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Marcos Alonso critical of Huddersfield's 'bad game' against Chelsea

Alonso equalised Laurent Depoitre's 50th minute opener but the home side were unable to find a winner despite waves of late pressure

Ben Burrows
Thursday 10 May 2018 13:54 BST
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Alonso wasn't impressed with Huddersfield's tactics
Alonso wasn't impressed with Huddersfield's tactics (Reuters)

Marcos Alonso believes Chelsea were "unlucky" to draw with Huddersfield who played "a bad game" to earn a share of the points at Stamford Bridge.

Spaniard Alonso equalised Laurent Depoitre's 50th minute opener when the ball cannoned in off his face but the home side were unable to find a winner despite waves of late pressure.

The Terriers, who needed to avoid defeat to secure safety in the Premier League, defended manfully throughout with Alonso of the belief that their attempts to slow the game down were nothing more than time-wasting that referee Lee Mason should have acted sooner to stop.

"We’re very disappointed," he said. "We were so unlucky, we dominated the game and conceded a silly goal and then we couldn’t score (a second goal).

"They played a bad game, trying to waste time from the first minute and I think the referee stopped it very late. Their goalkeeper was taking a minute over his goal-kicks from the first minute of the game and he only received a yellow card with five minutes to go. I don’t think that’s the right way, he should have stopped that before, but still we conceded the goal and failed to score from our chances.

"Today they defended with a lot of players, they were coming from playing against Man City and not conceding a goal so it’s not easy when they defend with six, seven or eight men in the box. We tried for the whole game and we were unlucky to concede the goal because I felt we were going to score sooner or later."

The result leaves Chelsea in need of a win at Newcastle coupled with a Liverpool defeat at home to Brighton to leapfrog the Reds into the top four on the final day, but Alonso says the Blues will travel to St James' Park full of hope that things will break their way.

"We have a game against Newcastle we have to go and win, and then we will see what happens with Liverpool," he added. "Then we have another week to focus on the FA Cup final and try to get a trophy for the fans."

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