What Chelsea learnt from England vs Brazil.

It was a night of highs and lows for Chelsea fans as six of our first-team squad were in action in a thrilling friendly at Wembley last night.

England outplayed Brazil, who were simply not at the races first-half, their only shining light was our midfield genius, Oscar, who tormented the whole back four, but had most luck against our centurion Ashley Cole, who this seemed more like a training exercise if we must be honest.

Cole wasn’t alone though, Gary Cahill and Ramires were passengers in this match, at times it seemed like the referee was more in the game than the midfield man, whilst Cahill’s lapse of concentration earlyin the second half left England fans cursing at their screens.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though, as I mentioned earlier, Oscar looked every bit of the man we saw against Juventus, he twice put unbelievable crosses into the area, but the usually potent finisher Neymar was unable to turn them into Joe Hart’s net.

There was only good news as far as Frank Lampard was concerned. Bought on for a very ineffectual Tom Cleverley at half-time, he took just quarter of an hour to do what he does best, as he stroked the ball with ease past Julio Cesar, the ball crashing into the post and nestling in the bottom corner, chalking up his 27^th goal on his 94^th England cap.

Would you bet against Frank being the next member of the elite 100-cap group? Actually you might. England manager Roy Hodgson expressed his desire for Lamps to stay in Britain, as a move to the MLS may well fire a few nails into his England coffin. We all know that the 34-year old wants to stay at the Bridge, but this news may well force him to go and knock on Roman’s door a bit sooner, and to assure him either way what the plans are, come July. He certainly won’t have to go in alone though, Cole stated to BBC after the game that “of course” he wants Lampard to stay a Blues player next season. In fact, who doesn’t?

As for our two centre-backs, John Terry may well be shaking his head, as he watched uninspiring performances from both of them, that may well give a few clues to why we have been shipping goals in the last few games. Luiz didn’t exactly do anything wrong, a great challenge on Jack Wilshere was his highlight, but he did little with the ball, and was often second to get to it as well.

Cahill on the other hand did do a lot wrong. Backed to be in for a tough evening watching the new whiz kid Neymar, he had nothing of the sort, as the fluffy-haired 21 year old missed two chances that were easier to score, and generally caused little problems for England. However, this didn’t deter Cahill from his homemade task of attempting to destroy the game. Moments into the second half, as he dribbled towards Fred, he may well have realised it was all about to go wrong, but booting the ball into him didn’t help, and he could hardly watch as the Fluminense man leveled proceedings.

Overall, it was a pretty 50/50 day as Chelsea fans, good news for the midfield, bad for the defence. Elsewhere, Nigerian and Chelsea trio Moses, Mikel, and Omeruo, breezed through to the AFCON final, to face Burkino Faso. Despite Nigeria being favourites, with Chelsea’s current plight, having three members of the squad in your team will hardly fill them with confidence going into that match.

By Bradley Smith
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