Tag Archives: Chelsea

3rd January 2010- FA Cup Third Round, Chelsea 5 Watford 0

FA Cup holders Chelsea began the defence of their trophy in style as a vibrant display overwhelmed Watford.

The Blues led as early as the fifth minute, 20-year-old striker Daniel Sturridge staking his claim to fill the void left by African Cup of Nations absentee Didier Drogba by converting from six yards out after the visitors had failed to clear a Frank Lampard corner.

The second goal had a hint of farce but was just reward for Chelsea’s dominance. Joe Cole had volleyed Malouda’s cross into the Watford penalty area and triggered an extraordinary game of pinball. The ball cannoned between Adrian Mariappa, Frank Lampard and Scott Loach before finally bouncing off John Eustace for an own-goal. There was also a slice of luck about Chelsea’s third goal when Yuri Zhirkov’s shot deflected off Malouda and beyond Loach. But then Lampard scored a cracker from outside the penalty area and Sturridge calmly converted Ashley Cole’s cross for his second to seal an emphatic win.

The home side conjured 10 corners in the opening half-hour, and three goals within the first 22 minutes. Watford were spikier thereafter, but, by then, they could play with the freedom of a condemned side. Their defending hardly improved at any point.

Whilst it’s easy enough to be smart with the benefit of hindsight, it’s difficult to remember a Watford squad as ill-equipped to handle a match like this. That’s not a comment intended to downplay the very great achievements of the squad this season… but any recipe for a cup upset against any senior opposition (let alone the league leaders) really does demand a bit of physical presence and a bit of pace, and we have neither – quite apart from the superior quality, each Chelsea player was a good three inches and half a stone bigger than their opposite number. Our biggest asset (minus the sorely missed Helguson) is the movement and interplay of our midfield, but Chelsea are far more used to this sort of thing than our regular opponents and more adept at dealing with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9310_FA_Cup

14th February 2009- FA Cup Fifth Round, Watford 1 Chelsea 3

Chelsea were given a huge fright in their first match since the departure of Luiz Felipe Scolari but a Nicolas Anelka hat-trick helped them bounce back to beat Watford 3-1 and advance to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.

Tamas Priskin gave the Hornets the lead after he sprung the offside trap to dink the ball over Petr Cech.

Watford had been pummelled for long periods, surrendered possession but defending wonderfully ruggedly to maintain parity, before Lloyd Doyley released Tamas Priskin.

A tremendous effort all round. Losing to Chelsea is no disgrace for a side at the bottom of the second division, and if we rode our luck more than once we also came close to levelling the game at 2-1 down. Lots of good individual performances… the wonderful Jenkins, rejuvenated Demerit, unrecognisable Priskin, bullish (!) McAnuff. But the team worked, for the most part.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9309_FA_Cup#Fifth_Round_Proper

31st March 2007- Premier League, Watford 0 Chelsea 1

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4753

For so long it seemed as though Chelsea’s challenge would founder at Vicarage Road after Watford battled manfully – and Kalou’s winner was a painful blow for the home team.

“You’re getting sacked in the summer,” chanted the home supporters as Mourinho paced up and down the touchline, unable to contain his frustration as Chelsea toiled against a spirited Watford side. Mourinho lost control of his emotions at one point in the second half; arguing with Boothroyd only to embrace the Watford manager later and share a joke. Abramovich appears in no mood to do likewise, even if he did manage to smile when Salomon Kalou struck.

The result leaves Watford needing a miracle, although Boothroyd has not thrown in the towel. ‘The other results haven’t helped us, but we shall try to finish the season as strongly as we can and see where it takes us,’ he said.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2007-03-31

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/premier-league/31-march-2007/

14th January 2004- FA Cup Third Round Replay, Chelsea 4 Watford 0

Chelsea brushed aside Watford to book a fourth round tie with Scarborough.

The Watford manager Ray Lewington wished Scarborough good luck in a tone of comic pity, yet his own side took credit for the vim shown despite the unavailability of their injured forward Heidar Helguson. The Icelander was rumbustious in the 2-2 draw at Vicarage Road that had slotted into a sequence of troubled games for Chelsea.

This should be no surprise. After all, it’s what everyone expected to happen, what was tacitly being written into the history books before the game kicked off. The surprise was the draw in the first game, a game we might even have won… and the enormity of that achievement was only underlined by the degree to which we were ultimately outclassed in this replay.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2004-01-14

3rd January 2004- FA Cup Third Round, Watford 2 Chelsea 2

Watford produced an outstanding display to secure a lucrative FA Cup third round replay at Chelsea.

Rich pickings for Watford

Desailly left chasing shadows as Hornets provide the sting

Sunday Telegraph, 4 Jan 2004

Independent, 5 Jan 2004

Evening Standard, 5 Jan 2004

This was astonishing. I mean, it was many things, and you can find a convenient list under “magnificent” in your thesaurus. But it was astonishing, first and foremost. There will be some comments about how the performance throws the rest of our under-achieving season into sharp relief, but they’ll miss the point. The point being that we could not possibly have expected eleven players to over-achieve in such an extraordinary manner. Not to that extent. Not for that long. Way beyond “spirited”, this was a brief and tenuous, but very real, bridging of that impossible gulf. It happened. Even more remarkably, it happened for ninety minutes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003%E2%80%9304_FA_Cup

5th August 2003- Friendly, Watford 1 Chelsea 4

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BSAD report: You know a big team is in town when the unofficial merchandise stands are outside the ground, selling the latest moody tat to the most gullible members of the visiting support. When touts ask if you have any spare tickets (yeah, like a tout is going to make a killing on the mark-up of pre-season tickets. “How much, mate? Twenty notes? I’ll just go to the pub, then.”) and when the Chelsea TV cameras are out in force. The young presenter looked visibly bored as she attempted to engage a particularly half-witted individual in conversation about Damien Duff as I walked past.