A superb debut from Blackburn’s Phil Jones
If you’re a centre-back making your Premiership debut, the one striker you don’t want to come up against is Didier Drogba. Skilful, strong and a great goalscorer, Drogba is almost unplayable on his day.
This was the situation faced by 18-year-old Phil Jones at Ewood Park this weekend. Making his first Premiership appearance, he was deployed alongside Christopher Samba, and Drogba deliberately put himself up against Jones, rather than Samba, for aerial battles.
Whilst Drogba opened the scoring early on, Jones recovered to mark Drogba out of the game for the remaining 85 minutes. This Chalkboard shows how successful he was in challenges both on the floor and in the air:
He was also constantly in the right place at the right time to make important clearances – and more often than not, it was a successful clearance:
He’s already been compared to John Terry by his manager on the back of this performance – and whilst that might be a touch premature, it was an outstanding debut.
A superb debut from Blackburn’s Phil Jones
I agree that young Phil must be chuffed to bits.
The display is all the more impressive due to the flow of the game. Blackburn conceded possession to Chelsea and invited them to attack.
Finally, I’m curious to get ZM’s take on the Drogba goal. Blackburn’s overzealous left back conceded space behind him allowing the penetrating pass to Anelka. A central midfielder ran with abandon to pressure Anelka. Instead of containing Anelka and channeling him to the outside, the midfielder (Andrews?) did not get his balance as he got close, and Anelka was able to cut inside. Finally, Jones, Samba, and Salgado were in line with the penetrating Kalou, leaving Drogba alone at the top of the box to slot home.
The way I see it, three mistakes were made, but specifically, why didn’t a defender break lines to mark Drogba more closely? Zonal Marking indeed.
Yeah, Andy Gray did some good analysis on that at the weekend, and said much the same. I don’t really have anything to add to be honest, but Andrews’ defending in particular was awful…