Chelsea assistant coach Steve Holland has hinted that there is a campaign against the Premier League pace-setters by referees.
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At Chelsea’s training ground yesterday lunchtime there was an empty space in the area usually reserved for Jose Mourinho’s sponsored Jaguar.
Instead his assistant first team coach Steve Holland was the back seat driver after Chelsea’s manager pulled out of his pre-match briefing because he is upset with the FA over his latest misconduct charge.
Holland proved more than capable, occasionally steering towards controversy with some strident views on ‘the campaign’, the mood around the Chelsea camp and the delicate issue of Frank Lampard.
This, even by Chelsea’s standards, was spiky stuff.
‘There is a frustration among all of us, not just Jose, because of an accumulation of events which surfaced at the Southampton game with Cesc Fabregas,’ Holland said in the minutes after he finished off the final training session ahead of today’s clash with Newcastle.
‘With Cesc, if they don’t want to give a pen, that’s a mistake, but to book him really compounds that pain.
‘First you’re saying it’s cheating and second he misses a game at some point. Bookings can’t be rescinded. That was a really painful day for us, hence the strength of feeling in the group.
‘We don’t really do draws. The objective is to win and if we don’t then the mood is always different.
‘People don’t walk around laughing or joking. The mood is up and down depending on the result.’
Safe to say, then, that the Grizzly Bear is in a bad place after the FA rapped his knuckles because of his demand for strong refereeing at Stoke City and subsequently charged him for his comments directed at Anthony Taylor after the Southampton game.
In the absence of Mourinho, it was left to Holland to move the subject on to Eden Hazard and some of the more enthusiastic challenges carried out by defenders in the Barclays Premier League. There are, in support of Holland’s argument, various pictures of Hazard’s socks being cut to ribbons in recent weeks.
Chelsea’s assistant head coach added: ‘With the diving thing, the technology is so good now and you can watch it back five times to highlight someone being in the air a bit longer than he should have done. But look at Hazard at Stoke. If he doesn’t see that coming and doesn’t get his studs off the ground, that challenge finishes his career.
‘If players anticipate challenges they try to get their feet off the ground. That makes it a very difficult job for referees.
‘But Hazard just gets on with it. He’s incredible with the stick he takes. That is part of it — if he’s a model pro and gets up straight away after being whacked, that could discourage a referee from taking action against a player who is trying to take him out of the game.Five minutes later he gets whacked again because the player hasn’t got a yellow card. It’s all part of what a player thinks is right or wrong.
‘Filipe Luis was on the receiving end of a tackle (by Tom Huddlestone) against Hull on the halfway line. Those two tackles were career-ending tackles if they connect, no doubt. Yet we spend two or three days talking about how long a player has spent in the air rather than what is done about the perpetrators of those challenges. Where’s the logic in that?
‘If nothing’s done, players like Hazard will not be able to show supporters the ability that he undoubtedly has.Eden is a very honest, top guy, that’s for sure. I’m sure he’s learning to protect himself because you can’t rely on anybody else to do it. You have to do it yourself.’
He was also willing to expand on the complex issue surrounding Lampard after the clumsy handling of his aborted move to New York City. Mourinho always dodges this one, but Holland was happy to put forward his own ideas on the issue.
He said: ‘What has occurred now wasn’t the original plan, that’s clear.’
Some Chelsea supporters are disgruntled over the situation, and Holland added: ‘I think that would depend from fan to fan, but Frank is entitled to make the decision that is best for him and supporters are free to feel the way they do. Frank was a fantastic player for Chelsea, who will be revered by supporters forever. Now he is a City player, a club we are directly challenging with. Whatever has happened, that’s the situation.
‘He’s scoring goals and I am not surprised by that because he has always had that ability. It’s a difficult situation.
‘By leaving, it’s activated a part of him that perhaps wouldn’t have been activated if he’d stayed here.’ –Daily Mail
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