Monaco vs Chelsea

Pepe LeFrits

Chelsea have been struck a blow ahead of their Champions League semi-final first-leg with Damien Duff and William Gallas both ruled out.

But striker Eidur Gudjohnsen and defender John Terry have both been passed fit for Tuesday's first-leg tie against Monaco.

Predictions? Opinions? Comments?

I'm looking forward to this game, I hope Chelsea take a positive approach and look to score away goals. Duff & Gallas missing are a big blow, means we'll probably see Desailly and Melchiot in defence and either Gronkjaer or Cole in midfield.

I'm not sure who I want to win, Monaco are the underdogs and I'd love to see them win the CL, with Morientes being pivotal. It would be a tremendous achievement for the team and Deschamps. On the other hand, I'd love to see Ranieri guide Chelsea to it. If ever a manager deserved something on the basis of his attitude, it's him. From a footballing perspective however, Chelsea aren't the most entertaining to watch. They have a lot of likeable players though (for me anyway, I quite like Cudicini, Gallas, Melchiot, Duff, Parker, Makelele and Gudjohnsen).

Prediction: 1-1.

Dont be at yourself

I'd imagine Chelsea will win the tie over the two legs, and I'd fancy them for at least a draw tomorrow. With the Premiership table the way it is, I think the players realise that the CL is their best chance for silverware this season and, with their form in the competition, I think they'll really go for it.

Duff and Gallas is a definite blow, but this is Chelsea we're talking about, for every player injured, they've dozens sitting on the bench

Going by the results of the quarter-finals though, I wouldn't rule anything out!

eirebhoy

Originally posted by kaids
I hope Chelsea take a positive approach and look to score away goals.

I'm sure they will. From their 5 away games in the CL this season they have won them all and only conceded 1. I don't think they'll win this one though, in fact I think they'll lose.

Monaco 2-0 Chelsea.

_blank_

Yeah, it really is unpredictable this year, although having said that, I predict that Chelsea will progress to the final

With Duff and Gallas out they will find it hard, but if they return for the home leg then Chelsea will have the definite advantage, on paper anyway.

johnor

I'd expect nothing less than an 8-8 in both legs given recent Champions league games. Hope Monaco can go through just because i have a bet that chelsea will win nothing and a bet that moirentes will be top goalscorer, purely selfish reasons.


I hope Football wins

john

Villain

Chelsea to win over the two legs 4-3.

eirebhoy

1-0 to Monaco ATM lads.

bbop

1 - 1
Crespo it looked like none of them wanted to put it in

Pacifico

Veron on:rolleyes: for the second half :eek:

Pacifico

Monaco down to 10. Wow the ref is good

bbop

WTF!!!
Monaco down to 10 men makalele is a disgrace worst dive ever and Desailly clappin after what happened against Arsenal he should know better

elbow316

That was a terrible decision, probably decided the tie right there.

Pacifico

Get in there Monaco!!!

2-1

bbop

2-1 Monaco it looks like the sending off could have settled the tie in anther way Makalele might have pissed Monaco off really bad

Villain

That other incident where the Monaco player kicked out on the ground was worse then the tap on the back of the head.

2-1 10 men always dig deep.

Still back Chelsea to win over the 2 legs

Pacifico

3-1. Nonda . On the pitch about 20 seconds!

bbop

make that 3-1

Dr. Dre

Aw man, that's a bad show, it seemed to be going OK.
I thought Desailly was awful tonight tbh, Terry seemed to be covering for him most the time.

bbop

i had a bad feelin for Chelsea once Gallas was ruled out and Desailly was ruled out, lookin at Chelseas starting 11 they didnt look good enough surprised Hasselbaink didnt start

NightStrike

I think Desailly is past it tbh. Still from a neutral perspective I'm glad the match is like this. It means Chelsea will really have to go for it in the second leg so I'm looking forward to that. They should have Gallas, Duff etc back for that one too

elbow316

Yeah its set up for a great end-to-end game now at stamford Bridge. Hard not see both teams actually scoring but I can't see Chelsea scoring 3 for some reason. Ranieri, even though I like the guy, is tinkering just a bit too much.

Kone

Chelsea should have sown it up early in the second half, I dunno what tinkerman was thinking putting on Haselbaink (whatever about Veron!)

Makele should be ashamed of himself for the way he behaved!

mike65

What was Ranieri thinking..everything going okay, so lets take off the wide men...

Mike.

phenom

good game chelsea should have done better since they were a man up. Oh well the next leg is the decider.

DerekD Goldfish

Can Makele be supended on vidio evedence after his discraseful performance. I know it happens for fouls does it happen for diving?

MisterAnarchy

No sooner is that waste of space Veron back ,Chelsea's form goes bad.
He is a disaster.

redspider

I wouldn't lay any fault in tonights result with Desailly. True, he is no longer
the player he once was, but the faults for the goals were as follows:

1 - Melchiot - Prso was his man and he didnt challenge him
2- Veron - Bridge went up on the overlap but Veron didnt track back to cover the hole (see below)
3- Ambrosia - the keeper should have saved that

It was a match all set-up for Chelsea to take, but Ranieri in my opinion
made some tactical errors. Veron is a central midfielder and whilst Gronkjaer
had a poor first half, he seemed to be much more fit than Veron, so not
a good time to "experiment" with a return on Veron. After the 2nd goal,
Ranieri changed things around as if they were about to be knocked out!
A 1-2 loss would have been ok. But Jimmy-Floyd cant play as a wide man.
And who the hell was Huth? How big is this Chelsea squad? 100 players?

On the night Chelsea badly missed Duff and Gallas. Andy Townsend called
it correct when he said that Joe Cole should have been put on, and not
Veron. That injury feign by Makele can get a fine but I'm not sure if it
can get a yellow-card or a match ban if appealed with video evidence,
such as with Rivaldo in the WC (remember him?).

The tie is not over but its an uphill stuggle from here on in.
If Ranieri was looking to get the sack, he has put the first nail in
his own coffin.

Jivin Turkey

Makelele was only doing what foreign teams have been doing to english sides for years. Even though it is arguable that it worked against Chelsea tonight. What was Veron doing, he is so bad, he brought the team down with him, there was absolutely no pace in the side once he came on.

StickyMcGinty

mechiot is a disaster, and so is gronkaer (sp?)

the tinkerman got it wrong tonight....

hasselbaink for melchiot????
parker for huth?
veron for gronkaer - fair enough but joe cole would have been a better choice.

they are in trouble at home..... where they have been BAD in europe this season.

monaco to go through 4-2 on agg.

mr_angry

Disaster for Chelsea. Good first half, but Veron??? The poor guy could hardly even jog, he was that unfit. I know Gronjkaer is hardly a posession-maniac, but that was total madness from Raineri.

Makelele was an absolute disgrace. I don't know how he can sleep at night after pulling a stunt like that, and Desailly wasn't much better. I wouldn't mind so much if Desailly had played well, but he was piss-poor.

The Blues have a mountain to climb now, but it has been year-of-the-unbelievable-comeback in the Champions League, and I wouldn't rule anything out at this stage (there must have been a few bookies who got the fright of thier lives this season). The sickening thing is, as an Arsenal fan, I was rooting for Chelsea to go through, but I can't help thinking "what might have been"?

BTW, did anyone notice the correlation between Duff not playing, and Chelsea not winning again? Its gone beyond coincidence at this stage.

Shred

I was fairly neutral on this one but would have liked to see Chelsea win I suppose until the incident with Makelele, what he did was an absolute disgrace and Monaco got their justice in the end. Chelsea were absolute sh*te in the second half and looked like they were the depleted team. I can't see them going through.

Shaque attack

The poor guy could hardly even jog, he was that unfit.

he wasn't unfit he was lazy. its typical veron. i honestly cant understand how managers cannot see that veron is not able to compete at the highest level. bringing him on lost chelsea the match imo. bringin on Hasselbank and asking Parker to play wing back threw it away.
cant see them overturning this result.

growler

very dissappointing evening, the tactical changes simply didn't work out, with 3 world class strikers up front for nearly 40 minutes I struggle to recall more than 1 shot on target from them. Huth obviously cannot cross the ball , Veron has forgotten what football IS and ultimately Ranieri himself really messed up a golden opportunity to seal a CL final place.

All is not lost , plenty of opportunity for Duff and Crespo to tear their somewhat shaky defence apart (I hope)

smuckers

V disappoinitng Makelele is a disgrace and Marcel is the same as he applauded it. The tinkerman really set a world tinkering record there was no need to make that many changes, sure Jesper didn't have a great first half but still would have stuck with. Frank was running the show in the first half. Those changes may have cost him his job.

eirebhoy

Am I the only one that thinks Ranieri wants to get sacked and get millions in compensation? After what he said about Abromovich yesterday I had a feeling he wanted to be sacked and his substitutions last night just make the situation worse (or better if he does want to be sacked).

I agree with mr_angry 100%. It is definitely no coincidence that when Duff plays the results seem to go Chelsea's way.

Sparta Prague (a) - they were drawing 0-0 and didn't look like scoring but they brought Duff on and he set up the only goal of the match.

Besiktas (h) - He didn't start the match and they lost 2-0.

Lazio (h) - Duff started, and played well, Chelsea won 2-1.

Lazio (a) - Duff started, scored and played very well, Chelsea won 4-0.

Sparta Prague (h) - Duff started, 0-0.

Besiktas (a) - Chelsea were drawing 0-0, Duff came on with 20mins to go and set up the first goal, Chelsea won 2-0.

Stuttgart (a) - Duff came on midway through the 2nd half for his first appearence after his injury, Chelsea won 1-0.

Stuttgart (h) - Duff started but didn't play to his standards, 0-0.

Arsenal (h) - Duff started, which caused Ljunberg and Lauren to stick by him for the whole match, 1-1.

Arsenal (a) - Duff started, played OK, Chelsea won 2-1.

Monaco (a) - Duff didn't play any part, Chelsea lost 3-1.

Villain

Originally posted by eirebhoy
I agree with mr_angry 100%. It is definitely no coincidence that when Duff plays the results seem to go Chelsea's way.

I agree that mainly that is the case as your stats point out but he did play against Villa nd was very poor.

BaZmO*

Originally posted by smuckers
Frank was running the show in the first half. Those changes may have cost him his job.

Yeah, so much so that I texted him in as my TV3 Man of the Match just at the start of the second half just in case I couldn't get through towards the end!! :rolleyes:

Can't really blame Frank for the second half display though. The team just totally lost their shape with all the changes. Claudio...ya gotta love him, but when he does things like that he doesn't make it easy!!!

Ambrosio was a disgrace for the third goal. As Mark Lawrenson said, "He could've thrown his cap on the ball to stop it!"

Makes for an interesting second leg though!

B.

eirebhoy

Originally posted by irish1
I agree that mainly that is the case as your stats point out but he did play against Villa nd was very poor.

That just proves the point more, Duff played bad and Chelsea lost.

Mighty_Mouse

From the independant:

CLAUDIO RANIERI lost the tactical plot against Monaco on Tuesday night and yesterday, during the retreat from the Riviera, it became clear that Chelsea's beleaguered coach had lost his players.

As one livid international confided: "Claudio make a complete cock-up."

Text messages from others were even less complimentary, the airwaves turning blue. "What a d***head" read one.

The dressing room is now seething with dissent towards Ranieri, reflecting the disapproval of the club owner, Roman Abramovich.

Like the board members, the players' frustration was rooted in Ranieri's bizarre second half re-jigging at Stade Louis II that gave the initiative to Monaco.

The 'Tinkerman' made Chelsea too narrow when they craved width to stretch opponents reduced to 10 men following an iniquitous red card for Andreas Zikos.

After Didier Deschamps' resilient side counter-attacked devastatingly to win 3-1, Ranieri's players sloped to their changing-room. Silence reigned until one player barked: "What the f*** was that all about?" Ranieri's head slumped.

The dearth of crosses was of most concern to the centre-forwards. "We lost our shape," lamented Eidur Gudjohnsen. "We didn't play with wide men any more."

The feeling among certain players was that such an opportunity to reach the final of a winnable Champions League will never come along again.

"We are all disgusted about it because we can't believe it," said Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. "I don't think any single one of us slept last night. It is a missed opportunity, a massive one.

"I bet Mr Abramovich feels as s*** as we feel. Maybe we feel a little bit worse because it is a chance of a lifetime. Miracles are not out of the question but it will be very hard. We have the feeling that we blew it."

Wobbling towards the exit door with a £6m pay-off, Ranieri has only one leg to stand on, the May 5 return. And, even if they produce a miracle, Chelsea's powerbrokers have clearly had enough of the tinkering of Ranieri. Hence their interest in Porto's Jose Mourinho.

Chelsea's money men were shaking their heads in disbelief at the sight of Juan Sebastian Veron in left midfield and Hernan Crespo asked to work the right flank. Scott Parker's relocation first to right-back and then withdrawal also baffled Chelsea's suits.

Afterwards, Abramovich invited Ranieri to his yacht, Le Grand Bleu, but the coach politely declined saying he wanted to spend time debriefing and consoling his players. Silence persisted back at their quayside hotel.

If the expensive trip to Monaco confirmed the board's views on Ranieri, it also threw up other issues for a club undergoing an internal revolution. The decision to allow partners and children on the official trip will be reviewed.

Veron is clearly an exceptionally attentive father, continually checking on his wife, son and daughter during the flights there and back, but a chief executive like Peter Kenyon learned his club trade at Manchester United, whose raids on Europe were completely devoid of distractions.

Also raised were security issues relating to Abramovich, a man so sensitive about his own safety that Le Grand Bleu boasts a submarine to check the hull for mines. Following photographs taken of Abramovich flying into Vigo for a supposedly secret meeting with Mourinho's agent, Abramovich's people are also to conduct an internal security review.

The billionaire's different modus operandi may also lead to censure from UEFA for promising to double each player's bonus against Arsenal (£50,000) and Lazio (£15,000). As only those bonuses stipulated at the start of the season are permissible, Chelsea said the extra £65,000 per player would not now be paid.

Loudly cheered by the Chelsea fans in Stade Louis II, Abramovich will be at Stamford Bridge for the second leg where he will be joined among the spectators by the suspended Claude Makelele and probably Marcel Desailly. The defender is facing a three-game ban after UEFA said yesterday they would examine video tape of the incident which led to Fernando Morientes accusing Desailly of elbowing him.

Porto, meanwhile, have complained to FIFA that Abramovich was trying to poach Mourinho. The Portuguese club's objections are unlikely to trouble football's world governing body or, more pertinently, the Russian billionaire, although he will be embarrassed that supposedly clandestine talks have, as with the unsuccessful courting of Sven-Goran Eriksson, leaked out.

Mourinho is not the only candidate to replace him, but the fact that Abramovich flew to Spain on Monday to lead negotiations was another sign that the Portuguese is top of the pile.

After Eriksson's rejection, Chelsea have changed tack and decided against trying to lure one of the established elite of European managers. They are seeking an up-and-coming young coach with something to prove and Mourinho, who has enjoyed a meteoric rise at Porto, fits the bill.

Martin O'Neill is the most obvious British candidate, but his uncompromising style has been ruled out.

Mourinho did not attend the talks for fear of upsetting Porto before their match against Deportivo La Coruna, but that did little to dampen the fire of his club's president, Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, who has written to FIFA objecting to a meeting between Chelsea officials and Iuso Jorge Mendes, the coach's representative. © Daily Telegraph, London.

smuckers

I'm not blaming Frank he tried to get the team moving. If I was Claudio I would not play Makelele for the remainder of the PL season, but I'm not him so I can't see that happening.

growler

not playing Makele would just make keeping second place even harder, while I don't approve his daft dive I don't want to see chelsea shoot themselves in the foot either. What he did , he did to try and win the game for chelsea (or possibly for some personal reason) he's been a silly bugger and will surely think twice before attempting a dive again.

the most important thing is automatic CL qualification.

SCULLY

While I'm not defending makelele, he's hardly the first player to over-react to a tackle etc, and claudio will probably play him on may 5th. I wouldn't be too upset though if he were offloaded during the summer. I was more dissapointed with desailly - after geting himself sent off in the previous round, he then elbows a player in the mush. Uefa will probably ban him for the next game, which is fine 'cos gallas will be back and it will be one less problem for claudio to worry about. With Duff also back, 2-0 is not out of the question