Chelsea 1 Manchester United 0 FA Cup Final: Saturday 19th May 2018 17:15 Conte doesn’t win cup competitions. Mourinho had won 12 out of 14 finals. But he'd never been dumb enough to start with Phil "Sloth from the Goonies" Jones before... In the News: We'd been playing with Swiss balls all week in preparation for this game. Make of that what you will. If Chelsea fans hate me so be it, says Chequebook Pulis. No actual Chelsea fans hate you, you bellend. At some point we've all wanted to smother you with a pillow, naturally, and the ability to electric shock you in any press conference when you started wandering off into nonsensical oblivion would have been handy, but no one who properly supports Chelsea hates you. JT could be set for a return to the Premier League now that Villa have earned themselves a play off showdown against Fulham. I wish him only the best and couldn't really see why anyone would cry about him playing for them if they come up, but I think I'd much rather have our away day at Craven Cottage back. Poor old Gary Cahill got selected for England. He even managed to get a bit in the paper that pretty much said "meh" before the squad was announced. What a way to spend the summer. Maybe he can trade places with Hart who hasn't stopped bitching since he got left out. You. Play. For. West. Ham. You have conceded 68 goals this season in the league alone. Wilshere got left out too. Celebrated with a spliff. It appears that Souness suddenly had an epiphany on Sky and realised that nobody cares about his opinion, because he stomped off air. Slow or what. Big up Everton and West Ham to saying NO to sh*t on a stick football and ditching Allardyce and Moyes. This is a positive trend for the Premier League. Sam is disgusted apparently. Not as disgusted as his poor wife last time she saw him clambering out of the bath. You can tell the season's over because the Red Swarm have already resorted to stating the f*cking obvious. Aguero is moaning about how his knee has been hurting for the last five years. So that's about as long as David Luiz's after he jumped on it two footed. Git. We did a little trickery at UEFA to get France and Brazil to the final in 1998 says Platini. No sh*t. It was obvious twenty years ago. And you think we've had it hard. Sporting fans are so miffed at their league showing they have attacked their own players wearing ski masks because they finished third. Transfer B*llocks: Hazard won't commit until he sees what Chelsea get up to this summer. Don't blame him. To be honest after the f*cking roller coaster we've had since last August I'm on the fence about committing myself to Chelsea next season. Juventus do want Morata, but on similar terms that took Cuadrado back there on a long, long term loan. Which is better for them money wise, but sh*t for us when we shelled out £70m for him less than a year ago. Doubt that'll happen. We are allegedly front runners for Seri from Nice but I'm hoping that Martial to Chelsea rumours are just bored Press Plebs pulling random names out of hats to fill pages. Musonda is back already after his loan to Celtic turned out to be a waste of time. Mason Mount has been invited to train with the senior England squad. All that expense on his development and it'll be trashed by being exposed to Southgate and his jobbers in a couple of weeks. It'll set him back five years. Also, nobody needs to be secluded in a hotel with Phil Jones, he'll probably end up snapping one of the kid's legs by accident getting into a lift because he's such a clumsy f*cker. Arteta 90% certain to take over from Wenger apparently. Excellent. I'll even drive him to work. Us: "Play like this and we will lose the final," said Conte after Newcastle. He had a point. But then, I could say "pick the team that beat the Red Scouse and stop being a bellend." But he did. Hurrah! Just what we were advocating in large numbers. Them: No Lukaku. The lovely Mata on the bench. Herrera and Young which meant I'd be swearing my head off. I don't care about Sanchez anymore. I just pity him because every time I've seen him in a Manchester United shirt he's been about as effective as Michael Owen trying in a round of speed dating. More than double the price of Newcastle and even further away from the pitch. Let's get the seat moan out of the way. The FA are a monumental bunch of cockwombles with sticky fingers who couldn't give a flying f*ck about football fans. They should be categorically ashamed of both their price hikes and their seating bands, which appear to have been categorised by someone with the IQ of Phil Jones after his big meathead has been run over by a steamroller. F*ck you and the extortionate three legged donkeys that you rode in on. You self aggrandising crooked b*stards. Now we've got that out of the way... Predictions: Me: 2-0 Fozzy Bear: 2-1 Chelsea Beaker: 1-0 Chelsea Willian to score Janice: Penalties - at which point she wants Big Willy subbed on and we win Mowgli: 2-0 Chelsea First minute and The Beard is already holding up the ball. I could lick him. A forward with some muscle. I have missed this since the Drog left. I don't buy this "when he starts he isn't effective" sh*t. He worked his a*se off for everyone else's benefit today's, ran himself into the ground. And only towards the end did he start to look a bit exasperated that no one seemed capable of putting a ball on his perfectly coiffed head. But by then we weren't really capable of anything. But we'll get to that. We wiped the floor with United in the first half. Straight away we looked like the side that took three points off the Red Scouse. I could go into a rant about why we took apart that team for no reason against Huddersfield but let's not mar this happy day. We looked great. We were getting stuck in; Cesc had two completed tackles inside ten minutes. The first shot came from Eden from a narrow angle while we were all sharing a moment for Ray Wilkins, but it wasn't anything really exciting. Refwatch: Michael Oliver. If he strained his nut sack at any point today we were f*cked. Because Lee Mason was the fourth official Oliver didn't even call on VAR for the penalty shout on 13, which at the time made me want to stamp on him with my boots on. This was the only point today when I remembered that Matic was playing for them. If it was Matic fouling Bakayoko. It could have been anybody from all the way up here. I can't see sh*t. In the meantime Sanchez had started diving, but seeing as he did it at our end he got just about the amount of abuse he deserved as the referee told him to get back up. What a snivelling little f*ckbag he is. Non existent. We'd been on top, but offered little in the box so far, they'd offered nothing bar hoofing it long and trying to catch Courtois out because he had the sun in his eyes. My love hate relationship with Oliver confused the f*ck out of me this evening. He gave the penalty. Jones lunged after Hazard like a boss eyed wildebeest with a bum leg that had just been wrenched from a deep sleep. But apparently he can't be sent off because of some a*se rule that FIFA or UEFA or the FA made up because some paid them to, or because it at some point benefitted the Red Scouse. W*nk. But then as the game continued and it became apparent that we were actually better off with the great lumbering oaf on the pitch and so I forgave the referee. How is this idiot in the England squad? Actually don't answer that. Fabian Delph and Danny Welbeck are in the England squad. We don’t have time to get into this. Eden smacks the penalty away and the blue end of Wembley goes wild. F*ck goes Chequebook's game plan. Almost half an hour gone and United hadn't had a shot on target. They could get literally nowhere near Bakayoko. I'd love to see a heat map of Jones. It would just be a single luminous dot representing how he'd stood there gasping for air for 35 minutes. The couldn't deal with Eden either. I do love how much they hate him. Because it's purely because he's just better than them. And they can't touch him. And he picked us over them. I did have to laugh too because they were getting increasingly frustrated at being pulled up for fouling him. Which makes them morons. Because you had a player sent off against us at Stamford Bridge for persistent fouling on him. By this same referee. And yet you've turned up with a plan to kick Hazard because you don't know what else to do with him. What made you think you were going to get away with it today? It was made better by the anguish on Ashley Young's clueless face every other time he didn't get his own way when he tried diving or whining at Oliver. This culminated in their surrounding the referee on 39 minutes. I look forward to reading about a charge for failing to control their players. We were now into the realms of "just don't concede before halftime." They did hit one just wide. Phew. With the added hilarity that half of their muppets though it was in and went mad and we got to laugh at them. Then Rudi made a fine clearance just before the break to keep our noses in front. The half time entertainment at Wembley didn't even stretch to a beach ball penalty shoot out. We were encouraged to watch a tv showing people watching the first half on tv. Which was wank. As soon as the game restarted it looked like Chequebook Pulis had been chucking hair dryers about at half time. We'd lapsed into a conversation about how we think Phil Jones is going to be massive when he finishes playing. I can just see him passing his days in kids cinema clubs, wearing a dirty tracksuit covered in food stains, watching cartoons at ten in the morning surrounded by five year olds and shoving haribo in his face. Smelling of BO. We couldn't get a foot on the ball. On 50 minutes their fans arrived and they looked twice the team they were in the first half. Simply put, they had got their sh*t together. And we appeared to have misplaced ours. Luckily for us Thibaut was once again on the money for us today, starting with a punched clearance on 52 minutes. They hadn't quite sussed the final ball yet, but it would, however, have been nice if we had got out of our own half. Another save from Courtois on 55 when he palmed a shot away and the ball came back in slowly, straight into his arms. Dear Chelsea. Please wake up now. Sincerely, Alex. We were not even in this game as it approached the hour mark, so far as any attacking endeavours were concerned. We'd lapsed into that oft seen 2017/18 habit of giving the f*cking ball away in midfield at every opportunity, but luckily, Captain Cahill in the centre, with Rudi and Dave either side were in tune. United scored on 62 minutes, but it was offside. Ahahahahahahahahaha. Though don't think we weren't bricking it at the time. Down to about 35% possession. The hatches were battened. But it was as if they are made of Tesco value toilet paper; leaking profusely. When we did break it was six against two because we didn't really send anyone up. There was nappy sh*tting going on full scale in the upper echelons of the top tier, capped off by one generic p*sshead who kept calling everyone c*nts and telling them to sing up. They're always popular. Alonso had a low shot on 69 that went out for a corner. My WhatsApp went berserk, my brother watching it on tv and apoplectic that Young was guilty of a handball. Nothing doing from Oliver, who had a strong overall game today yet somehow managed to make a couple of clangers. None that are going to cause any Buffon-like outage this time though. And so we clung on. At least all the scrapping in the box was distracting Oliver from how long we were spending on a single corner. Which of course came to nothing because it is us. Thibaut made a brilliant save on 71, coming right out at the United player and blocking his inward run, before CP went full kitchen sink. On came Lukaku and Martial, off went Rashford and someone else I didn't care about. A deflection was caught by Thibaut in the area on 73. Despite the changes the relentlessness off the United attacks had just eased off. Jones last act before going off was to haplessly headbutt The Beard, and when play restarted we had the ball again, at least in equal share. We weren’t doing anything shiny with it ,but who f*cking cares. At this point we were winning. Had they run out of steam? For my blood pressure’s sake, I hoped so. But no. On 79 Courtois pushed another shot away. This was going to be like the f*cking Alamo. We had a break on 81, but after a lot of tippy tappy stuff leading up to the box, The Beard was given offside. God bless him, at this point all he wanted was for someone to put the ball on his head so he could have a shot after running about after everyone else all afternoon, but the moment was never quite right. Seconds later it was back up the other end and the ball was flying across the face of our goal. Conte hadn’t yet made a change, which was novel for Antonio and some in the upper tier were getting restless. Frankly, it felt like this would be a miracle if we won this game 1-0. Another United shot went wide on 84. Morata came on for The Beard. Taking him off in his own garden? Felt like bad Juju. I have nothing against Morata starting plenty of games, but this one, this was made for the Frenchman and the manager made the right call. Eden had absolutely run his legs off and was fading out of the game, so Willian came on on 90. Five added minutes? Where have the dickheads got that from? The first two consisted of pinball in midfield, and a whole lot of panic from us. Please God, not another half an hour. because they will win it if they bring this level, we haven’t been near them since half time. A corner with about a minute to go was caught by Courtois, before Little Willy and Morata combined to take it up the other end and win a corner at the death. F*ck me. We’d done it. The United fans’ reaction to the final whistle was to throw a flare on the pitch and then run away. Faster than Sp*rs when we sunk them 4-2. So: They huffed. They puffed. They blew our house down. Then they set fire to the ruins and p*ssed on them. But they couldn’t score. Beaker was closest with the predictions, which if nothing else tells you that even when you've basically fermented your brain in alcohol and bacon fat you can still talk sense occasionally. There were some supreme performances out there today. We had three captains at the back, but Rudi was magnificent and got all the accolades he deserved, not to mention an opportunity to dance his way around Wembley with the first club prize of his career. He was given man of the match, though for me it was a toss up between him and Phil Jones. Much maligned signing Bakayoko put in another performance to be proud of too. Alonso when he was celebrating - Beaker has pointed out that no matter what happens in a game; or afterwards his face always looks like he's just bitten into a lemon. Cesc can replace the 2005 winners medal that his dad lost, Eden was in the crowd, and before his widow presented us with the trophy, we got to pay tribute again to Ray Wilkins. CP shook the hand of each of our players and was gracious on the pitch, but he couldn’t outrun his own personality for longer it took to point a tv camera in his face. Conte even put a suit on and promptly got drenched for his trouble. I don’t want to have a go at him today. That was almost certainly the last we'll see of him. These cute little comments about how he might still get fired even if he won annoyed me coming from a man who’d made his presence at the club for much of this season look about as appealing to him as having his fingernails removed with pliers. But today he deserves as much credit as the team. He’s banked a second trophy in two seasons when others were struggling to pick up anything. And he obviously enjoyed this win. I’m glad. 730-whatever other teams that entered the FA Cup would have killed to pick that trophy up today, and anyone that says the competition doesn’t at least sugar-coat our otherwise disappointing season doesn’t understand English football. The book of the blog will break down the season, as well as reproducing the complete, uncensored articles in full. Given the relentless, polarising suffering we’ve just endured for the last nine months it will take the form of a survival guide. It’ll be out in June, but I’ll keep updates coming on Twitter and Facebook. I leave you with this bastardisation of a Manchester United ditty from the tube: Runners Up, Runners Up Man Utd Runners Up, Runners Up I pray Runners Up, Runners Up Man Utd Playing football the Jose way AC @CFCgwlb
1 Comment
Newcastle United: 3 Chelsea: Just Don't F*cking Ask Sunday 13th May 2018 15:00 In the News: We've been charged by the FA for failing to control our players during the Huddersfield game. I vote we find out exactly how much they're charging us, turn up with sledge hammers and cause exactly that much in damages to Wembley. I have no words. Meantime, Willian wins Players' Player of the Year, the fans vote goes to the Kante Twins. Christensen takes the trophy for best young player. Conte wins the Dr Jekyll Tribute Award for having more personalities than the last ten of our managers put together. Chequebook Pulis says that Noble and Pogba looked like they were in love during that goalless dross of theirs. Yes, because nothing says I love you more than trying to rip out someone's teeth out with your bare hands. (We can at least take solace in the fact that they looked pretty sh*t this week) The Others: F*ck 'em. Although once again at least we're not Arsenal. Though the difference is getting harder to define. Transfer B*llocks: So apparently (This isn't Blue Squirrel, this is Chinese whispers) Morata told a fan at the awards do that he's moving to either Italy or Spain because he prefers it there to London. If he did, rage, but take from that what you will. It's about as substantiated as all the w*nk produced by the Red Swarm and it doesn't stop them. And Loftus-Cheek says he hasn't made a decision about where his future lies yet. Excellent. I look forward to another player leaving and then suddenly becoming a world beater. In ManagerWatch: Napoli are making sad noises about not being able to stop Sarri leaving, and Carlo was spotted at the Bridge. Them: Twelve different sponsors coughing up cash for everything from the dressing room to the hot dog cart. Took longer to announce that lot than the team, most of whom I've never heard of. Us: Conte appeared to have given more than a single f*ck about choosing this line up, which was an improvement on Wednesday. Maybe two or three. The Beard starts. Excellent. Barkley back too. Not often you see a player whose had a lengthy lay off go into the starting lineup though. And he's moved Cahill away from the middle of the back three to bring Christensen back in. No Fabregas, where's the imaginative sh*t coming from? I felt slightly like one of the saps who gets killed off early in a Jurassic Park film when they realise they've been locked onto by three raptors looking for dinner. My kit rage had just about subsided until they showed the team coming out in the big screen wearing the new f*cking shirt. W*nk. W*nk. W*nk. W*nk. Even if we don't all agree on the use of red as part of the design we can all agree that this looks like they looked at a plain blue shirt and thought: "this is a bit boring,” so let a five year old at it with marker pens. It's not got shades of 1984 or whatever it is they are claiming. This is called "marketing." I used to do it for a living. It's code for "talking any bullsh*t you have to to get people to part with money." If that took more than half an hour to do I'd be stunned. It is a blue shirt with some cheap looking, ugly lines squiggled on it. Poke it Nike. Good luck getting details as to what player is on the ball out of me, because I'm that high up that I can't tell the difference between Bakayoko and Alonso. My nose is bleeding. I have a better view of the John Lewis car park roof. I think that I might actually technically be in space right now. The people in the back row are floating away because there is no gravity. This is why I laugh when Newcastle get relegated. Because it's cheap and nasty stuffing your away contingent in the corner up here when nobody in the league does it to you. I swear this is the last time they get away with it before they are bound by the rule about at least some of us being pitch side. Most of the opening play came from the barcodes. Kante almost played a sublime ball through to someone else in blue on four minutes but it was intercepted. He is literally the size of my little fingernail from up here. At this point they appear to care a lot more than us, although nobody had actually had a shot yet. I have just figured out that I can identify Voldemort because he's had a shot on 8 minutes and the sun was reflecting off his head. Already I was suspecting that they were going to have that annual cup final performance that they save for whenever we roll into town. Another save from Thibaut on nine minutes. We'd barely touched the ball because they were running everything down, forcing mistakes and just generally making us look sh*t. We had the amusement of a giant beach ball for about four seconds. Then the killjoy stewards took it away. How had we only had fifteen minutes of this awfulness? Fear not. We now have balloons. A goal mouth scramble on 19 was just about knocked away by Courtois. We'd been amusing ourselves by singing. Spartak Moscow We're Coming For You was my favourite. I refused to sing along to Antonio. He can have some of it next week, as a thank you and goodbye, but at this precise moment we looked bonafide terrible. We were being shown up by Newcastle and he was standing with his arms folded. Possibly picking his nose. Might have been chewing his finger. Or both. Which would have been disgusting. Just wide again from Newcastle on 20. It'd be no more than they deserve. And they were ahead on 22. A shambles, but it's been coming ever since kick off. My instant reaction was where are all the centre backs, and why is Moses the only bloke there? But I was too f*cked off to break this down with any rational thought. Europa League We're Having a Laugh now. 23 and Voldemort just missed another. I'm so glad I got up at 4am for this. If he'd have put up half this much fight against Harry Potter and his mob he would have smacked them silly. I'm not sure we can claim we've even been in their box at this point. In the meantime we had another fingertip save from Courtois on 26 from yet another long range effort. But the difference between their long range efforts and ours (if we managed to conjure up any) is that theirs look like they might actually go in. The usual end of season song tributes to each player had died out now to be replaced by random insults and expletives. The Beard looked lonelier than Michael Owen wandering round a Wetherspoon’s at 11am trying to find somebody drunk enough to listen to stories about his glory days. We can't get the ball. If we do, can't retain it. Conte still about as animated as Sam Allardyce in a f*cking spin class. Thibaut has got the right hump, and over the last five years I'd have sworn most of the time he didn't have any vocal chords. That's how bad this was. He was screaming at people. On 32 minutes Hazard received the ball, wait for it, in the box. But at a funny angle and his back was to goal so he couldn't get the shot off. Unfortunate as opposed to incompetent. But their keeper could have literally lay down and f*cking sunbathed at this point. They wanted a penalty on 33; I think Atkinson just pitied us too much to give them it. Free kick in their half two minutes later. Excitement. That came to nothing. I've not seen anything this unimaginative since the 89th instalment of the "Saw" franchise. No, scrap that, I've not seen such a complete lack of anything decent going up to Hazard and The Beard since Wednesday night. I'd be relieved right now to actually find Michael Owen sitting next to me. I'd get him to tell me all about his glory days. And then talk me through his cheese label collection. Praise the lord. 43 minutes and we had a corner. We're shit at corners, but nonetheless this was something to be happy about. Until it didn't travel more than five yards before it hit a barcode. This was f*cking apocalyptic. We didn't have a plague of locusts up on the roof, but we did have one of greenflies. I'd picked six out of my hair already. If only our players had collectively showed the same persistence. The lumpy Toon playing the goal challenge bucket thing at half time produced more than we had in the first half. Please Chelsea, make the hurting stop. The second half was better. This does not mean it was good. Straight after the break Hazard destroyed the ability of one of the barcodes to ever procreate again. But I didn't know we had to stop play for a stinger to the balls. There was a collective groan of sympathy from 52,293 people. That's everyone except me. Because I'm pretty sure it was still more painful sitting on the roof with the away contingent. And I was too busy laughing. Save by Thibaut on 48. We've still not had a shot. We then retained the ball for 30 seconds but it came to nothing. Again. The Beard was being tugged in the box, but the ref didn't care and the ball ran out of play away from Eden. Which brings me to Refwatch: Martin Atkinson. He was better than Mason on Wednesday. But then the semi-liquid dump Bertie the Kitten took overnight is more effective than Mason. But me digging Atkinson out today would be like Napoleon blaming his f*cking butler for the pasting he took trying to march on Moscow. Thank God for The Beard, who managed to hit a sublime volley behind him (at least that's what it looked like from a mile away) We have had an attempt on goal. And apart from Hazards ball cruncher it was the highlight of the afternoon. Now I know what it feels like to support Sterk. We were back in their box within a minute, but once again squandered the ball and it came to nothing. The Beard was apoplectic up front. Distinctly heard him shout "I left Arsenal to get away from this sh*t." In French. But at least we were actually attacking consistently now. Barkley wound his way in but his shot went straight to the keeper. Just when we looked like being competent enough to mount some form of opposition (Yes, against Newcastle) they scored again. Voldemort hit a nothing shot that somehow took a tiny, perfect deflection off some other barcode and into the corner it went. For f*ck sake. So what do you do? You look at the bench, you look at the manager to see what they intend to do about this. The answer? Nothing. Conte hasn't moved from the spot for about ten minutes. He's just standing there with his arms folded watching us implode. They could have been three up on 59 but we got a last ditch header in to put it out for a corner. Poor Barkley had our best chance on 61. A fast break and it falls to him in the box. If he had put it anywhere else, goal. But straight to keeper. A minute later they did have three. I'm not sure you can say that one of them in an offside position wasn't interfering with play but at that point I give about as much of a f*ck as Conte. Also I can't make a proper judgement because I neglected to bring a pair of f*cking binoculars with me. Antonio still hadn't moved. It'd been better since half time but this line up just wasn't working. Regular stalwarts such as Dave were having sh*tters. Barkley hasn't seen a football pitch in weeks, though to be fair he looked better as the game went on. Why would you heave Cahill out of the middle where he's been doing fine? The Beard has been isolated. There's no creativity (by the way Conte still hasn't moved) and we are an absolute shambles. This game might mean nothing competition wise, but he had zero f*cking respect for the 2000 odd fans that have travelled the length of the country and paid money to watch it. We got royally shat on today. Still hasn't moved. 67 He moved six inches coming up to 70 minutes, because the ball was coming at his head. The Beard had another chance, but he had no time to aim and by now he looked like a Frenchman being made to work double time on a bank holiday. Morata was ready to come on and if it's for The Beard there is literally no point. Wait for it... wait for it... The Beard off. I despair. Willian on too for Barkley, who for the last ten minutes has looked like the Chelsea player most likely to do something. Then Pesto (f*ck off autospell) got a massive ten minutes. Hazard would have appreciated getting put out of his misery. Small children were weeping at this point. Not even a bottle of Silent Pool and a straw would have consoled me at this point. So: TADA. There you have it, another Premier League season done and dusted. And every issue we've had across the whole 38 games encapsulated in one final, ninety minute sh*tfest. In the words of Fozzy Bear, a perfectly good day out with your mates, ruined by the football. First half was embarrassing. Second half, we actually touched the ball, but it was still embarrassing. Players largely all over the place, manager didn't give two sh*ts about turning it around. I love you Chelsea, but right now I can't f*cking look at you. I'm going to drink a f*ckload of gin. If I get really, really, sh*tfaced I might get halfway to this twilight zone where all of our problems will be solved by putting Jody Morris and Frank Lampard in charge of the first team at this moment in time. AC @CFCgwlb *Photo of Kante wearing that monstrosity of a strip comes from Chelsea's official website Chelsea 1 Huddersfield Town 1 Wednesday 9th May 2018 19:45 My old nan once told me that cheaters never prosper. She lied. In the News: It's been about 48 hours since the last blog, so don't get too excited. For a start, the fact that the FA fiddle the fixtures every year is not news. It's f*cking obvious. West Brom deserved to go down if they weren't going to give Moore the job had he saved them. He must be seriously hacked off. This is in a week when Gerrard got the Rangers gig when his only qualification for a job in Scotland is that he's proved adept at bottling people in the past. Incidentally, they claim he needs one title to make Celtic's dominance collapse like a pack of cards. No. What he needs is a f*cking miracle. Unless he's a puppet and someone who knows what they are talking about is going to be doing all of the actual work. Ferguson no longer needs intensive care. Relief. Apparently the first thing has asked was how Doncaster did. God love 'im, I could make a comment about how giving a crap about the Doncaster result is most definitely sign of a traumatic head injury, but let's just be happy that he's sitting up, doing well and heading towards the day he can amuse us all by watching Chequebook Pulis in action with a barely veiled look of disdain again. I'm going to miss Wenger. Arsenal are only two or three players away from winning the league next season, he says. Because he's addled he forgot to add “in each position." But at least "Hotel-gate" has proved hilariously entertaining. The Marriott at Swansea cancelled 40 rooms right before Southampton arrived for their relegation showdown citing a virus. That seemingly didn't affect anyone else who was supposed to be staying there. Or anyone else who tried to then book a room. All hail whoever it was at Southampton who left the review on trip advisor. "Fortunately experience didn't sour our trip. Business meeting was extremely productive!" Transfer B*llocks: Well I suppose we're almost there again aren't we. FML as young people say. Because typing actual words has become too tiresome for humanity. We're getting rid of Morata and we want Cavani, so say the Red Swarm. Apparently someone asked Hazard if he is going to rejoin Chequebook Pulis at United. 1 Are they f*cking stupid? They hate each other. 2 He said "No chance." Good boy. Though I expect them to write about it for another week anywa because they are lazy. None of this has been endorsed by Blue Squirrel. Because he's not on crack. One thing he has revealed this week is one of the candidates for manager that has been interviewed by the club. At least I’ve heard of him, and if you are looking for a hint, even my mum has heard of him, and he’s not Italian. The Others: Stoke say they should have sacked Hughes sooner. No sh*t. West Brom are down too, which left Swansea, Southampton and Huddersfield in trouble as far as the last drop-spot goes. Southampton took a step closer to safety last night despite having to camp in a field with a load of sheep. Huzzah. Because I like Southampton, and because Hughes will probably still be out of a job there come November anyway, when everyone on the south coast realises that he's really sh*t at his job. Us: Lots of rotation. For no clear reason that I can fathom. Six changes to a side that played out of their skin at the weekend. Totally. Unnecessary. Caballero for Courtois, Morata back in. Zappacosta instead of Moses, Willian comes back in to the side, as does Pesto in place of Hazard and Bakayoko. Christensen comes in for Cahill. Them: Honestly, I couldn't name any of them off the top of my head of you offered me a night with Charlie Austin. Usually you'd expect to see some fading star on his way down the leagues or a relegation fodder mercenary like a Barton or a Diouf jogging about trying to stay out of the championship, but nope. Lots of the ball from kick off. Role reversal after Sunday, we were the ones playing it from side to side and not achieving a lot. First half decent cross on four minutes almost came to something, before Alonso almost hit it through the keeper on five, but it was blocked, Morata couldn't quite get there on the follow up. Willian had another from range on nine minutes but it was wide. They didn't look like they had a lot to offer at all going forward, we were witnessing a real gulf in class, but since when has that ever stopped us shooting ourselves in the foot? Another chance on 10 and another on 11. Their fans were cheering successful tackles and throw ins, the time wasting was atrocious but they were at least enjoying themselves. Kante amused himself by running past their whole team on twenty minutes, and we looked the better side, but we hadn't actually looked like scoring. And Refwatch: Lee Mason was trying everything possible to give them a leg up, including letting them kick seven shades of sh*t out of Little Willy. Equally it might be that he is too fat to be a professional referee. His cousin, the slaphead in front of the west stand with the flag, was equally bad. This had become one of those cup ties where you play a team from another league and they drag you down to their level. One goal and I thought the floodgates might open. And we nearly had it on 29 when Morata managed to pull the ball round and smack it towards the bottom corner. Damn it. "Alex," someone tweeted me. "I know we had our chances, but when you get done with Lee Mason in your match report I don't want his mother to be able to recognise him." Someone hold my f*cking drink. 33. note the time. Mason gives free kick in Chelsea's favour. His measurement of ten yards is criminal. He's so knackered by the eighth step that he looks like a dog dragging its arse across the ground after it's taken a sh*t. Their keeper was really getting on my tits now. The entire crowd was on his back about how long it was taking to put the all into play. It was like watching Sam Allardyce after a midnight orgy in a pie factory as he slothed his way up to the ball to do anything. The only oblivious person in the ground? Mason. Dumbly staring at events like Harry Kane trying to work out how to open an automatic door. No I lie. He warned him. On about twenty minutes and then let him carry on doing it for another hour. Note also the pre half time stoppage for someone in red rubbing their thigh after he'd waved off three fouls on Chelsea players. The reason? The honed specimen that was the referee, yes him that wasn't within twenty yards of the action if the ball was moving, wanted to stop for a f*cking drink and a kebab. Then followed it up with a beer and a fag. It has been a while since we've witnessed such an artless performance from an official at the bridge, and this was just the beginning. 40 minutes and we almost stung them, when Morata just ran out of a viable angle and cut it across the face of the goal. There then ensued another pretend injury from the away side. Someone pointing at his toe and crying. Chris Lowe, whoever the f*ck that is. Alf Garnett (sitcom alias) swears that he won a place in the side in the Huddersfield Lottery. Runner up gets a cabbage. Two minutes of extra time. P*ss take. As a Terrorist Steve (special alias) pointed out. Each goal kick has taken two minutes. But, we said, at least the twat let it run to cover our free kick and corner too. Well at least he pretended to. When Willian finally received the ball from the away crowd, he waited for him to get to the corner and then blew the f*cking whistle. Where the f*ck is Jon Moss when you want him Jesus, I'd take Bobby Madley right now. This could only be worse if someone fished out Overbo at halftime. If we play the second half to 50% of our ability, said I, then we should annihilate these halfwits. They didn't want to play football, they wanted to just not concede and flail to the end. If we score first they've had it. The teams emerged. So did Lee Mason with the remnants of a pint of Stella and some chilli sauce dribbling down his chin. Then they were ahead, and Caballero was lying dead on the floor, having been fouled. Mason, I should point out, was still in their half. He had missed one on Willian too. PGMOL would literally be better off if they piled up his £80,000 salary and set fire to it. They wouldn't have to faff about working out the dickhead's national insurance contribution. After a five minute lapse in which Mason consumed two cheesecakes and a jäger bomb to keep himself going, the time-wasting, feigning injury and general cheating got worse. When the referee is awarding fouls on the basis of whether he needs a breather or not, you're f*cked. Within a couple of minutes of their goal Conte had brought on The Beard to partner with Morata at the expense of a right wing back. I'm not giving him any credit for this, because for me he went full bunny boiler tonight. Joking about Mason aside, had our manager actually just played the f*cking team that caned Liverpool instead of unnecessarily changing half of them just for sh*ts and giggles for people that have barely played, then we probably wouldn't have been in this situation. We could have been 3-0 up by halftime. Judging by the rage coming off of everyone on the train to Wimbledon, this was a strong consensus, and people have had enough of him. For his change to have any impact we were going to have to actually rediscover the art of passing a football. And stop giving the ball back to a side that just want to lie on the floor holding it till they can go home. I'm usually pretty pleased to see Hazard stripping off. Even more so today just before the hour mark. Pesto made way. We were now playing with two defenders. Full assault on their goal. There wasn't a Huddersfield player within twenty yards of the halfway line. 1-1 Alonso, who'd spent most of the match playing as a striker because there was no need for him to defend. He knew as little about it as we did. Who f*cking cares. It's amazing what you can do with half the team playing up front. 64:39 we got a free kick. Probably because Mason needed another fag. If we were Sp*rs we’d make a DVD about it. At this point Huddersfield were already pretending to have cramp and trying to employ every last ditch time-wasting method known to football. Point of reference for their manager, this isn't "passion" or "spirit." It's embarrassing. If Lee Mason had once shown a card, or waved this nonsense on this need not have been the case. But Lee Mason is a c*nt. He was still giving their keeper friendly warnings about time-wasting on 70 minutes. He didn’t book him until 87. Boycie was taking out his rage on my bag of jelly babies by biting the heads off them. 82 was the moment for the winner if it was going to happen. The ball did everything but cross the line. If we were Harry Kane or the Red Scouse, they probably would have given us a goal. So: If Lee Mason were a racehorse, you'd shoot him. Brace yourself for a spate of whippets being named in his honour up north. Had Conte picked a side properly, instead of treating this must win match like a contempt ridden league cup tie in September then tonight would have been very different. Huddersfield employed every dirty trick in the book to manipulate a result out of this game and it worked, just, in large part because the game was shat all over by an appalling referee. The Red Swarm are going to write this up like they were f*cking gladiators and that this is what football is all about it. Don't believe a word. It was a travesty for the Premier League because a long standing representative that actually comes to play football is going to go down this weekend to make room for more of this dross next year. We'll all be supporting Brighton come the weekend. In the hope that Conte doesn’t do the same again. I’d hate to think it was a parting shot, I think he’s a better person than that. I am however quite looking forward to seeing the back of him now. Ten months of his tantrums, whining and sulking has taken its toll. AC @CFCgwlb Chelsea 1 Them 'Orrible Gits 0 Sunday 6th May 2018 16:30 Let's get the important sh*t out of the way. Somehow I've been nominated for an award. Who'd have thunk it? Anyway: any and all votes appreciated at: www.footballbloggingawards.co.uk My category is best new blog. Let's try and paint the ceremony blue too. You've got the lovely Llion Carbis up in best young blogger and Breathe Chelsea up for content creator. Or alternatively you can tweet the following to cast your vote: I am voting in @TheFBAs for @CFCgwlb in the #FBANewBlog category #FBAs If you could then threaten/cajole anyone you have power over, namely employees, offspring and spouses it would also be muchly appreciated. I do not frown upon people voting on behalf of their pets either. Voting ends tomorrow, 7th May, I believe. Swansea 0 Chelsea 1: So after just four minutes we were ahead when Cesc scored his 50th goal in the Premier League. This is rare sh*t. Only two Spaniards have done that. Torres and Costa. So rare that one of those isn't even a Spaniard. At that point, so Janice reports, because I was sunning myself somewhere west of San Antonio, everyone in the away end thought we'd get more and smash them. But nope, because this is us, and round about the 70 minute mark is when everyone in the Chelsea end started crapping themselves, the team took the foot off the gas, and Swansea started coming at us like they were Brazil in 1970. Still we got it done. Jon Moss in refereeing shocker. Is that even news? Missed attempted murder on Cahill, doesn't know what constitutes a free kick. Has possibly since f*cked up Southampton's chances of staying up with his ineptitude. In the News: Alex Ferguson is poorly in hospital. I just can't comprehend that such a giant figure in our footballing world would be carried off by something like this. He needs to go out twenty years from now in a bare knuckle bout with a giant liver bird, wearing Braveheart face paint and hurling every obscenity in the book. Disbelief seems to be the general response. This isn't the end. It can't be. And we all hope he'll be back and trying to look entertained watching Chequebook Pulis try to defend a 1-0 deficit shortly. In the meantime, if the Press Plebs could stop eulogising him like he has already passed away it would probably be appropriately considerate for his family. Hughes came out whining after the FA Cup semi final about penalties etc. I'm not taking this moron seriously when he could basically get two teams relegated in one season. Because Stoke are down. I think I can honestly say nobody is going to miss them, as they've been a whopping great red and white barnacle on the hull of the good ship Premier League for most of their decade with us. And Rodgers may have squandered his chances of managing us. Apparently. By not giving Musonda enough time on the pitch during his loan spell at Celtic. Sorry Charley, but this is what you call taking one for the team. Speaking of Scottish football, nobody is allowed to mock my piss take about Eddie Howe being a Chelsea manager now that Rangers have employed the foreheadless wonder as their new boss. True, he could boast amongst his accolades robbing Buck-toothed Brendan of one league title already (chuckle) but he can claim little else by way of qualifications. Half and half scarves on sale. At a youth cup game. Jesus wept. Then curled up in a ball and started rocking in the corner. On a slow news day we also got a ridiculous insight into David Luiz's fancy dress birthday party. Poor Mrs Terry. It probably didn't occur to her to ring round and check with Pesto (yawn, autospell) that their outfits weren't going to clash. First Wenger says he was given the boot. Then eight hours later the club tells everyone that he didn't mean it. Then there was also a piece about him saying that his departure was down to certain Arsenal fans, I wonder who, "wrecking their identity." No Arsene. It was no secret that your mob were sanctimonious bellends. We just get to see it on YouTube on demand now. He’s getting out just in time. No wonder he looked so relax today. He needn't worry about his successor making him look stupid. When the Red Swarm were pontificating about it being Enrique they were saying that he was to get... wait for it... FIFTY MILLION to spend. Pip Squeakiola wipes his a*se with £50m. If that was all CP found in his transfer kitty he'd throw a Yaya, birthday cake style wobbly. £50m for a new regime to spend. On a team that's won nothing significant in 15 years and relies on Pothead Wilshere. Good luck with that. Who knows they might get lucky. Nainggolan apparently wants to play for a team that can't win anything and make life difficult for himself. A perfect match I hear you say. Yes, so long as he is willing to take half the money he could get playing somewhere else. And Klippity Klopp in bizarre nonsense statement alert. (Must be a day that ends in a y) Says the Red Scouse will wait for Oxlade-Chamberlain to recover from injury like a good wife waiting for her man to come out of prison. I could make so many jokes about soap on a rope, and their conjugal visits in a beat up caravan. But it's just too easy. The Others: Wenger signed off at the Emirates after more than 20 years in charge of L’Arse today wearing his best cardigan. Just in time, so far as his legacy is concerned. His team sent him on his way by thrashing Burnley, and left me bemused that they couldn’t have played like this over the last two seasons. The fans actually turned up today, and they all had t-shirts that said “Merci Arsene” which I suppose was nicer than the ones being handed out by Arsenal TV, which said “Thank God, Now F*ck Off.” Ashley Young admits that United weren't at the races against Brighton. Mate, never mind being at the racecourse. You were propping up a William Hill counter somewhere at 9am smelling of pee, drinking White Lightning and waiting to see if your 10p each way bet came in. And does a game of football get any better? That lot beaten in injury time. By a dubious goal. The closest Harry f*cking Kane came to scoring was in the wrong net apparently. Janice (muppet alias) was quick to quip that it was a shame because he could have tried to claim that towards the golden boot too. Last I heard he was allegedly trying to claim adding another to his tally by going home and scoring with his missus. Which led me to think (uncomfortably) about what the pillow talk might consist of afterwards. I'm willing to bet he just gabbles on like a telly tubby. Or one of the flowerpot men. And dribbles all over said pillow. Now that I've put that image in your head on to our game. When we could close the gap on all that slobber to a mere two points if we gave a side who always richly deserve a good kicking a right good seeing to. Us: Neil Barnett got some of the afternoon off in favour of an American bloke who is supposed to be famous but that I've never heard of when the teams were announced. Dear Chelsea. Never, ever do that again. So far as the line up for them game, Conte got it spot on today, though Willian will feel hard done by at not finding a place. Them: Who is this Egyptian bloke? Never heard of him. There ain’t nothing like a sunny spring day for getting you in the mood to have a go at this lot. After 57 seconds we’d launched into a chorus of “sign on” followed by a loud reminder about Steven Gerrard falling on his a*se. At this point, we hadn’t touched the ball, but we were amused anyway. Thibaut was forced to make a save early on and then finally, three and a half minutes in, we got a thrown in. Huzzah. I can laugh and joke about them having all of the ball, because they were doing their headless chicken thing. For all of the possession the ball was just going from side to side, and they’d only set foot in our box once. In a true statement of the totally obvious - the first goal was going to be massive to the outcome of this game. Whoever goes behind has to open up and leave themselves vulnerable to try and get back in it. When two teams are this good on the counter attack, that vulnerability can be crushing. Eight minutes we made it most of the way into their half. Things were looking up, before Refwatch kicked in. Anthony Taylor. Joy. Doesn’t even book Milner for attempting to kill Hazard. Here we go. Precisely another 200 seconds of his clueless faffing and he was already getting on my tits. On 13 minutes the best chance of the game so far fell to us, but Bakayoko and The Beard got in each other's way, no need to tell you who got the blame. However, moments later the younger Frenchman annihilated Clyne and set up Alonso for a shot that unfortunately went straight into Brigitte Nielsen's arms in the Liverpool goal. They were away shortly afterwards, Mane surging forward, but Kante got a standing ovation from the crowd for a perfect tackle that stopped him in his tracks. There's an argument for letting these muppets just run themselves stupid to no avail, and it was borne out by our having the better chances at taking the lead. Anything they were having in the way of attempts, we were forcing them to take from questonable range; and providing Courtois stayed alert, and that we could keep our concentration at the back, they were going to start running out of ideas. Our desire was better than I have seen for much of the season too, with some nice, brutal tackles going in when we lost the ball. I’m just going to start referring to him as Bakaloco, because he was like a f*cking steam train today. Choo Chooo. A header from the much maligned midfielder came close after half an hour, before he started off the move that sent us into the lead with a brilliant cross out to Moses, who duped the defender by putting the ball into the box with his left foot. The Beard rose like a meticulously groomed, furry salmon to nod it to past Brigitte Nielsen and send the home crowd wild. And then oddly ran all the way into the bench to specifically cuddle David Luiz. I’m sure Antonio loved that. Just don’t f*ck this up before half time Chelsea. But in fact little chance of that emerged. Klippity Klopp’s Plan A, when they are up against anyone good, is to run at the opposition and try to score loads, and hope that that they are ahead when the final whistle goes. There appears to be no Plan B. We were tearing them a new one at this point with some really crisp passing around the edge of the box, they’ve got almost no clue when it comes to taking the ball through the middle, and are always looking for a route out wide. Cesc had a ton of space. It was as if he was invisible to them. Literally no Red Scouse within twenty yards of him, Robertson going up to try and cover, meaning that Moses was then left to roam the right hand side. Like tits in a trance, discipline wise, were they in the run up to half time. Point proven on 35 minutes when Cesc made not a blistering run, because this is Cesc, but a nicely accelerated jog into the box and almost nailed a second on a narrow angle. He had it past Brigette Nielsen but it was just wide. I was ready to decapitate Taylor when he blew his whistle on 38 minutes on the edge of our box, but then bizarrely he gave a free kick against some little Egyptian bloke and booked him for diving when we were expecting him to shaft us. Not only that, but he then booked Clyne for a foul on Alonso. We’d made it to half time in one piece, and in that far corner of The Shed the smuggery had been somewhat silenced. They came out like they were running from the law in the second half. But we were not about to be caught short. For what seemed like 5 hilarious minutes at the time, we enjoyed Hazard mocking them by refusing to give up the ball, resulting in a near attempt for us. They'd actually half ripped his shirt off. Some more exquisite passing led to another effort, but Kante's shot is still sitting on the roof of the shopping centre. Taylor made a pigs ear out of his job again. And Conte got told off for pointing this out after a shoddy foul went unpunished. Which prompted this exchange where we were: “Who did that?” “Robertson. The one that's furthest away from the crime now over there.” “They teach this manoeuvre to everyone in the land of Scouse.” We almost doubled our lead on 55 minutes after a narrow cross, before a Rudiger goal was chalked off moments later as offside. Clyne went off before he got sent off, and on came Henderson with his creepy face that looks like it’s been moulded out of play-doh. A tame shot on the hour was spilled by Brigitte Nielsen, but there was nobody on hand to pounce on it, before Moses ran almost the entire length of the pitch (whilst being fouled) and got nothing from Taylor, who no doubt was having a code piped into his ear to invoke Operation Benefit Cheque - that point in every game when they face adversity and cards and free kicks start inexplicably being given in the Red Scouse’s favour to try and help them over the line. That Egyptian bloke went down easy in the box on 65. They were crying for a penalty, except him, because he was already on a yellow and he knew better. Rudiger sent an attempt over the bar, whilst we all amused ourselves with singing Your Support is F*cking Sh*t and another round of Slippy G bashing just for giggles. One of them was taking his clothes off and waving them at us. Perhaps he intended to return them to their rightful owner. On 71 Bakaloco dug the ball out from a dicey situation and set Hazard away, but the final cross that came back into him from The Beard was off in height. Look who it is with fifteen minutes to go. Solanke, who went to Liverpool for more money in wages than he had ever earned and because he thought everyone would see how awesome he was. Klippity Klopp now had four up front and the game had started opening up. We were so deep at this point that it was actually terrifying. Chelsea players booked for time-wasting. Oh the comic irony. All at the behest of “Hendo” wailing like a spoiled brat at the referee. Alonso responded to his yellow with what was almost goal of the season, a stunning volley from a narrow angle that flew just wide across the face of goal. Does anyone in the league volley better than George Michael? They came close to an equaliser on 83 when everyone bricked it for fifteen of the longest seconds of our lives until Courtois had got both hands firmly around the ball. Willian was ready to come on, if the ball ever went out of play. I barely noticed, because I was ranting too hard about how Milner had managed to evade a card for the entire duration of this game. Their best chance to score probably came from Solanke, who rewarded the trust put in him with a sh*t header. He did not get a good reception today. We got Zappacosta tfor Victor, who had run his legs off and made the most hilariously slow exit I think I’ve seen since the days of Bosingwa and his monobrow. Cesc too was wasted after a massive effort and was replaced by Pesto for the final few minutes. By the time we reached four minutes of injury time Van Dijk had gone up too, so that the Scouse were playing with five up top. Ah, so that’s Plan B. It was not going to be their day. Beating them is fun, but there is nothing better than beating them when they are bleating on about some perceived injustice when they have had so much given to them by officials over the years that has been criminal. So: We have provided you with a blueprint for how to beat the cretins, Real. Use it wisely. And spare us all. Not one of our players had a bad game today. Every one of them showed up. Kante was exemplary. (Not when he was shooting) When you’re my height and you win everything in the air, you deserve praise. Bakaloco was a monster today, and had what might just have been his best game so far in a Chelsea shirt. All three at the back were disciplined and bailed us out on separate occasions. Rudiger was the best of them. He absolutely destroyed that Egyptian bloke, so much so that he went and told Rudi so as soon as the final whistle went. Our centre back mowed down everyone this afternoon like a rhino who's spent a night doing bucket sized jagerbombs laced with ketamine. Firminho was basically invisible with Mane the only one that really saw any of the ball in terms of going forward convincingly. Hazard got the standing ovation he deserved when he was subbed, because he was unplayable for much of today. Alexander-Arnold got completely schooled by him. Courtois was nigh on faultless at the back, Clyne could not get near Alonso all afternoon and Cesc used every inch of space they stupidly gave him to put in a great performance. And Conte deserves much credit too. This was much more like the bloke we fell in love with last season. I just wish he’d been around more this season. It's easier to be running down a team ahead with two games to go than it is to hold your nerve. Especially when that team tryinf to do that is Sp*rs. Who excel at collapsing like a child’s step ladder under the weight of Sam Allardyce at any given opportunity. Dare to dream, yes, that we may sucker punch them down into the Europa League and make them cry, rendering that smug once in a generation win at the Bridge totally useless. But don't lose track of the two victories we need to be in with a chance of doing it. We are not in the top four with two games to go because we p*ssed it up the wall in games we should have won. That we get to cause them some angst and possibly turf them or even the Scouse out of the Champions League spots is a massive bonus with which to entertain ourselves on the run in. But we have no chance if we don’t win, and though I like to think we are in a much better place lately, based on our showings this season we could quite easily roll over for Huddersfield midweek if we don't stay focused. AC @CFCgwlb *Picture of a happy Beard comes from Chelsea's website. |
AuthorAlex Churchill Categories |