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Terry O'Holic
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| GREAT PERFORMANCES PAYING OFF AS WE MOVE UP TO SECOND
This is the first of two home London derbies on consecutive weekends. This afternoon's game is always a massive one for the supporters, but it's also a big game for both teams.
West Ham are looking to move away from the bottom three, while we want to consolidate our position above Arsenal and continue to put pressure on Manchester United above us.
Birmingham on Wednesday was a great result for us, with a good performance to go with it, particularly in the first half.
We wanted to carry on where we had left off against West Brom and we did that. We got an early goal, which always makes the game easier, and continued to attack from there. We demonstrated some excellent movement throughout the game, which showed in Flo's arrival in the box at the right time for both of his goals. And what a goal by Sala for our second!
By the end, we could have scored more goals but, with Arsenal and Man United both drawing, we are now in a much stronger position. It's vitally important that we don't let the performance level drop off at all because we will need to keep winning games right until the end if we're to stand a chance of challenging for the title.
It was also brilliant to see Ryan Bertrand get on for his first-team debut here. He's worked really hard since he returned to the club from his loan at Nottingham Forest during the first half of the season. Ryan's actually had five loan spells since 2006, so he has picked up a lot of first-team experience in the Football League, particularly at Championship level. He's also a regular for England at Under-21s level. So, he was well prepared for the step up to the first team and he put in a great ball for Flo to score our third goal.
This is the second of three straight home fixtures for us and I said in Wednesday's programme that we were going all-out to win them all. We've got the first of those victories, now let's keep it going this afternoon and take our form forward into the run-in.
Come on the Chels! |
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