West Bromwich’s Chris Brunt has last laugh after Cesc Fàbregas’s sending off
West Brom 3 - 0 ChelseaSaido Berahino 9
Saido Berahino 47 Pen
Chris Brunt 60
The referee Mike Jones sends off the Chelsea midfielder Cesc Fàbregas for kicking the ball at Chris Brunt of West Bromwich Albion.
This was not the way José Mourinho envisaged the Premier League champions playing out the rest of the season and it is a measure of the damage that was done that the repercussions of a chastening night will be felt at the beginning of the next campaign.
Two goals from the impressive Saido Berahino – his 19th and 20th of the season – and another from Chris Brunt secured a memorable victory for West Bromwich Albion and inflicted Chelsea’s heaviest league defeat under Mourinho since 2006. Yet it was the bizarre red card that Cesc Fàbregas received in the 30th minute that riled the Portuguese more than anything.
Mike Jones, the referee, was dealing with a melee on the other side of the penalty area after Diego Costa had been booked following an off-the-ball altercation with Gareth McAuley, when Fàbregas, stood about 20 yards away, kicked the ball in the direction of a crowd of Albion players and caught Brunt on the side of the head.
Darren Fletcher, the Albion captain, reacted furiously and was straying close to the line – arguably overstepping it – when he confronted the Spaniard, almost running into him. Jones, on the scene moments later, reached for his back pocket and brandished the red card.
The offence will go down as violent conduct and means that Fàbregas, in what was essentially a meaningless game, has picked up a three-match suspension that rules him out of the final fixture of this term, at home against Sunderland, and, much more significantly, the first two matches of next season. The debate about whether the decision was harsh was guaranteed to go on long into the night but whatever the rights and wrongs of the sending off, there is no escaping the fact that it was a stupid thing for Fàbregas to do, especially when the referee was stood so close to Brunt.
Mourinho, not surprisingly, took a dim view of the referee’s decision-making and implied that a more experienced official than Jones would have handled it differently and taken a more lenient view.
“I would like to see it again because what is this sending off for?” the Chelsea manager said. “Where is the danger of the situation? Where is the aggressivity in the situation to get a red card in a friendly game almost? I really don’t understand.
“I think Fletcher was aggressive, yes. He pushes in the chest because he is experienced and he knows where he can push for a yellow card but it’s much more aggressive. What Fàbregas did, for me, a top referee, a stable big personality in control of the game goes there, two or three words, and he’s done.
It’s a bizarre red card.” Mourinho suggested that Chelsea have no intention of appealing – “We lose all the time, we have a fantastic record on appealing,” he said sarcastically – but the Portuguese reacted with disbelief when told of the length of the suspension. “Three-game ban for this? Jesus Christ. Three-game ban for this? Harsh? Of course it’s harsh, if you get three games with this.”
It was that sort of night for Chelsea as Albion followed up their 1-0 win over Manchester United earlier in the month with another highly impressive result. While Mourinho had a point when he suggested that Chelsea would have played better if the title was not already in the bag – “I think this is a consequence of being champions so early,” he said in defence of their performance – Albion deserve credit for the way in which they punished the visitors.
Berahino was in the mood from the start and with the transfer window soon to open, chose a good evening to showcase his talent. His first goal, beautifully curled into the far corner from about 22 yards, set Albion on their way after nine minutes and the 21-year-old also won and converted the penalty, after John Terry scythed him down, that doubled their lead two minutes after the restart.
Chelsea, for whom the 19-year-old Ruben Loftus-Cheek made a second successive Premier League start, came close to pulling a goal back when Loïc Rémy’s low shot struck the base of an upright in the 56th minute but four minutes later Albion had a third and the game was effectively over. Brunt played a short corner with Craig Gardner and from just inside the penalty area, unleashed a powerful shot that seemed to beat Thibaut Courtois for pace as it flew inside his near post.
Mourinho gave Isaiah Brown, a former Albion schoolboy, his first senior appearance for Chelsea when he brought him on as a late substitute, but even the sight of ‘the one that got away’ was not going to ruin the home supporters’ evening. “Izzy, Izzy, what’s the score?” chanted the jubilant Albion fans.
Guardian
