Chelsea Not Comfortable In Beating Portsmouth In FA Cup

Just bu glancing at the scoreboard and seeing 4-0 to Chelsea, you would think that Chelsea were comfortable winners today against Portsmouth in the FA Cup.

But as they have all season, played to the level of their opponents and that made this a more difficult match than it should have been.

Portsmouth actually almost grabbed a shock opener inside the opening 30 seconds, when he put his shot wide when sent through one-on-one against Petr Cech.

For the most part, in the first half Chelsea had lots of possession without creating any good goal scoring chances, a pattern we have seen all season.

The second half started with a bang, as Chelsea went 1-0 up in the opening three minutes thanks to Mata. After Portsmouth’s clearance was allegedly batted down with a hand, Malouda took advantage and got to the byline before pulling the ball back for the Spanish winger to convert from six yards.

Chelsea’s defensive woes then almost allowed Portsmouth back in the game. Kitson robbed an otherwise David Luiz in possession and fed Futacs on the edge of the box. His shot was saved by Cech, who spread himself well.

Joel Ward’s follow up effort was brilliantly denied by John Terry, running back to clear the header off the line, and colliding with the post in due course. Another driven effort was then stopped by Cech.

Terry was down for a considerable amount of time receiving treatment as he looked to have damaged his knee, but was fit enough to resume.

That close chance seemed to finally wake Chelsea up and in the last six minutes, they finally broke down the stubborn Pompey defence.

First Ramires doubled Chelsea’s lead after some good work down the left by Mata led to another close range finish for the home side.

Ramires then added some gloss to the scoreline by brilliantly chipping the ball into the corner on a quick counter attack and Lampard grabbed another to seal Chelsea’s progression into the fourth round.