Allardyce on... Chelsea

  • by Staff Writer
  • Saturday, 23rd November 2013

Sam Allardyce kept the press waiting for well over an hour tonight before delivering an honest assessment of a disappointing performance against Chelsea. Read his full post-match thoughts here...


They were good, weren't they Sam - but again, the first goal came from a silly mistake?

I think we allowed them to be good after the [first] goal. You're playing against a Chelsea side where Jose's blocked the midfield up a bit more than he normally does because they haven't had the best of results either recently, have they?

When we saw Ramirez, Mikel and Lampard in midfield we thought they'd come here to be a little more solid defensively. Sadly it was our defensive frailties that showed first, not theirs - and by an individual error that as a manager you can't allocate for.

You don't expect it to happen, but when it happens you don't want it to happen to any of your players. In this game, at that particular time, we gifted Chelsea the penalty that gave them the lift they were looking for. Everybody takes confidence out of scoring goals and with the talent they've got it was always difficult for us from there on.

I was just about to change it. After that goal we really couldn't get out of our own half, we lifted them so much by gifting them the goal. So we were going to change it and as we were just about to, they scored a second.

It got a bit better in the second half. We tried to create an opening, to try to rally ourselves and the fans. When that chance came we missed it again, which was Modibo [Maiga]'s - a side foot in the box. It should go in the back of the net but he sidefoots it wide. So we're suffering in front of goal and now we're suffering defensively with defensive errors.

We've got to stop that first and foremost and continue to try and make sure we win a football match when we're on top. We weren't on top much today and today's game is one that Chelsea deserved to win, but there's far too many games where we've been on top and haven't won which is why we've got the problem we've got now.

Is it hard to make a double substitution in the first half? I guess it's something you don't have to do too often as a manager?

I think I can count the times I've done it in the last 12 years in the Premier League on one hand, but it needed to be done for me. We got kicked in the teeth by giving the penalty away and then we were having to contain Chelsea too much, which I thought was going to lead to another goal. So I made the decision, tried to get them on and unfortunately it went in again.

We play with a front man, we don't play with a front man; we play with two front men, we don't play with two front men. At the moment it doesn't matter what we play with in terms of a system, we're creating chances but not scoring. We didn't create too many chances today to be honest with you, but we did create a chance to get us back in the game. Whether we deserved it or not who knows, but you should take it.

Joe Cole seemed quite frustrated when he came off. Was that the case?

I can't help the team play in terms of the way it did once the two goals had gone in and I had to change something, so somebody had to come off. Then you look at the team and ask who we're going to bring off and how we're going to play.

Are we going to bring on a bit more energy, maybe a bit more pace? With Maiga on that side and Mo Diame up front to get a little bit more [ball] than we were getting before? That's why we made the substitutions.

It's frustrating, every player's frustrated because all every player does is think about himself. You have to think about the bigger picture. If he's frustrated that's fine; next time he gets a chance he's going to play so well for me the last thing I can do is substitute him. That's up to him next time he gets a chance.

If he doesn't play quite as well or I think I need to change it and Joe Cole's the one to bring off, I'll bring him off. I brought my captain off in the end because I didn't think he was as good as he can be, I didn't think he drove the team on as well as he normally does.

So he comes off and we put another attacking player on in the hope that that will get us back into the game, but you're going to open yourself up then. When you open yourself up against a Chelsea side with their counter-attacking skills you either get the goal to get back in it or the opposition scores against you and finish the game off.

Do you think you need to strengthen in the next [transfer] window?

The way we're going at the moment the answer to that is "yes", but saying that we will be better with Winston Reid and Andy Carroll back. Razvan Rat was injured as well, he's done well since he's come in. If you can strengthen, particularly on the front line we'd like to strengthen.

But, we can't do that until January and for me January's a long way off with the amount of games we've got in December; six games, as well as the one next week. We've got a lot of points at stake that we must get. The big time for me is Fulham here and Crystal Palace on the Tuesday night. That's got to be four points, minimum. Then the next game after that try to make an unbeaten run with two wins and a draw.

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