Well anything close to winning automatically I mean. Like they've done against most teams, more or less, this season.

Their dream scenario would have been that to also have been the case tonight against one of the strong epl teams and I think this game clearly showed that it just wasn't.

They created one maybe two clear goal scoring chances.
I don't think it's running bad or even playing bad. They played more or less on the level that they usually do.
It's just the nature of the opponent.
They certainly don't lose this game a lot of the time, almost never, but I don't think there was any indication at all that this game the large large majority of the time isn't very difficult.
An early goal does wonders and can change things completely but Chelsea made sure that wasn't likely to happen.
No, while I do think they're more in control now, I don't think they were much closer to breaking down Chelsea tonight than previous games against Liverpool and Utd.

Barca seem very stubborn. They're only willing (or capable?) of playing in one manner even when it's ineffective. They probably could have created chances by playing some balls over the top to Henry or Eto'o to use their pace or like you said out wide to the flanks but they didn't. If they don't score at Stamford Bridge I think that will show that the defending in La Liga is much below the standard in PL.

Yea because all the games Chelsea have played not at the Nou Camp have been boring, 1-3 and 4-4 against Liverpool is proof of that.

What's up with Messi? He seemed to be out of position all game

I know people <3 Barca bc of their attacking flare but I don't understand the hate for a 0-0 result.


Look at United/Barca last year, play your ass off defending in the 1st leg, get a goal and play your ass off defending.. trying to attack @ the Nou Camp is a recipe for disaster

Obviously Barcelona is not one-dimensional the way you guys are portraying them. If it was as simple as you make it seem, Pep Guardiola would be yelling at them the entire game to give Messi/Alves the ball. You really think Chelsea wasn't trying to stop that? The fact is Barca did create lots of half chances and a couple excellent ones.

If Barca don't score at the Bridge it will be a reflection on the excellent Chelsea defense. Why you think it would reflect on all EPL and La Liga is beyond me.

long ball Barcelona?

They actually did try a lot of through balls but against 7-8 players defending behind the ball at all times everything has to come together in one magic moment. Since there is so little time to pass and even less space to pass into and even LESS space to run into.
Credit to Chelsea for being strong enough to maintain those absurd difficult conditions for the team in possesion like 99 percent of the time.
It's definitely not as easy as it looks or can be taken for granted since just about every single team Barca has faced this year have tried similar tactics and failed.

i'm sorry but chelsea scoring a lot of goals and being entertaining/exciting is an anomaly, for barca it's the norm, if you don't understand or agree with that then i really don't know what to say. futhermore, I've already seen man.u-chelsea twice this season, neither was terribly exciting and on the last go around they got blanked, would rather see barca in place.

When I say standard I meant the level set by the top teams ie. Liverpool, United, Chelsea, Arsenal. I'm not even sure who you can compare them with in La Liga because Barca and Real are miles ahead of the rest.

ok gonna watch
Manchester United - Arsenal [17 September 2006] now to prepare myself for tomorrow!

online?

chelsea defended greatly today but still was amazing barca didnt get one

I would have liked to have seen a goal, but still it was a good game

pm sent

It seems out of character for them but Chelsea lack pace in their back four so why not try to take advantage of that?

and yeah for the opposite strategy of what Chelsea did today we don't have to look further back than to what Bayern did at Camp Nou in true Klinsmann-style pushing the backline up and have the midfield applying high (totally uncoordinated) pressure on the ball holder resulting in acres of space everywhere on the Bayern half for Barca to exploit with passes, dribbles and deep runs.
With their execution today Chelsea just didn't allow many of those things.

Really impressive performance from Chelsea today. I think some people are being a bit fooled by Barca's possession when they say they ran really bad to not get a goal. They didn't have many great chances for all their time with the ball.

They'd love that if they could but the Chelsea backline was playing so deep to avoid "race situations" like those to ever happen. There is just no space for the Barca players to use their speed. It's really that simple.
That the Chelsea fullbacks were not allowed to come forward, for I think the entire game, helps prevent it as well.
I think only one single time the entire game a Barcelona forward was in a race situation with the Chelsea central defense and that was after a loss of possession in midfield.

Their lack of pace only hurt Chelsea offensively today while defensively they took all precautions for it not to be a deciding factor.

barca had a number of very dangerous scoring opportunities. they shoulda snagged a couple goals.

I thought Chelsea were impressive today, but the second leg will be very interesting as they surely have to get something going on the other end.

Pretty much mirror match of last years Barca vs ManU so i expect either Lampards or Ballacks goal form 25m+ next week .

Seriously stats79 you are the most clueless poster I have ever seen on this thread. Please stop posting you contribute nothing. Terrible result for Chelsea going away from home absolutely, getting a 0-0 and with the second leg to come at home. Yup dreadful. Keeping the greatest attacking team in the world scoreless. What where they thinking of? Might as well not turn up for the second leg. Yes they have got to keep Barca scoreless the second leg because there is no chance they can score more than 1 goal against Barcelona at home with their mighty defense.

Chelsea basically parked the bus tonight and came away with EXACTLY what they wanted. Barcelona lacked the cutting edge we have seen from them in recent times. They had enough of the ball but Chelsea gave them little space when they approached the box packing in densely around the main danger men as expected. Keeping them mostly to poor long range efforts and wide play where they don't get a lot of their goals from in general.

Chelsea even could have scored themselves with Drogba getting arguably the best chance of the game save for Bojan's late header. Overall it was exactly as I predicted, Barca the better side easily but lacking real penetration at times and spurning opportunities in a rather unusually ineffective manner when they did manage to carve out a chance. Very similar to the game vs united last year although they did have a little bit more of the play this time around with Chelsea setting their stall out early. Messi was nowhere near the most dangerous player on the pitch tonight surprisingly. Never seen him so subdued in a game.

The likes of Sevilla and Valencia aren't terrible either and could give those Prem teams a tough time.

gibbs and silvestre injured and doubtful for the game

eboue - toure - djourou - sagna

with song as backup if we should lose another defender ....

Thats the best back 4 you will have put out in a while.