Beaten Barely

Chelsea 1 - 0 BORO

BORO put in a battling second half performance to leave title chasers Chelsea feeling very uneasy at home, but couldn't quite deliver the goods; leaving an early Ricardo Carvalho goal to dominate the scoreline.

Chelsea, as expected, went about the opening exchanges with utter dominance as BORO barely got out of their own penalty area and it wasn't long before they snatched the opener. Ricardo Carvalho leaped above Pogatetz and the towering David Wheater to convert Wayne Bridge's sixth minute free-kick past the scrambling Mark Schwarzer.

Drogba looked good for the home side and made it his duty to cause problems for the BORO back line, testing Schwarzer early on and getting in amongst the chances with some good passing moves.

BORO hearts were in mouths just minutes after the early goal as Drogba darted away form Stewart Downing at the front post, but his effort only found the side netting from a Kalou corner.

However, for all their early dominance, the title chasers seemed to sit back a little and allowed BORO into the game. Though, lacking any real class, the visiting side failed to string together many decent moves and a well saved Downing effort was just about all BORO could create by way of chances on goal.

The first half fired to an end as Chelsea mounted a late charge when Michael Essien sliced through the BORO from midfield and found Kalou, whose effort was blocked. Kalou then came close again as he headed an effort agonisingly over the bar, but it was to be that the two sides entered the break at 1-0.

A little of their first half form was carried into the second half, but Chelsea looked more uneasy than earlier in the game as BORO started to play the ball around better than they had in the first half.

George Boateng looked on good form again, but lesser quality performances from Lee Cattermole and, unusually, Stewart Downing meant that BORO's midfield lacked the punch that it needed to get through the Chelsea line-up.

Downing made some clever runs along the left but occasionally found himself straying to the right and didn't look up to his usual crossing standard. Making some weak deliveries and less than impressive free-kicks meant that the front two of Tuncay and Aliadiere were mostly starved of deliveries from the wing.

Michael Ballack was replaced by Shaun Wright-Phillips after 65 minutes and he should have had an immediate effect on the game as he saw two efforts squandered; first shooting wide and then over after a last ditch challenge from David Wheater.

Gareth Southgate then decided to sub Tuncay, who had picked up an earlier head injury and was heavily bandaged. He made way for Afonso Alves who immediately set about trying to open his BORO account, and he came just about as close to scoring as he will ever get without actually putting the ball in the net.

Alves hunted down a long ball that an on-rushing Cudicini thought was his, the Brazilian beat the keeper to the ball at around 30 yards from goal before rounding the keeper and striking towards and empty net. The ball seemed destined for the goal, but frustratingly and agonisingly struck the inside of the post and bounced back out into play.

BORO's bad luck then started to show as they failed to score from a string of chances, the best of which came from one free-kick. Downing's free kick was in any other form a corner, as it was positioned just a couple of yards from the left hand corner flag, he delivered the ball in and found David Wheater rising above the pack. His headed effort found Alves who, from 5 yards out, smashed a header against the bar, the ball then fell back to the head of Wheater who, in turn, headed against the bar and Aliadiere lashed the resulting rebound well wide.

A telling account of BORO's desperate need to convert the chances they create, as they could have walked away from this game having embarrassed the home side. Especially with the second half chances that they created.

With Manchester United at The Riverside and a trip to Spurs coming up for the BORO, given today's chances Gareth Southgate could well be ruing an opportunity lost as BORO could have easily taken three points on a day that also saw North East rivals Newcastle move above BORO in the table with an astounding 4-1 away victory over Spurs.


Attendance: 39,993
BORO Blog BORO Man of the Match: George Boateng (Though a little off his usual form, Stewart Downing was a close second)

Pictures courtesy of BBC Sport (news.bbc.co.uk/sport)