This match just drove me nuts as a Chelsea fan. A stupid penalty, two idiotic red cards, and a whole bunch of yellows. Oh, and a loss on a day where we could have picked up points and moved to second.
While the sides were even on men, Chelsea were definitely the better side. They were zeroing in on the goal, meanwhile QPR was hardly seeing anything of the ball.
However the house started to come down at Loftus Road in the 8th minute. David Luiz pushed Heidar Helguson in the box, with his back to the goal. In a somewhat delayed reaction, the QPR man fell on the floor and the ref awarded a PK, which Helguson himself barely managed to get out of reach of Petr Cech to make it 1-0 to QPR. Yes, Luiz gave him a little shove. Certainly not enough to knock him over. If it was, he's a wimp. Not to mention seconds before he was pushing on Luiz. A soft penalty if there ever was such a thing.
It would be the game's only goal.
Chelsea made their situation steadily worse. In the 32nd minute Bosingwa brought down Shaun Wright-Phillips. He was judged to be the last man. Bosingwa saw red and was sent off. Personally, I thought John Terry was also in the play, but the ref disagreed.
Then Didier Drogba got himself sent off a few minutes before half time with a stupid two footed tackle. Not blaming the ref for this one at all, just a dumb move by Drogba.
Chelsea played the entire second half down to NINE men. Despite this, they had the best chances and were still clearly the better side. Anelka had a couple of really good looks and both Lampard and Luiz had penalty appeals turned down, each of which I thought were at least as legit as the softer than soft one QPR got.
QPR went on to win 1-0. I'm not going to blame the ref. He doesn't kick the ball, and Chelsea had plenty of chances. Still, Foy was obviously card happy and seemed bound and determined to play a lead role in today's match. Unfortunately in the end it was the lack of discipline that undid the Blues.
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