Shaun Wright-Phillips returns to haunt Chelsea

Shaun Wright Phillips of Queens Park Rangers scores the opening goal during the Barclays Premier League match between Chelsea and Queens Park Rangers at Stamford Bridge

Chelsea began their year on a sorrowful note, as a Shaun Wright Phillips goal was sufficient to sink his former club, leaving them behind Tottenham in the league table, although they have a game in hand. It was a much changed starting lineup put out by Benitez, with Marin and Moses in place of Hazard and Mata. These changes proved too costly for the manager though, as there was an immense lack of creativity from his team, and at the end of the ninety minutes, boos rang out across Stamford Bridge.

The game began on a sour note, when Marko Marin, playing in his first league start for the Blues, committed a really bad foul on Stephane Mbia, and feared the worst. However, seeing that game was only in its third minute, referee Lee Mason decided to be lenient, and punished the German player with a yellow card, instead of what usually would have been a red. There was, thankfully, no damage done to the Cameroonian midfielder, and QPR didn’t grumble too much over the decision.

The first moment of concern for Julio Cesar came in the 13th minute, when David Luiz sent his volley into the ground and saw the ball loop dangerously close to Cesar’s bar, but only hit the top netting. A little while later, Junior Hoilett went down off the ball with a hamstring problem, and had to be replaced with Wright-Phillips, while Oscar escaped with no harm after a clash of heads with David Luiz when they both went for the same ball. Much of the game was played sideways in midfield over the opening twenty minutes, and the only notable incident in terms of attack was when Chelsea had a penalty claim waived away after Ryan Bertrand found himself relieved of the ball by Mackie. Chelsea’s first moment of real threat was when Marin challenged Mbia again, this time fairly, won the ball off him and rolled it to Oscar, whose curling effort was deflected for a corner by Clint Hill.

The game was completely lifeless between then and three minutes from halftime, when another shot from Oscar caused Cesar problems as it took a deflection off Lampard. However, the diving Brazilian ‘keeper had the presence of mind to stick out his feet and make an excellent save. There was little else to show at the end of 45 minutes for Chelsea though, who seemed to be sorely missing the services of Juan Mata and Eden Hazard.

The second half began with much more promise for the home side though, as they earned a couple of corners, with the second one resulting in a low ball across the face of goal from Marin, which Moses managed to get a toe on but couldn’t deflect goalwards. More corners followed, and another close call went QPR’s way as a header from Ivanovic struck the cross bar on its way out. In their very next attack, good play from Oscar resulted in the ball falling to David Luiz, who drew a dive from Cesar, but struck a QPR defender and the ball fell to Torres. Again, the Brazilian ‘keeper made an excellent recovery to close in on Torres and reduce the space for the Spanish striker, who could do little more than strike the ball straight at Cesar and win a corner.

QPR had a great chance to strike with one of their rare forays forward when Mackie found himself in a race for the ball with Cahill, who put in an excellent sliding clearance to concede a corner. QPR had a second bite of the cherry when Derry found himself with a free header at the back post from the resulting corner but could only head it straight at Turnbull. Chelsea finally managed to beat Cesar when Lampard made it past him with a shot across goal at the end of a scramble in the box, but from an offside position, which meant the goal was disallowed. Against the run of play though, it was QPR who took the lead, as Chelsea’s clearance from a corner fell to Taarabt, who cushioned it perfectly for Shaun Wright-Phillips to score past Turnbull. 1 – 0 to the visitors in the 78th minute.

Frank Lampard of Chelsea reacts after his goal is disallowed for offside during the Barclays Premier League match between Chelsea and Queens Park Rangers

Clint Hill, who had a good game thus far, gave Chelsea a real sniff when a rash tackle on Ivanovic at the edge of the box earned him a yellow card. However, the free kick was sent straight into the QPR wall by Luiz, and that was the end of that opportunity for Chelsea. While Ivanovic had another header floating over the bar in the closing minutes, it would turn out to be insufficient for Rafa Benitez’s men as they failed to score against QPR for the second time this season, and fell to a defeat.

Result: Chelsea 0 – 1 QPR (Shaun Wright-Phillips 78′)