Morecambe Matchzone

Chelsea 4:0 Morecambe FA Cup Third Round

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Chelsea: a Stamford Bridge Too Far for Morecambe…

Apart from the one which happened at Hastings in 1066, one of the few English Battles of yore I know anything about was the one that happened at Stamford Bridge in what is now East Yorkshire three weeks earlier. There, King Harold Godwinson finally booted out the Vikings to make England a much easier prospect to conquer in its entirety for the Norman invaders who defeated him barely days later on the south coast. It was a valiant effort by the English at the time but the Normans had too much firepower for them and the effects of colonisation by the French still has ramifications in this country almost a thousand years later. But I promise not to mention Brexit again…

Can we see any parallels between plucky King Harold and the Normans and King Derek and the Franks today at another Stamford Bridge altogether? No. Tortured analogies don’t stretch that far. (Although – clutching at straws, admittedly – it could be said that Normans and Franks are basically French. And the Chelsea Manager – who is not a Norman or French as far as anybody knows – is, nevertheless, definitely a Frank, isn’t he?) Shall we move on? I think we should…

Today’s battle in London for a place in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup was, on paper, even less of an equal contest than that which happened between an exhausted English army and William the Conqueror’s men all those years ago. The context of today‘s match, of course, was against a background of another battle altogether – this time against the global Coronavirus outbreak. Morecambe found themselves curiously in almost the same position as had been their last opponents in this competition, Solihull Moors. When the Shrimps entertained the team from the Midlands as the Mazuma Stadium during November, Moors had not played a competitive game of football for the previous two weeks due to an outbreak of COVID-19 at their club. Ditto Derek Adams and his men today. The team have only been able to train together since last Tuesday and the Manager said about this:

“We haven’t been able to train for 10 days now, we haven’t had any activity since our last game against Grimsby. Staff and players haven’t been allowed into the training ground, so it’s been a long break for them. The strain of the virus seems to be accelerating quite quickly around the country and prevention is the best source at this moment in time. The decision was taken by the football club’s doctor that the best course of action was to self-isolate the whole squad and staff to stop the spread of the virus.”

Despite the complications caused by the viral outbreak, his team, however, are on a fine run of form. They had won six of their last seven games in all competitions, including four wins in a row in League Two. These performances have deservedly won Derek Manager of the Month for December 2020 and also attracted interest from Bradford City and Motherwell to employ him – advances which the 45-year-old Scot has thankfully rejected. He has worked a miracle at Morecambe in the short time he has been there, taking them from perennial strugglers to realistic promotion hopefuls on the smallest budget in the entire EFL. But when Mr Adams looked across at the home bench at Stamford Bridge today, his mind must have simply boggled at the difference in circumstances between his own club and that of the Premiership outfit, who spent over £200 million on just three players during the last transfer window.

The frankly obscene amount of money paid to just one of the home club’s pampered superstars during a single week would keep a club like Morecambe solvent for a whole season. The worth of the League Two club’s entire squad would not be enough to buy even an Academy player from Frank Lampard’s huge roster of footballers. The winners of this tie would be due to earn £61,500 in prize money – chicken feed to a club as absurdly rich as Chelsea are – but riches beyond the dreams of avarice to a club of the Shrimps’ stature. Even the losing fee – £20,500 – made the prospect of playing a game like this one well worth it for the relatively impoverished Lancashire side. Add to this the TV fee (£37k) and Morecambe’s venture to this exalted stage of the premier Cup competition in England makes the entire adventure worth it in itself in cash terms alone. All that anyone could hope for was that the Blues would not humiliate the Shrimps in the way Newcastle United had done earlier in the season at the Mazuma Stadium in the League Cup. Then, the Shrimps’ players were clearly overawed by their apparently much more illustrious opponents. Tactically, they stood off instead of trying to actually play football on their own terms – and paid the price, losing by seven goals to nil. Today, I for one hoped that our lads would have a go. Even if they lost by a cricket score, they would have at least tried to give Chelsea a game. The one thing you could guarantee in advance is that if Derek Adams told his men to let their opponents have the ball and try and play on the break, they would get absolutely annihilated. But would he? Did Morecambe have any realistic chance at all?…

Frank Lampard – under pressure after four losses and a draw in the Blues’ last six games – offered these thoughts prior to the match:

“Reece James is out; the same as Andreas Christensen and N’Golo Kante, who is out also with a minor hamstring injury so he misses this game. We have had some (COVID) positives but we have not had any players positive in the last couple of rounds. We have had small numbers of staff and we have been testing so regularly. Our medical team have been fantastic, over and beyond what the Premier league are laying down. We test and we take people out and we don’t take any risks with anybody and that is only right. The country is in lockdown for a reason and while football carries on, it means there is a lot of mixing going on, so we have to be ultra-careful. I am not completely comfortable but we have to toe the line, we have to try to keep playing but safety must come first.”

There were rumours that a weakened Chelsea team full of kids would line-up but their Manager chose ten internationals in his starting eleven today.

Opposite Number Derek Adams has this to say before the game:

“You’ve got Tyson Fury, who has a gym in the corner of our stadium, a heavyweight in Chelsea against a lightweight in Morecambe. I think Chelsea’s form makes it more difficult for us, there’s no doubt about that. There’s obviously pressure on Chelsea to get through to the next round, we know that, and they were FA Cup finalists last season. So we know that the game for us is going to be difficult but I think it will be harder than it probably could have been, because if they were winning games then it might have been a wee bit easier for us.”

Mr Adams named new loan signing from Blackburn Rovers – 23-year-old midfielder Northern Irishman Brad Lyons – on the bench for today’s game. Carlos Mendes-Gomes – in the running for League Two Player of December although he didn’t win it – lined-up, as usual, in the starting eleven. Influential Skipper Sam Lavelle, however, was not available today.

It was dry but dull as the match kicked-off at half-past one. A pattern was soon established: the visitors back-pedalled and pressed as the home side did their best to break them down. Only rarely did the men in the red strip manage to cross the halfway line but when they did after eleven minutes, Adam Phillips made progress down the Shrimps’ right, looked up and saw Chelsea’s Kepa Arrizbalaga off his line and sent over a fierce low cross which caused the goalkeeper to throw himself backwards and almost carry the ball over the goal-line as he managed to grab hold of it. That was the only proper save he had to make during the first half but he could have been caught-out again when, following Ryan Cooney’s long throw from the Morecambe right, one of his own defenders headed the ball right across the penalty area. Luckily for the Blues, there was nobody there for the opposition to take advantage of it. With about ten minutes left of the first period, Cole Stockton played-in Phillips on the right flank but Adam’s long-range shot was easily gathered by Kepa this time.

At the other end, Timo Werner had the first chance for the London club after just two minutes. Harry Davis did just enough to put him off as a cross came over from the right and his far post header went wide. Emerson Palmier’s attempted shot after ten minutes was then blocked by Aaron Wildig after ten minutes. With Callum Hudson-Adoi regularly getting the better of Cooney on the Chelsea left, the home team were dominating the play when Mason Mount celebrated his twenty-second birthday today by scoring with a fine long-range shot with seventeen minutes on the clock. Two minutes later, Emerson’s shot was blocked by Davis for a corner which Antonio Rüdiger walloped way over the bar. Werner then tested the visiting goalkeeper who reacted well but he turned-out to have been offside. There were a couple of other half-chances for the hosts before Werner scored again with a header right at the death. Hakim Ziyech crossed from the Chelsea right; Havertz headed the ball to him and his fellow-German did the rest.

So Morecambe went-in two-nil down at the break. After it, they fell even further behind after just three minutes when Hudson-Adoi received a looped pass over a static Shrimps’ defence and steered the ball home. Then it was just a matter of damage limitation for the visitors. Mark Halstead produced two tremendous reaction saves – first from Havertz and then immediately from substitute Christian Pulisic – after 71 minutes. Then Mount scored another goal with a header from the Chelsea right with six minutes left. Meanwhile, at the other end, Morecambe barely laid a glove on the hosts and their goalkeeper was limited to just two fairly routine crosses to deal with.

So that was it. Chelsea won easily in the end but Morecambe at least weren’t humiliated. The difference in class between the two sides was underlined after about an hour when French World Cup winner Oliver Giroud came on for the hosts. This said it all, really. The Blues were never in any danger today of losing their impressive record of not having been beaten in a Third Round FA Cup tie for twenty-three years. Morecambe equally never looked likely to advance to the Fourth Round for the first time ever. But given the huge discrepancy between the wealth and resources of the two clubs; the fact that the team from Lancashire hadn’t played since Boxing Day and the absence of Club Captain Sam Lavelle from the centre of their defence, this could hardly be seen as a surprise.

Let’s leave the final word to the legendary Tommy Doherty. The former Chelsea Manager was featured on the virtual match programme’s front cover today. The Doc came out with some classic and sometimes very witty quotes about all sorts of things during his lifetime. Here’s one about the particular sort of thing you’ve just read:

“I’ve always said there’s a place for the press. But they haven’t dug it yet.”

Chelsea: 1 Kepa Arrizbalaga; 28 César Azpilicueta; 15 Kurt Zouma; 2 Antonio Rüdiger; 33 Emerson Palmieri; 19 Mason Mount (9 Tammy Abraham 73’); 23 Billy Gilmour; 29 Kai Havertz; 22 Hakim Ziyech (10 Christian Pulisic 67’); 11 Timo Werner (18 Oliver Giroud 67’); 20 Callum Hudson-Adoi (55 Tino Anjorin 79’).

Subs not used:  13 Willy Cabellero; 5 Jorginho; 14 Fikayo Tomori; 17 Mateo Kovavic; 21 Ben Chilwell.

Morecambe:  12 Mark Halstead; 3 Stephen Hendrie (22 Liam Gibson Y  60’); 4 Nathaniel Knight-Percival; 6 Harry Davis; 24 Yann Songo’o; 10 Aaron Wildig (C); 11 Carlos Mendes-Gomes (15 Brad Lyons 73’); 20 Adam Phillips; 21 Ryan Cooney (2 Kelvin Mellor 60’); 9 Cole Stockton (19 Liam McAlinden 84’); 7 Jordan Slew (16 John O’Sullivan 60’).

Subs not used:  1 Jake Turner; 17 A-Jay Leitch-Smith; 14 Alex Kenyon; 8 Toumani Diagouraga.

Ref: Darren England.

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