By 40 Years A Blue
January 7 2006

It was praise all round from both manager's this afternoon at Stamford Bridge after Chelsea overcame a dogged Huddersfield Town with a late winner from Icelandic international Eider Gudjohnsen.

The player who received the 'Special One's plaudits and should be everybody's Man of the Match - Lassana Diarra (the new Claude Makelele) - making his full debut - was praised and rewarded by the manager who said that Diarra would be in the sixteen man squad for Chelsea's next game at Sunderland because his performance today deserved it.

JM said "He was my best player. The next game at Sunderland he will be in my 16 because we have to reward his performance. He has a big personality, quality in the pass and defended very well. He has a bit of Makelele defensively and a bit of Essien with the ball." Well done Lassana.

On the team that he selected, JM said "I will always pick a team I think is good enough to win and today I thought this team was good enough to win the game. I will always try to rest some players and give chances to some of the players who don’t have a lot of minutes in the Premiership. It was not a bad performance from my squad players. In the first-half, we had enough chances to kill the game but couldn’t score more than one goal. Against Birmingham, it was the same."

JM also took time to complement Huddersfield's performance by saying, "At 1-1, we could hang on and go to Huddersfield or, the real danger is, in the last minute without giving us a chance to recover, they could score a goal. In the second-half, they started having some attacking situations, their self-belief goes up and they gave us a game."

Town's manager, Peter Jackson had his own thoughts and said "We gave Chelsea, one of the best sides in the world, a really tough game today. At 1-1, I really did think we would get a draw. First-half, we were on top for the first three minutes but never got a kick for the rest of the game," he joked somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

"First-half, we paid Chelsea too much respect. We didn’t compete or tackle and gave the ball away far too easily," Jackson added.

What you will probably not read in your newspapers tomorrow is that JM shook hands with all of the Huddersfield's players as they left the pitch at the end of game, JM applauded the Town fans and then invited all of the Town players into Chelsea's dressing room and Peter Jackson revealed that all of his players got shirts from today's game.

Lastly Jackson thanked Chelsea for their excellent hospitality.

 

40 YEARS A BLUE!