Chelsea 0-0 West Ham - What's your view of our performance?

Chelsea dropped two important points last night at Stamford Bridge against a resolute and determined West Ham United side. With 39 attempts on goal, Chelsea just could not break down the Claret and Blue wall!

Everyone will have an opinion on this and there is no right and wrong but the tactics Sam Allardyce employed have caused plenty of debate around the country and on social media networks ever since the final whistle blew.

Jose Mourinho stated that it was “19th century tactics” but Chelsea fans should take their minds back to our Champions League winning season and games at Stamford Bridge and the Nou Camp against Barcelona to see that it’s a tactic we have employed to get a result.

That’s what it all comes down to here. Sam Allardyce is fighting for his future if you believe reports in the press and as he said after the game “I am not going to come here as Man United did and play wide open football” and you can understand it.

As much as it’s frustrating for us, we did have at least three good chances to break the deadlock but for the defiance of Adrian in the West Ham goal.

Samuel Eto’o‘s strike just on half time was saved at his near post, John Terry‘s header was straight at him and right at the death you could argue that Frank Lampard should have done better as again his effort was fired straight at the West Ham Goalkeeper.

When you read about Managers being under pressure you often take a look at the players to see if they are still playing for him, still giving their all under his guidance and you have to say that to a man, each of the West Ham players gave everything to stop Chelsea last night.

I read a stat somewhere that said we had 73% possession, 490 passes compared to West Ham’s 120, 39 attempts at goal compared to West Ham’s one single effort and 51 clearances made by Allardyce’s men. They were literally throwing bodies (not just one at times either) at the ball to make blocks in and around the box, they earned the point here without question and credit to them!

As for Chelsea? Well we could argue once again that we need to be quicker in possession of the ball. It’s not the first time someone will come to Stamford Bridge and set up like that, looking to make it difficult for us to break them down. We need to come up with alternative solutions because although our approach play is good, we came to the final third, up against that wall and the pace in our attack died!

I believe the pace that Mohamed Salah brings will be a massive bonus as that’s what this team needs. Pace down both wings with Oscar pulling the strings to open teams up.

Again we are reading opinion from Chelsea fans about the striker situation but once again I would like to point out that to me that’s not the problem. Look at the City first goal at Spurs last night for example. David Silva drifts into space, turns and spots a run of Aguero, he plays the ball early and Aguero scores. It’s a simple game played at pace and this is what we are missing.

All in all we can feel nothing but disappointment this morning as with Arsenal dropping points at Southampton, we had a chance to overtake them but blew it.

Now we have to prepare ourselves for City at Eastlands and we have to take some positives from this one going there. Once again we have a clean sheet which compared to the beginning of the season, is a massive boost.

Will City rip us apart like they have plenty of others this season? I don’t think so. Can Chelsea break them down? That’s where the game could be won or lost.