. Special mention to Isla too, after struggling v Villa, for doing an excellent job on Hazard.

The fans

Phenomenal. Two good results had Loftus Road rocking again, and the players deserve credit for that, but I was still concerned that the early kick off would dampen the atmosphere. It didn't. While not quite the cauldron of 2012, it was still white hot and there's no doubt Chelsea were affected, with Terry clearly losing his rag and Drogba also very frustrated. The team needed that to keep their levels up and we played our part. And the backing of Green showed our fans in a great light.

But then there was the goal. All those who chucked stuff on the pitch - sorry, I hope you're all banned until next season. I hate Chelsea as much as the next fan, but they played the game fairly today, they didn't hound the ref (who was absolutely excellent) and, as much as they didn't deserve that goal, it was a fair goal and a good finish and wasn't celebrated in an over the top way. You make us look like classless, poor losers, no better than their manager. I saw empty plastic bottles which I'm sure are harmless, but that's hardly the point and if coins were thrown that is completely unacceptable. We lose a lot. Let's try and do it with at least a semblance of class, ok?

Pictures — Action Images

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