It is unclear if the assistant, who was on the other side of the pitch, or the referee spotted the alleged handball, either way UEFA must rescind the yellow card that was issued & send them packing to the UEFA cup as punishment!
The game itself was end to end for 90 minutes & resembled a knock out cup tie rather than two teams who entering into the game you would have thought would settle for a point a piece.
Whilst we were not at our best I thought we did enough to earn a point. Let's not forget we were playing a very decent Russian team who are likely to seal back to back championships in their own country.
Roll on 1st November where hopefully we can put this result behind us.
Jens Lehmann - 5 - Not at his commanding best & could have done better with the goal, although unsighted it was hit straight down the centre of his goal. Did pull off one smart save.
Kolo Toure - 7 - Our best defender on the night, one exquisite last ditch tackle to prevent a certain second goal for CSK.
Justin Hoyte - 6 - Grew in confidence as the game went on getting in some important challenges & interceptions.The game itself was end to end for 90 minutes & resembled a knock out cup tie rather than two teams who entering into the game you would have thought would settle for a point a piece.
Whilst we were not at our best I thought we did enough to earn a point. Let's not forget we were playing a very decent Russian team who are likely to seal back to back championships in their own country.
Roll on 1st November where hopefully we can put this result behind us.
Jens Lehmann - 5 - Not at his commanding best & could have done better with the goal, although unsighted it was hit straight down the centre of his goal. Did pull off one smart save.
Kolo Toure - 7 - Our best defender on the night, one exquisite last ditch tackle to prevent a certain second goal for CSK.
Johan Djourou - 3 - Had a real shocker, gave away the free kick that lead to the only goal of the game & criminally turned his back on the resulting free kick, had he stood his ground the ball would have almost certainly rebounded to safety. Saved from further embarrassment when letting a speculative long ball bounce by a good covering challenge by Gallas. This on top of some poor distribution. (Clichy 74)
William Gallas - 6 - Average game by his standards but he did put in one outstanding saving tackle & tried to get forward as much as possible.
Francesc Fabregas - 5 - Passing was in & out. When he played his usual game in patches so did the team, this confirms how important he is to us.
Gilberto - 4 - Sloppy from start to finish, I cannot recall a game where he gave the ball away so much & invariably in dangerous areas.
Alexander Hleb - 4 - A performance he will want to forget. He surpassed Gilberto in the dreadful passing stakes tonight! Offered very little all night.
Tomas Rosicky - 7 - Our best player alongside Toure. I can only assume the boss substituted him because he felt he needed the rest more than Hleb. (Walcott 80)
Thierry Henry - 6 - His normally immaculate first touch was absent tonight. Scored a perfectly good goal & was booked to boot!
Robin Van Persie - 4 - Made a mess of our two most promising situations, firstly a poor ball to Gallas when we were two against one on the edge of the CSK box & followed this by trying to score from a difficult position when a pull back to Toure would have been the better option. His body language was not right tonight. (Adebayor 67)
Subs
Clichy - 5 - Was keen to get into the action & made some good runs.
Walcott - 4 - Expecting too much for him to come on & make a difference at this level with only 10 minutes left on the clock.
Adebayor - 4 - Offered very little apart from encouraging the long ball game which is alien to us. He was little threat to the home defence.
Subs not used:
Manuel Almunia, Alexandre Song, Denilson, Jeremie Aliadiere