Coventry 0 Chelsea 2 : Report 1

As kick-off approached you could feel the tension and atmosphere building in the sell-out crowd approaching 31,500, but sadly the noise levels very rarely managed to hit the heights of the recent games against Blackburn, Birmingham and Wolves.

It seemed liked the occasion was getting to the boys in Sky Blue early on, and in their desire to ensure they didn’t concede an early goal gave Chelsea far too much respect, allowing Didier Drogba the chance to flash a shot just wide of Kieren Westwood’s left hand post after just a couple of minutes.

City didn’t heed the warning though and Drogba – who was giving an excellent lesson in how to lead the front line, using the space between the centre halves to great effect and pulling wide on occasion – managed to capitalise on Ben Turner and Scott Dann’s indecision by nipping in behind them, rounding Westwood and placing the ball into the net on the quarter hour.

The City fans immediately got behind the team to try and spur them on and the team responded with a couple of chances in quick succession. Freddie Eastwood had a wild shot from 20 yards out that ended up by the corner flag before a scintillating run from Leon Best past two defenders saw him blast the ball high into the stand behind the goal.

The experience of Lampard and Ballack in the middle were helping Chelsea maintain a lion’s share of the possession though, and Marcus Hall, in for the injured Danny Fox, was found facing two Chelsea players on a number of occasions as no-one seemed to be playing on the left of midfield for Coventry to cover him. He coped admirably with the onslaught though, with Chelsea being restricted to a few half-chances from distance – none of which really troubled the City goal except for a Lampard free-kick which Westwood needed to tip over the bar.

It was obvious that City would need to up their game if they were to seriously challenge their illustrious visitors, and from the start of the second half there was a bit more urgency in their play. Aron Gunnarsson was getting a lot more involved and was bringing Jordan Henderson into play and giving him the chance to take on Ashley Cole, who was booed throughout by the City supporter’s.

Chelsea conceded a few free-kicks in dangerous areas, but this just managed to highlight the absence of Fox, as the delivery was by-and-large poor. Gunnarsson was also given a few chances to hurl his long throws into the box, giving Chelsea a few problems with Petr Cech coming to collect on a couple of occasions but failing to reach the ball.

Ironically, this became City’s undoing for the second goal, as with two Chelsea players off the pitch after colliding with each other, City decided to push another man forward in the shape of Hall for another Gunnarsson throw with 20 minutes to go. Chelsea cleared it and they swiftly moved the ball to Ricardo Quaresma on the right wing exploiting the space left by Hall. His cross-field ball found the unmarked Alex who was left with just Westwood to beat. He managed to do so and the second goal brought about the stark realisation that today wasn’t going to be City’s day.

That didn’t stop the Sky Blues trying to get back into the game with Morrison nearly managing to slip in behind the back four and a decent cross by Eastwood from the left just evading Best and Morrison at the far post looking to knock it in before the final whistle blew.