Chapter 37: Chelsea

"I feel nervous," said Wright-Phillips who was sitting beside Kazuki.

They were both on the Southampton bus on the way to Stamford Bridge. The reason why Wright-Phillips was nervous is that he was selected as a starter by Southampton coach George Eastgate.

Wright-Phillips made his debut at the start of the 2011/2012 season. He is a Southampton academy graduate. He was 1 year older than Kazuki. In the first half of the 2011/2012 season, Wright-Phillips only appeared 5 times. In 5 appearances, his appearance was average. He doesn't get much attention, but he also rarely makes mistakes.

"Why are you nervous? Every team will face The Big Six sooner or later," said Kazuki.

"No, I'm nervous because I'm going to face my idol player," Wright-Phillips explained why he was nervous.

"Who?" asked Kazuki.

"Shank Lambert."

Kazuki nodded in understanding. Lambert is a legendary Chelsea player. He has played for Chelsea since 2001. He spent more than 11 years as a footballer in this London club. Lambert is also an England national player. Together with Steven Roger, Lambert became an irreplaceable English midfielder duo.

Lambert is known for his ability to score goals from distance, during 11 years with Chelsea, he has scored 98 goals. Lambert is also the son of Shank Lambert Sr, who used to play for West Ham United. As an individual, the peak of Lambert's career was in 2005. when he won 2nd place in the Ballon d'Or award, in 2005 FIFA best player award, he was got the ranked 2nd again.

"Even though you said, your idol was Lambert, your playing style is completely different from him," said Kazuki. Lambert is a b2b midfielder who is capable of playing in various positions in midfield. He can play as a defensive midfielder, attacking midfielder, even as a shadow striker.

Meanwhile, Wright-Phillips is a technical midfielder. He has good passing and breakthrough skills, but Wright-Phillips's tackling, intercept, and man-marking skills are poor. It's different from Lambert who is more famous as a hard-working midfielder.

"I do have a different style of playing with him but he is still my idol since childhood. I still remember, when the 2007/2008 UCL final Chelsea against Manchester United. At that time I supported Chelsea. Unfortunately, Chelsea lost."

When Wright-Phillips started telling the story, the bus had arrived at Stamford Bridge and the story was cut short. The Southampton players and their entourage got off the bus.

Kazuki took a deep breath. He does not know whether he will appear or not in this match. However, he felt a heavy atmosphere as soon as he arrived at Stamford Bridge.

***

In this match, Southampton used a 4-4-2 formation, different from the 4-3-3 formation used in last week's match against Fulham. Wright-Phillips replaces Kounde on the left, while Crage replaces Hugo on the right. In the front, the combination of Osmund and Denilson is back in use.

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Chelsea uses a 4-3-3 formation, in the back, Peter Krech guarding Chelsea's goalpost. In front of him is left-back Kahill, center-back is Ivano, and Ruiz, the last right-back is occupied by Hosingwa. Chelsea midfielders are Essian, Lambert, and Maroda. Upfront there is a combination of Ridge, Dusan Removic, Zelatta.

The first half of the match between Chelsea and Southampton, at Stamford Bridge, officially begins. Under Mourinho's coaching, Chelsea was known as a conservative team. But looking at Chelsea's statistics among The Big Six, people will realize that playing conservatively, doesn't mean they're bad at scoring goals. Among the Big Six, Chelsea is the second team to score the most goals besides Liverpool, they are even above Manchester United who often play aggressively. This proves that the effectiveness of Chelsea's attack is very scary.

Chelsea started the match with a ferocious attack. They immediately attacked Southampton. Ivano gives the ball to Ruiz. Ruiz passed the ball to Hosingwa. Wright-Phillips, as a left midfielder, stepped up to press Hosingwa, while Osmund closed out Hosingwa's pass option for Essian.

Hosingwa crosses the ball far to the left. Kahill received the ball and gave it to Maroda. Southampton defensive midfielder Rudolf tries to snatch the ball from Maroda. Maroda passes the ball to Lambert. Shanks Lambert in a one-on-one situation with Simone.

Shanks Lambert leaned his body to the right then quickly pushed the ball to the left. Simone reacted swiftly to steal the ball from Lambert, but Lambert pushed the ball to the right with his left foot. Lambert managed to break through Simone.

Chelsea's forwards press themselves to the penalty box after seeing Lambert's breakthrough. However, Lambert did not choose to pass the ball, he kicked the ball firmly from outside the penalty. Dean Smith jumped and blocked Lambert's kick. The ball bounced off the field. Corner kick for Chelsea.

Zelatta took the corner kick. Chelsea players, including David Ruiz who is good at scoring with a header, gathered in the Southampton penalty box.

Zelatta kicked the ball after the referee's whistle sounded. The ball flew into the area in front of the goalpost. Okhalo, Southampton's center-back dueled with Difficult Removic. Luckily, Okhalo won the duel. The ball bounces in front of the penalty box. Denilson received the ball, but Ivano, the Chelsea center-back. snatched the ball from Denilson's feet. After that, he gave a hard shoot to Dean Smith. The shot hit the post and bounced off the field.

Chelsea continues to attack Southampton, fortunately, Southampton's defense in this match is not too bad. In the 14th minute, Southampton finally got the first chance. After Dean Smith caught Ridge's kick, he threw the ball to Freddy. The Southampton right-back dribbled the ball at full speed. Maroda, Chelsea midfielder ran trying to cut off Freddy's dribble. Freddy, who knew this, gave the ball to Denilson.

Denilson tried to get past Ivano, but the Chelsea center-back is very experienced in dealing with a technical type of player like Denilson. After struggling to get past Ivano, Denilson finally gave Osmund a pass.

Denilson was holding the ball too long, so when Osmund received the ball from Denilson, the Chelsea players were back on the defensive, Osmund could only make a long-range shot rather than this opportunity wasted.

Peter Krech, the Chelsea goalkeeper caught the ball easily.

The speed of the Chelsea players' transition made Southampton's counter-attack less effective. Denilson held the ball too long, so Southampton missed the best moment to counter-attack.

The ball returned to the feet of the Chelsea players. Chelsea's luck in this match is a bit bad, they have attacked Southampton many times and got golden opportunities, but in the 20th minute, they have not scored at all.

The performance of the Southampton center-back duo, namely Okhalo and Hilton, deserves to be applauded. They closed Chelsea's chances by isolating Dusan and keeping Zelatta. Among Chelsea's forwards, Dusan is the most dangerous, followed by Zelatta, this Spaniard has good dribbling and passing that always helps Chelsea score goals.. Meanwhile, Ridge was less dangerous than the other two players.

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