Aston Villa 0-0 Chelsea: A Match Not Of Two Halfs, But Four Quaters

While Chelsea looked fairly toothless in the first half of their match at Aston Villa, Carlo Ancelotti’s replacement of Gael Kakuta with Yuri Zhirkov gave the Blues more room to attack in the second half, forcing Villa to sit deeper in their own half. Graham MacAree of We Ain’t Got No History talks about the changes both teams made late in Saturday’s match:
Chelsea were looking very dangerous, and Anelka was starting to link up with Ferreira down the right side as well. Anelka troubled Friedel with a low snap shot and missed a pretty good opportunity well high and wide of the far post, but for the most part attacks were ending with desperate Villa lunges at the final ball. By the 70th minute Houllier was looking for new outlets to relieve pressure while Ancelotti was trying to add even more width to Chelsea as well as finding a more attacking midfielder to deploy in the place of a largely disappointing Ramires. Nathan Delfouneso was Villa’s choice, Bosingwa and McEachran Chelsea’s.

For a full recap of Chelsea’s draw with Aston Villa, as well as an analysis of play and a wonderfully designed formation chart, visit SB Nation’s Chelsea blog, We Ain’t Got No History.