City Out But Not Down

SNU Marshall, Ward, Thornton, Osbourne, McPake, Simpson

Chelsea
Cech, A.Cole, Lampard,Drogba(Di Santo 80),Mikel (Essien 65) ,Ballack, Malouda, Bosingwa, Kalou Quaresma 18),Terry,Alex
SNU Essien,Carvalho,Di Santo, Quaresma,Belletti,Hilario

HT CCFC 0-1 CFC FT CCFC 0-2 CFC Att 31,407
Goals Didier Drogba (14), Alex (72)

Ref Steve Bennett
Booked Beuzelin
Man Of The Match Marcus Hall took most of the votes
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Coventry City are out of the FA Cup but can hold their heads high as they, were not disgraced by a Chelsea side, which is one of the best in Europe.

The police sirens rang out early this morning on the east side of Coventry as the Chelsea team made its way to warm up at the Alan Higgs Centre.

The presence of Chelsea in our historic city for this FA Cup Sixth Round had proved a massive talking point for everyone I had met over the last week.

Even those with little interest in football were backing the Sky Blues and as I made my way to the Arena, the Sky Blue Army, some of whom had queued for up to ten hours for tickets, was out in force. It may not have been a sea of Sky Blue but the sight of a near full Ricoh Arena was a sight to behold.

Chris Coleman had named his strongest side possible with Marcus Hall stepping in to replace Danny Fox, who had damaged a knee ligament during the midweek defeat against Sheffield United. Freddie Eastwood kept his place in midfield with Ben Turner joining Scott Dann at the back.

Guus Hiddink also named a strong side, which included Ashley Cole, who had been in side a police station this week and roundly booed every time he touched the ball.

On a cloudy lunchtime, the game kicked off in front of the ITV and Fox cameras admist a carnival atmosphere. It might have been better if some of those who cast filthy looks and complained about their leisure experience being marred, had actually joined in with the singing, rather than drinking little bottles of wine or taking pictures of Chelsea players.

City attacked the Jewson Stand where the Chelsea support officially recorded as 5,478 was housed in the first half and early on, paid probably a bit too much respect to the talent that Chelsea had on display.

The Blues passed the ball round with ease whilst the City players looked for scraps and in the 14th minute, a mistake by Scott Dann saw him lose the ball to Didier Drogba. The Ivory Coast international nipped round Keiren Westwood who had come out of his goal and fired into the empty net to put Chelsea ahead.

The look on the faces of the City support said it all. We did not want to concede a goal this early but there was still plenty of the game left to do something.

Unfortunately, today, City were not at their sharpest going forwards. Leon Best had one chance in the 24th minute after Marcus Hall had made a splendid clearance but fired over after beating a defender in the area.

Against John Terry, who I rate as one of the best defenders in the country in the matches that I have seen him play in person, Best did pretty well and won a good number of headers and lay-offs.

Failure to close down a side like Chelsea always means more work for your defenders and way too often, Lampard, Cole and Kalou all had plenty of space in which to spray telling balls to feet.

After 35 minute, a foul by the hard working Jordan Henderson on Cole gave Lampard a free kick which Westwood did very well to punch over for a corner.

City went up the other end through Freddie Eastwood but his shot was straight at Petr Cech, whose orange shirt was reminiscent of Holland's World Cup shirt of 1974.

The second period showed even more fight from the Sky Blues. Guilly Beuzelin came on for Michael Doyle on the hour mark to partner the industrious Aron Gunnarsson in the centre of midfield.

City might have had a penalty in the 61st minute when Michael Ballack was seen to handle the ball but referee Steve Bennett who had a good game for a Premiership referee, thought otherwise.

The not so secret weapon of the Gunnarsson throw came into play on a number of occasions and in the 66th minute, it agonisingly crept past every City player in the box.

In the 72nd minute, City, were hit by a counter attack, which wrapped up the game for the West Londoners. Coventry had the ball in the Chelsea penalty area. Now the visitors had been down to nine men when Drogba and Alex collided into each other. Alex was waved back on and race up-field.

Substitute Richardo Quaresma broke down the Main Stand side and picked out the unmarked Alex with a superb ball. Westwood tried to narrow the angle but the Brazilian knew where the ball was going and made sure it went into the back of the net.

The City fans taunted the visitors with the customary "Where Were You etc" but apart from two Sky Blue corners and an 83rd minute shot from Jordan Henderson, who again showed a lot of promise, that match was over as a contest and City were out of the FA Cup for another year.

Losing to one of the best sides in Europe is no bad thing and the cup run was fun whilst it last with some great memories. Hopefully now we can take that experience into the rest of the league matches, starting with Bristol City on Tuesday night.