Real Betis v Chelsea

A win tonight and we qualify for the last 16 of this season’s Champions League.

Real Betis were torn apart in the corresponding fixture at the Bridge a fortnight ago, eventually losing 4-0. They’ve since lost three matches on the bounce in La Liga, shipping ten goals in the process. On current form we should win — which would probably leave December’s home match against Liverpool to decide which team finishes top of Group G (for what it’s worth; our path to last season’s semi-final wasn’t made any easier by finishing top).

A 22-man squad has travelled to Seville, including Damien Duff who has made a quick recovery from a knee injury; he will definitely play some part. The only two players missing are Hernan Crespo who has a muscle strain and Glen Johnson who is still unavailable for selection with a broken bone in his hand, sustained after he punched a wall. Petr Cech will keep his place between the sticks.

With just one clean sheet kept — against Betis — in our last six games, Jose Mourinho has called for an improvement in defence.

“There’s always space for improvement,” he said. “When I look back over the last weeks, of course I was surprised with some defensive mistakes we made. We were beating records and suddenly in the last month we made a mistake at Everton, the goal against Charlton and two mistakes against Blackburn. There was a mistake against Bolton. We are conceding too many goals compared with the past.”

Prediction: It’s almost a year to the day since our last away win in Europe, a 1-0 victory over CSKA Moscow. We’ve since lost at Porto with nothing to play for, been defeated at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Liverpool (no comment) and drawn a second tie at Anfield.

But with Betis in such poor form of late tonight is the perfect opportunity to buck that trend. Our only victory in Spain — we’ve lost six of seven on our Iberian travels — was a 2-1 victory over Betis in the quarter-final of the 1997/98 Cup Winners’ Cup . I can see that being tonight’s scoreline too.

If you’re not amongst the 2,500 travelling fans, the match is being televised on ITV4 — a new channel which is apparantly aimed at the “stronger” sex. The Real Betis v Chelsea match will be the first programme aired on launch night, from 7pm.

Related links:

Real Betis 1 – 0 Chelsea · Update

We played poorly, of that there is no doubt… but it’s very difficult to play a team whose players spend more time off their feet than on them. Dreadful refereeing performance too.

Still… it was only a group game and all is not lost. Liverpool’s visit to the Bridge in December is looking a mite tasty now.

So is tomorrow a national holiday?

Match reports: BBC Sport; Sky Sports; ESPNSoccernet; Sporting Life; Official Chelsea FC Website; The Times; The Independent; The Guardian; Daily Telegraph.

Related links:




Chelsea FC Blog
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.