Chelsea 0 Manchester Citeh 1
Saturday 30th September 2017 17:30

Well that got your attention. If you came here joyfully looking for a Gary-bashing session: Shame. On. You. 

I got a text from my dear old mum on 85 minutes. "Why do Chelsea look so bad?" My response? "Because for about an hour we tried to play with someone my height at centre forward and pretended that he was 6'4"."

In the News: Chequebook Pulis was moaning about a fixture pileup after their trip to Moscow. Everyone else is still moaning about how easy United's Champions League group is. Again. The only thing you have to conquer is distance my friend. And don't worry, as with every other day that ends in a Y you had an easy fixture lined up for the weekend. Speaking of moaning, Southgate is complaining that as England manager he doesn't have good players to choose from and half of them don't deserve to wear the shirt. Er, you got the bit where you only had English players to choose from, right? That was in the job description? He'd have to be as dumb as a post to only be realising that his prospects were sh*t now. And Klippity Klopp has been having a whinge too. About the possibility of being dragged down to London on 24th December to play Arsenal. "Nobody wants to see this happen on Christmas Eve". He says. Oh, but I do. I really want to think of your horrible lot crawling home when it's already Christmas Day. And besides, it's a local game for half his fans anyway. They all live in North London. And have southern accents. I hear them moaning on Talksport, blud. Speaking of London’s hovels, Ancelotti to West Ham is doing the rounds on the rumour mill. Please God, such a nice man, such a horrible place, don't do that to him. The Daily Fail's FIFA 2018 correspondent (No, I'm not letting this go until they do) has now been paid to do a comparison of all past FIFA games, thus dragging out the most ridiculous contract in journalism. Which is almost as stupid as their three wise men concept. Remember? Redknapp, Keown and Sutton? Jesus wept. According to Keown, Nelson, I know, who? (Some kid who drew the short straw at Arsenal and had to go to Belarus with part-timers like Wilshere and Walcott in the silly European competition) shows qualities you'd associate with Neymar. What a Bellend. I also display similar qualities to Messi. Such as breathing in and out.  And I leave you with this thought. Roy Keane, yes: Roy. Keane. Had the audacity to write (more likely attach his name to something someone else wrote) that David Luiz is a liability to his teammates on account of his erratic and fighty behaviour. Pot, kettle, etc. 

The Others: Meh who cares. Palace still haven’t scored, Huddersfield rolled over and played dead and the rest I haven’t got a clue, because I can’t be arsed to watch Match of the Day when we lose. Lineker is uglier when he is gloating over our misfortune than at any other time. Unless it’s when he’s crapping himself on live television and trying to wipe his arse on the pitch. 

Them: They were missing Mendy, who has done the dreaded cruciate thingy to his knee. And Aguero. I’m not going to lie, when I found out he wasn’t seriously hurt, but just enough to miss a few games I did some fist-pumping. Who goes out on the p*ss in Amsterdam 48 hours before the biggest game of the season so far? Dick. But if you think that was the stupidest injury this week, spare a thought for a hooker (this is a real thing in egg chasing apparently) who plays for something called Ospreys, who has been ruled out of action because he was bitten by a lion.

Us: Luiz serves out his suspension, making way for Rudiger and Christensen comes in too as Conte opted to push Dave out as RWB instead of using  Moses, which was sound in my opinion against such a sharp attack. George Michael took up his usual spot on the left, Kante was deployed slightly ahead of Bakayoko as on Wednesday night, and Antonio opted to have Fabregas, Hazard and Morata in attack. 

3-1 was my prediction. Silly me. Both teams shot out of the blocks. In the first ten minutes we had a mere 25% of the ball, but I expected that. And that did certainly not mean that we were under a constant barrage. In fact we could have gone ahead right at the start when Kante did what everyone tries to do now and put the ball on Morata’s head. The resulting shot went over the bar. They had a decent free kick shortly afterwards, but the ball went straight into Thibaut’s arms. At this point Boycie’s son, Tyler (sitcom aliases) pointed out that from our corner of the Shed Upper, Pep looked hilarious. The gleaming white trainers, the chavvy jacket, he looked like he was about to head out clubbing in Croydon. Blue Orchid style. For every half chance they had we followed. A limp wide shot by some bald git I didn’t recognise, who it turns out is David Silva going for a convict chic look, was followed up by a deft break from Hazard. 

Then on fourteen minutes came the first instance of what became the most unbelievable display of f*ckwittery on the part of a linesman I have seen, well, since the last one. Either he had a spasm in his flag arm or he was a bonafide moron, but the end result was that the individual running the line in front of the West Stand became even less popular at Stamford Bridge this evening than the idea of a return stint from Scolari. Naked.

iPhone spellcheck changes De Bruyne to De Britney, which is too good not to use. For the first half an hour he was muzzled efficiently by Bakayoko, as was Sane, who seemed to have assumed the role of roving dying swan. This was like a game against the Scouse, you felt. We needed to get through the first half an hour without conceding. At this point Gonzo (Muppet alias) was apoplectic with rage because Tyler had gone and located a (supposedly chicken) pie, therefore lining his stomach to ready himself for the Gonzo challenge. (four pints at half time, I’m told) We made it through the half hour, but then our evening started falling apart when Morata began signalling to De Britney to put the ball out. It was probably a gamble to start him today, given that he wasn’t totally comfortable for much of the game in Madrid, but one you’d take. Unfortunately he couldn’t continue and, bizarrely for me, he was replaced by Willian with Hazard pushing up, sort of, to replace our ailing striker. The pace went out of the game, there was a mopey atmosphere in the stands for the rest of the half. They'd had far more possession and far more attempts but I didn't feel like we'd been under really heavy pressure. Anytime we did get into the final third though, it was embarrassing, and in the end Thibaut grabbed the plaudits for Chelsea with a save to keep the score level right before half time. For City? The Lino was the best on the pitch. 

Tyler managed the one pint at half time. Gonzo’s face was one of unmitigated disappointment. This look did not fade when he resumed watching the game. We were on the back foot as soon as the second half began, culminating in a shot from close range hit wide on 48 minutes. There were huge, ironic jeers of sarcastic applause for the lino every time he gave us a throw in.  For him, the next 45 mins of his life was going to be pretty unbearable, but no more than he deserved. We had not remotely recovered from the loss of Morata. We were so woeful in the last third it was embarrassing. Poor Hazard, who had started the game brightly, was completely isolated and rendered so invisible by playing as a striker that he may as well not have been on the pitch. When he did finally break on 59 minutes, you knew Fernandinho was going to clean him out, because that is just what that awful little sh*tbag does. The resulting free kick that went sideways from Fabregas was a bit bizarre, but it did ping into the six yard box. It did also succeed in sparking life into both the players and the crowd, but by now we were fully under the cosh, with no outlet. It took some heroics to keep the score level; namely from Rudiger and an acrobatic George Michael. We were lucky not to be behind, and then lo and behold came a lapse that let in De Britney, of course it would be him, to put City ahead. I was p*ssed that it was a shot from that far out and we let it through. Urgh. 

Cue one of those monumental bellends in front of us. You know the ones. You’ve never ever seen them in your life before, but they decide to get up and start going “sing up you c***s!” To everyone. As if they be a paragon of support when they aren’t even looking at the pitch. You know it's bad when the supporters are arguing amongst themselves. I now felt like it would be a miracle if we got anything out of this game. Because playing without an established striker is a bad idea when you are losing. We were getting more and more laboured with every minute that passed, especially Bakayoko and Kante, who had run their nuts off in Madrid. (I make no assumption about the size of said nuts) We had completely lost all ability to pass the ball to each other. 

Conte made his last two changes. Hazard went off, presumably not quite up to two back to back full games in four days yet; and he was replaced by Pesto. (Another autospell gem) At last Michy came on. OK, I know he isn’t everyone’s joyous idea of a substitute, but given that he pops up and scores goals like those in West Brom and earlier in the week, it blows my mind that we had to wait until there were just fifteen minutes left to see him come on. Fabregas had gone back to sit in front of the defence with an exhausted Kante. So it really was sh*t or bust. It had got so bad that we were cheering like Gooners when we won corners. We immediately looked better going forward but I dreaded to think what would happen if then came at us, and it looked like too little, too late. The crowd was up, the players were up but we squandered what attempts we did have, and our passing remained woefully loose. Which brings me to Refwatch: Atkinson. Apart from failure to notice what looked distinctly like Ederson scampering out of his box with the ball in his hand, which was a stinker, I don’t think he had a bad day considering he was trying to do the job of of three people at once. He was determined to let the game flow from the start, he saw through Jesus and Sterling diving, and he booked Fernandinho when he wiped out Hazard. But his support from the other officials was shocking. EIGHT times offside they would have you believe. City 0. Does that sound right to you? Thats compared to once against Stoke, and four times against Arsenal, and it wasn’t anything to do with their defence being uber smart. The linesmen were just thick. If TV tells you anything it’s been doctored as part of the red agenda. I guarantee it. The remainder of the game was slowed down as much as City could manage, and when we did get the ball we couldn’t do anything with it. Even the ball boy couldn't complete a pass to help us get it back in play on 87. We headed over just after that, and in injury time I think we strung five passes together for the first time in the second half, but we could have stayed there till midnight and not scored today.   

So: If I was a bigger person I would say that the better team won. But I am the worst loser you can think of. So I can’t. I won’t argue with anyone who does say it though. I will just point out, somewhat pettily, the fact that Sane has a full length portrait of himself covering his back complete with stadium background as he celebrates a goal. (It doesn’t even look like him) Ederson has a f*cking emoji covering half of his neck and John Stones now appears to have a stripper tattoo covering the whole of his thigh. So we walk away with the moral high ground. 

Lampard hailed our win midweek as one of the best European performances he's seen by an English side. Consider it against Arsenal's trouncing at the hands of Bayern - a team with another impressive recent European record. They lost 10-2 on aggregate. It was an inspiring performance for a Premier League side when they have been lacking in the competition of late. But 72 hours after we became the first English team to win away at Atletico in the Champions League, we looked void of all energy and pretty terrible as the evening progressed. I don't know if Willian completed a pass all day. George Michael tried, but Walker just shut him down. Hazard was isolated through no fault of his own, Bakayoko and Kante faded badly. We've all supported Chelsea long enough to see this before. When you expect nothing we get miracles and when you come in breezily expecting a result we fall on our ar*e.

This result had little to do with Cahill, or indeed Rudi or Christensen. The defenders that played midweek looked fresher than most. Our game was over when Morata went off and it needn't necessarily have been, which was as frustrating as our inability to complete a pass. If you’re Michy you are going to go home and pick another row with EA Sports. Or cry. I think the disparity in mid-week action, them playing Ukrainians at home on Tuesday and us playing away to Atletico on Wednesday showed as the game went on. Antonio was understandably much frustrated by the complete lack of time between this huge match and the game in Madrid, but he made the wrong calls today. We played half the match sacrificing our best player by using Hazard as a centre forward in exactly the same way we would Morata. Why? When we had a striker on the bench? But then I can't remember the last time we said that about our manager, and let’s not forget we were quite rightly hailing him as a genius for his work earlier in the week. 

We lost by one goal, not five. Some of the players didn’t look at it today, but it wasn’t for want of trying. Take yourself back to the loosely corresponding fixture last year, the last before going into the October break was Arsenal away - and we were pathetic. I could have taken to the field with Uncle Albert and Gonzo and we could have had more of a go at the Emirates. City were top then too. We were 7th and eight points behind them. Now? 4th, and six off. So no nappysh*tting required. That is, though, two European games and two non results the following weekend, albeit against top end “rivals.” We should keep an eye on that though, before we turn into Sp*rs. And we haven't scored twice in a row now at Stamford Bridge so watch out for “a club in crisis” in the red rags tomorrow. Yawn. 

AC

*Photo of the awful stripper tattoo comes from Chelsea's official website.

Please don't forget to donate to our charity page if you can spare a few pounds. It's just about six weeks now until we leave for Jordan to walk across the desert for Veterans in Action

Atletico Madrid 1 Chelsea 2
Wednesday 27th September 2017 19:45

I warn you - if you are not of the disposition that finds lewd British sexual innuendo amusing. You should go and find your match report elsewhere, because tonight, Patsy was in town. 

In the News: Real Pulis is complaining that Sanchez is a cheater as if he is the only person in the world that didn't know this before Monday night. PSG have offered Cavani £1m to hand over penalty duties. I do wonder if anyone that runs that bonkers club has ever watched a game of football. FIFA will now let us wear poppies. As if we didn’t just ignore them and wear them before. Dicks. Bryan Robson says Klopp and Conte are allowed to act like lunatics but that Chequebook Pulis gets punished for it. I don’t pay enough attention to Kilppity Klopp to care, but certainly in Antonio’s case he’s only a threat to himself. He actually shredded both his groin and the crotch of his trousers at once last season on the touchline. Nothing that our boss does involves harassing and verbally abusing every official/member of the opposition in sight. 

Motherwell have a "legend" called Steven Craigan. No, I had never heard of him either until he brutally tackled Chris Sutton when he was wittering away on air at Fir Park, which I am reliably informed is in Scotland. Try and catch it on YouTube. I’ve watched him hit the deck about thirty times and it hasn’t got old yet. The Red Spawn have now done an article on players' FIFA speed ratings and who would win a theoretical foot race. Do the Daily Fail just have a FIFA 2018 correspondent? If so this is potentially the most stupid job ever, and that comes after I learned at Windsor this week that Queen Victoria appointed an "animal painter to the Queen." I was devastated to learn that this was not as much fun as it sounded and that he painted pictures of the animals, and did not tart up cows in psychedelic colours for Her Majesty's amusement. 

The Others: The Scouse failed. Chuckles Karius was sh*t (after telling everyone that he wants to be picked ahead of Krusty Mignolet) and everyone seems to be preoccupied with the fact that Klippity started Coutinho, Mane, Firmino and Salah together. Yes, but they still didn’t win. Do pundits and press plebs learn nothing? Why is no one bothered about the fact that the reason they didn’t win was because they can’t stop conceding at the other end? Allegedly, Conte contributed in some tiny way to that results with some tips for the opposition manager. That makes me happy. Unlike the fact that Sp*rs won and I am subjected to nonsense about Harry F*cking Kane because he scored some more goals against minnows. Someone should flag with a member of the medical professional just how quickly boxing appears to be obliterating the capacity of the few brain cells Rio Ferdinand had in the first place, because he says that he is as good as Ronaldo and Messi. Also, Pochettino says his love for HFK has made his wife jealous. Make of that what you will. United have swatted aside their Russian opposition, while City made quite a big deal out of their game but won in the end. 

Them: Familiar faces tonight, but Torres started on the bench and Costa looked marginally more awake in the stands. Six months ago Greizmann was looking spiffy enough to be invited to make a shampoo advert. Now he looks like a sad homage to Patrick Swayze in Point Break. Wearing a headband.

Us: This was undoubtedly a chance to show that we belong at Europe’s top table. Luiz came into the starting lineup, with Cahill to his left and Dave to his right. Moses and George Michael on the wings, Kante and Bakayoko sat in front and Fabregas was pushed up to join Hazard and Morata. 

Standard practice for European aways which we are too poor/lazy to attend is for Uncle Albert/Royus, Denzil (Only Fools and Horses) and Patsy to meet at our local to watch the game. Even before kick off Patsy had blown Uncle Albert’s mind with talk of E Cups and possible uses for a cucumber, he was praying for the game to start just so he’d have somewhere else to look. Roll on kick-off, pitting football’s most successful hair transplant against football’s most drastic combover. 

First thoughts: Atletico have started quickly and: Robbie Savage is commentating. Joy. 

I was expecting no possession, and that’s what we achieved in the opening minutes, as the home side pinged the ball around easily. But the first thing that looked remotely like a chance fell to us on four minutes, Hazard shanking it wide. A minute later he hit the side netting. We weathered the early pressure and settled into the game, and actually we were having the better opportunities. On 12 minutes Hazard, my man of the match tonight, cut across the box and put a shot in. The keeper was beaten but the ball took a deflection, and however that altered the flight of the ball (too much cheap gin, couldn't’ figure it out) it ended up cracking the post. Patsy had gone into a diatribe about Eden and his backside, until I told her that when I met him it depressed me that he was thinner than me, so she was half watching the game and half devising a scheme to lock him in her loft and fatten him up. Meanwhile on the pitch it was an open game, but the Atletico play-acting was already p*ssing me off, as well as the referees inability to recognise that you needn’t go down clutching your face if nobody has actually touched you. On 20 minutes Luis was rolling on the floor like Kante had tried to kill him, making card gestures. I knew there was a reason beyond his sh*t hair that I didn't care that much when we sold him. 

Despite being about half an hour from Stamford Bridge, on a bad day, the foolish landlady had decided to split the screens between us and United. 95% of the pub was of the blue persuasion, but of course I ended up next to three tedious Middle Class Southern Plastic Mancs (MCSPMs) drinking Speckled Hen and talking absolute b*llocks. We came close again on 23 minutes when Morata could have scored another with his head. A sublime ball in, but it didn’t quite come off. Patsy didn’t mind on account of the close ups of Alvaro, who is her new obsession. She has surmised that “it's so nice to be able to follow up every game with a w*nk even if we lose.” Hold tight, I told Uncle Albert. She's only two gins in, she’ll get worse yet. 

Hazard was having an outstanding first half, partly because he was being really quite selfish, which I don’t object to in the slightest when he is on this form. Bitterly, the MCSPMs were loudly pontificating about how “easy” our group is, in case you needed any more clarification that the were tossers. Just after half an hour we had had 53% possession, conceded nothing and Atletico had not even had a shot on target. You could argue with confidence that we deserved to be ahead. It was a very disciplined, very sensible performance and I was that ecstatic that I went and bought more cheap gin. 

Then along came David Luiz. I agree that I saw thirty similar shirt pulls at Stoke on Saturday and that none of them were penalised. But this is Europe. The fact that Luiz barely argued the point himself says it all. Silly, silly boy. I was hoping that Greizmann wouldn’t be able to see through the Wurzel Gummidge wig stuck to his head, but his penalty was pretty emphatic. The MCSPMs jeered in our faces. I wont lie. I contemplated hitting them with a tonic bottle. We had a couple of half chances before the break, both long range, from Cahill and George Michael, but we went in to half time behind, and actually we were lucky that it was only a single goal deficit thanks to an Atletico attempt right before the whistle.

I spent half time torturing a plastic London Scouser. He swaggered past us and mentioned that they had had 169 shots in the last half an hour of football, or whatever, and therefore were better than us. By the time I finished with my Klippity transfer window mockery and ripping their defence to shreds he’d run away to hide in the toilets. Meanwhile the bartender, when Patsy asked for a large one said: "would you like a gin with that" Guffaw, guffaw. Bless him he thought he was being very risqué. I refer your back to Patsy's previous first half comments which make him look like a smut peasant.

Atletico are consistently strong in the Champions League for a reason. “Masters of the Dark Arts” says Albert, in reference to the conning of free kicks out of the referee, and in a rare lucid moment Patsy articulated another interesting interpretation; that Spanish football can be largely about who is the better side at fouling the opposition and getting away with it. It’s the officials who need to be strong and adept at clarifying what is nonsense play-acting and what is actually an infringement of this rules. This referee tonight largely failed at this. We were debating whether he was a gooch (I’ll leave you to google that one) or a chode, which according to Patsy is a man part that is unfortunately as wide as it is long. As this debate ensued, Juanfran was rolling about on the floor holding his face having not been touched. Presumably he fell over his own massively receding hair line. When players do this this blatantly in Spain it sickens me. They deserve to be kicked in the crotch by someone wearing steel toecaps. Multiple times.

As the clock was about to tick onto the hour we finally had something to show for all of our hard work when Luiz redeemed himself by playing a great ball out to Hazard who crossed it perfectly into the box. Who else but Morata would be there to nod it in and set Conte off going batsh*t crazy on the touchline. The plastic Scouser was by now fighty and drunk and saying that Morata is shIt because all he's got is his head. I responded by licking his face. Agonisingly, we could have actually gone ahead minutes later but for a terrible miss by Fabregas. At the risk of sounding like whiny Scouser man, at this point we had had 18 attempts on goal to Atletico’s seven, surely we could aim for the win? It was a thoroughly entertaining game, end to end, feisty, and the referee’s ineptitude at deciding what was a foul and what was not was at least beginning to pay dividends for us too. They had forays forward, but we came closer to scoring, Moses pulling a shot wide and Morata making a fierce run forward only to send his shot wide too on 73 minutes. We had spent much of the time fending off sniping from plastic Scouser man. Patsy put him in his place and declared herself a “Bantersaurus Rex.” What does that make him? I asked? “A chode,” she replied. 

Conte’s substitutions began with taking off Morata and Hazard. They had both had the sh*t kicked out of them. With City on Saturday, and with Pep’s brats getting an extra day to recover from European action this was sound. Michy and Willian were the fresh pairs of legs introduced. Patsy was devastated, and resorted to scouting along the bar for something else to perv at. Antonio’s last change turned out to be inspired. Fabregas came off for Christensen. Uncle Albert was doing his tactical nut trying to figure out what was about to happen. The answer? Andreas slipped into the middle of the back three and Luiz went up into midfield. Suddenly we looked strong again as the final whistle approached. By this point the game was frantic. Atletico were trying to win, I think we would have been happy with a point. Cahill saved the day on 89 minutes with some calm play, but we had dropped very deep. With just the last of injury time to play, Luiz did a Juanfran and picked up a free kick. Into the box the ball went, and with seconds left Bakayoko played a neat flick out to George Michael, who put a cross in with his right, yes right foot. Who was on the end of it? Who else. Michy. Cue meltdown in the pub. Even the PMCSMs high-fived us. Plastic Scouser pouted in the corner. The biggest cheer of the night though? Seconds later when the whistle went and the camera zoomed in on Diego Costa. Bless him. 

So: Though he basically redeemed himself, this penalty tonight and the red against Arsenal, it's Retro Luiz. Someone shake him by the hair and make it stop. We saw Morata and Hazard start together for the first time. And wow. Conte beat Simeone tonight with his changes. Inspired. We weren't even in this competition last year - our boys were putting in London night-time training sessions on European nights, presumably to keep some kind of rhythm with the schedule. Conte pulled off a miracle in his first season, when actually what was required of him was to bail out a sinking ship. So this, for me, is year one. We had a relaxed start to life back in Europe's premier competition and tonight was the first real measure of where we are following a spell of exile. This, for me, was an outstanding away performance and makes me a whole lot more confident about our chances further into the competition if we can keep it up. 

Patsy has had to go home after half a bottle of sh*t gin to ice a marble cake for the Macmillan Coffee morning. This is why you just suck up the financial hit and buy a big box of cupcakes from M&S. Same starting line up on Saturday would do me. I think it’s a battle of the defences, and I fancy our chances. 

AC

Photo of screamy Conte comes from Chelsea's official website

Any and all donations for our Blue Trekker walk across the desert in aid of wounded veterans still mutely appreciated - please following the link below if you can spare anything!

Chelsea 6 FK Carrier Bag 0
Tuesday 12th September 2017 19:45

We all hate UEFA - crooked b*stards. But we'd be lying if we said we didn't forget that like the European football loving whores we all are when we hear that damned theme music as the teams walk onto the pitch. At least until we get knocked out, then we can resume hating them again. 

In the news: I reserved top spot here for the Zlatan: "Lukaku is better than me? You make me laugh, my nose is bigger than his career." If you haven't googled this man's top 10 quotes, you haven't lived. The Daily Fail are that bored that they’ve begun running daily articles about players’ ratings on FIFA 18. Yes. Computer football. Can only assume it is some dastardly ploy to try and con a whole new generation of schmucks into reading their newspaper. Their so-called three wise men have been at it again this week. Despite the sight of stitches all over his victim’s face, Chris Sutton insists that Mane should not have been sent off for dangerous play, and that anyone who says that they believe he should have been is a “liar.” I was marginally more disturbed by the close up that reveals that Ederson has a f*cking emoji tattooed on his neck. Another of these exalted pundits, namely Redknapp, has suddenly declared that taking part in one 5-0 drubbing against just ten of Klippity Klopp’s band of muppets after months of being pretty average makes De Bruyne the best player in the league. I suppose at some point people thought the world was flat, but that is still no excuse for this level of f*ckwittery. Klopp meanwhile says that his midfielders are to blame for the loss. If his dubious adhesion to personal hygiene didn’t convince you he wasn’t right in the head, this should. And remember how four weeks ago they thought that Antonio would win the race to be the first outgoing manager? De Boer is gone. Too soon in my opinion. Palace weren’t that bad against Burnley. They sacked Pardew for that big sow Allardyce too. Every time they make a move that threatens to lift them to a new level they panic and revert to sh*t on a stick football. Why else would you hire Uncle Woy? 

The Others: Happily, in our group, Atlético and Roma both dropped points in a 0-0 draw, which means that we lead the pack with a hefty goal difference. We couldn’t have asked for a better start. In United’s suspiciously easy (as always) group they ran out 3-0 winners against Basel and CSKA beat Benfica at theirs. Celtic got a beating from PSG and Bayern subdued Anderlecht, so no surprises there. Somewhat bafflingly, Barcelona managed to put three past Juve’s stingy defence, leaving them on the back foot and Sporting beat Olympiakos. The Italians will still be confident of getting out of that group. 

Them: I'm going to take this seriously. Mowgli even bought me a programme for this section. FK Carrier Bag (ok, not that seriously) play in Baku, in a 68,000 seater stadium, so they aren't minnows in their neck of the woods. They are Azerbaijan's league champions and played in the group stages of the Europa League last season. Just like Arsenal will this week. They had already played seven matches to get to this opening game of the group stages, including beating Copenhagen over two legs, so they have earned their spot. They are a multinational side, with representatives from the Ukraine, Poland, Bosnia, Spain, South Africa and Haiti as well as a pile of home grown players. Their captain is an Azerbaijani footballing legend. Now I have said all this respectfully, I can say that if you offered me a billion pounds I could not pick one out of a line up and name him. I really do wish I was doing the away game, because I’ve never been remotely near Baku, but it clashes with my walking across the desert in aid of veterans. (Link below, with info, all donations much appreciated) ​

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AlexandraChurchill 

Us: Some squad rotation tonight before a game against some mid-table has-beens on Sunday. Cahill and Christensen came in for Rudiger and Luiz, Batshuayi for Morata, and in midfield Hazard still sitting out, Willian starts then, as does Fabregas. Zappacosta made his full debut in place of Victor Moses. 

And so there we were on a rainy September evening. You know it's not the normal crowd in when the Shed Upper gets an early round of "Ziggy Zagga." And we were treated to a hospitality box next to the Shed taken up by rampant Azerbaijanis in full voice. Bless 'em. They stayed till the end and screamed themselves hoarse. The opening five minutes was a quick rush up the far end and then a flurry of chances for the likes of George Michael and Michy. We were ahead almost straight after those thanks to a perfectly hit long range strike from Pesto. (Pah, autospell) He was winding up to hit that thirty seconds before the ball arrived at his foot, he had that much time and space. They settled down a little by the tenth minute, and were knocking the ball about quite quickly amongst themselves, but every time we were running on goal they looked like they were sh*tting their pants. Quite a lot of ball hogging going on in blue - with everyone sensing a chance to get one. Michy did hit a ball back for Willian, who had clearly shaken of his jet lag, but when the save came back his own way he could only hit the side netting. On 21 mins Zappacosta almost had his first goal too, but he was offside. As Boycie (sitcom alias) pointed out, probably no need for the ridiculous Hollywood save by the goalkeeper. But then that never stops De Gea does it? 

There was a bit of hope for the away side when a free kick was heading straight towards goal on 28 minutes, but it got no further than the wall. Then we went straight up the other end and Zappacosta stunned the crowd with a worldy half an hour into his Stamford Bridge career. That's what a goal looks like when you mean it, Harry F*cking Kane. Because he did. He looked up, couldn't see a cross and for me, he decided to have a go. If he contradicts this, I am right and he is wrong, by nature of me being a woman. Because we are always right. Victor Moses has to share his tune with the Italian new boy now - that goal was worthy of the immediate "Doo doo doo do, Zappacosta." We also had a round of "Zappacosta - he scores when he wants." Not a Y word in sight. The Red Swarm will be disappointed. We could have had a third on 32 for George Michael or Kante, but for the ball getting tangled under a prostrate defender’s feet in between them. Zappacosta had another one go wide on 34. There was now a universal shout of shoooooooot every time he touched the ball. (no doubt tomorrow the Red Swarm will be saying that we booed him) For their part, they had a low drive from distance go straight into Thibaut's hands just after half an hour, but although they had been spirited they never really looked like scoring. They made a decent run a couple of minutes later, but it was swept up with some acrobatics on the part of Cahill and Azpilicueta. 

Part-timer Granville was already p*ssed off about the lack of beer on European nights. Then they ran out of hotdogs at the other end of the Shed at half time. "Wouldn't have happened on Kenyon's watch!” He moaned. I expect they did have them, but when he asked for gravy on it they looked at him in disgust and denied it. It's bad enough the pig has to die, without disrespecting it with all that northern nonsense.  

This was turning out to be even more chilled out than Everton. The last two home games have made this football lark look rather easy. There was a bit of a lull after half time; another shot on target from them, but not enough on it and easily taken by Courtois. Boycie and I had to put up with the two losers next to us talking about women that weren't attractive enough for their liking. Neither of them was an oil painting. They paid a combined amount of £60 to sit and bitch about girlfriends. You could do that for a lot less in your local Spoons. And I wouldn't have to hear it. Happily Dave briefly shut them on 55 minutes when Fabregas put the ball into him. Absolutely unmarked in the box.
I says to Boycie: We should hammer this, we might need the goal difference in a tight group. 
He says: Yeah. 
Right on cue, because Antonio always listens to us, there was Eden's bum jumping up and down waiting to come on for Pesto. I should point out that in the p*ssing rain, with his coat undone like the 'ard b*stard that he is, Conte was still raving like a lunatic at 3-0 up. He made a second change just after the hour mark, resting Kante ahead of a Sunday and giving Bakayoko a run out. I expected the opposition to be hanging out of their a*ses by now, looking like Wayne Rooney falling out of a Volkswagen Beetle with a kebab hanging out of his mouth in the wee small hours. To their credit, though, they were much fitter than I expected and still running, but they still didn't look like achieving much at the end of it. We were back to Ziggy Zagga again. There are literally two words to this song. How can you get them wrong? 

Then the floodgates opened. Willy hit the bar before Bakayoko saw his shot deflected into the back of the net on 70 minutes.The indomitable Dave was given a bit of a rest and replaced with Rudiger, but the back three still didn't look remotely troubled. Michy finally got his goal on 75 at the near post. He hadn't played badly at all, but he had squandered a couple of half chances, enough to set off a bout of sphincter action among the nappysh*tters.  It would, though, have been pretty cataclysmic had he not been amongst a pile of goal-scorers tonight. Happily he got another on 81 when Batshuayi (and the defender) bundled it over on the line. As the game wound down they they could have had one, but some bloke put it high. Two minutes later their number 9 hit it even further over the bar and looked like he wanted to dig a hole on the pitch and climb in it. I didn't think they were embarrassing tonight. They were outclassed by a mile and it may turned out to be that I'm high on cow after the amount of birthday burger I ate before kick off, but I don't recall any Mignolet/Moreno style clownery that you would have laughed at. Refwatch: typical Euro ref, classes football as a non contact sport. Blew the whistle far too many times but I'll take that over the Premier League when they can't stay consistent for five minutes. Gladiator style, thumbs up, I will let him live. This time. 

So: Hard to judge in such an uneven contest. Zappacosta was an absolute menace on the the right hand side. Hazard looks like he's getting right back into the swing of things - though not ready for ninety minutes yet by any means. Again Bakayoko showed flashes of absolute beastery when he came on, and I maintain that in his tackling and his general aura of scariness Rudiger reminds me of Ivanovic c.2009. Willian fully awake again after his long flight back from international duty and solid performances from Cahill and Christensen coming in having not played at length for a while. Any criticism? Against better opposition Michy won't be able to miss four or five chances to have a go at the goal before he puts one away. But we won 6-0 and he got a brace, so if I got on his back now I'd sound like an Arsenal fan. Speaking of, that was a nice run out before we face the Goons at the weekend, by which time I will have consumed that much gin to dull the pain of ageing another year that I can't promise my match report will make any sense. Till then... 

AC 

​*Picture of rabid Conte comes from Chelsea's official website

Steal of the day on TDD was undoubtedly how Swansea managed to get Bayern to loan them a player. Well done Paul Clement. But the "How the F*ckDid They Manage That?" award this summer still has to go to United for convincing us to sell them Matic. The prize for reckless spending in the pursuit of greatness goes to PSG, naturally, but the trophy (let's hope it is the only one) for "You May Have Done Better Than Us But I'm Sure You Will Still Fail" goes to Pep, because I like being right. Though they are of course the lesser of all other evils. 

The Window: Which has been the subject of so much rage, desperation and angst, not to mention a frantic licking from Harry F*cking Kane in the last two months is shut. Finally. 

Waaaaah. We didn't get everything we wanted. Sigh. Nobody did.

This isn't Football Manager. There are more factors in play besides your club deciding they want someone and offering their club an amount that they would happily take. These are human beings and as much as you want them to sign for us, it's a highly intricate piece of work with motivations and influences you haven't got the first clue about unless you are in the room. Most significantly, you have to factor in the (often verminous) agents with the ear of the player whose priority motivation in some cases is often to line their own pockets (viz. Pogba to Juve and back again) 

So. Chequebook Pulis said that he wanted four top quality players. He got three expensive ones, one of whom I'm dubious about being that high on quality. And he'll get a few weeks out of the now unknown entity in post-injury Zlatan. But they got their business done early. And look more settled for it. Well for that and the easy fixture run. For me, as much as it makes me sick in my mouth, they look like early front runners. Good job they're not sanctimonious entitled gits about it, isn't it. 

City failed in their own way too - to get Sanchez in the end. Still they have been winners over the summer in all but this, but with great spending comes great responsibility, or whatever it was that some bloke said. Absolutely nowhere for Pep to hide this season, winning the league the bare minimum. And a great big dent in the knockout stages of the Champions League. Anything else is failure. And I don't think he will win the league. Because to win the Premiership you have to be able to get your players to defend. And he hasn't so far. His A game is still trying to outscore the opposition by seven goals and this is naive.  Even if they did buy every fullback in Europe with a pulse that was going. So far this has not improved either Pep's hairline or their defensive ability. Huzzah. 

Arsenal failed with their number one target, Lemar. They were prepared to obliterate their transfer record for him. Which is new. Even after Giroud tried to stuff him in his beard and abduct him from international duty he still wasn't interested. And they have a dressing room with a star man in it who doesn't want to be there. And a manager nobody respects anymore. And they've had a stinker of a start and a f*cking rotten conclusion to the window which has probably left Lacazette sobbing over a fancy bottle of wine on noticing he is surrounded by people stampeding for the exit. All except for Wilshere, who is clinging to the physio table and refusing to let go as they try and drag him out. Someone broke into their club shop and the standing joke is that when the police arrived they found 17,000 season tickets left on the doormat. Knobhead, my one Gooner friend gave me the following appraisal: "It's not the lack of signings, it's the lack of the one major transfer that we all wanted; a new manager. But, at least we aren't pinning our hopes on Danny fucking Drinkwater! Xx." Touché knobhead, touché. As a last laugh, they told Sky, with a straight face, that they were entirely happy with their transfer doings this summer. ATV should be a cracker this season. 

The Scouse didn't get Van Dijk, which is the player they needed more than anything. For this alone they have had an average summer by my estimation. When they didn't get him and ended up with egg on their dirty faces at the beginning of the window they should have had a plan B, a plan C, a plan D and then finally a parachute for Klippity Klopp. Because despite the fact that they have Boring James Milner and f*cking Moreno the Clown in defence (not to mention two goalkeepers with less hand/eye coordination than a blindfolded Liver bird with one wing) they have not strengthened this area. So it matters little how many people are fighting for positions further forward. I'm not even talking about getting goals past their main rivals without reply. I'm talking about not being able to fathom a way around massive donkeys like Stoke or Real Pulis. There is no contingency and as far as I am concerned you just tackle a game with them as you did last season. Shut them out for as long as possible and wait for them to run out of ideas and make an inevitable cock up at the back. 

Sp*ds haven't set the world alight either. Just their own town. 


But more importantly than any of them, how did we do in the end?  

We’ve replaced Ivanovic - Rudiger
We've replaced Matic - Bakayoko
We've replaced Mikel - Drinkwater
We’ve replaced Costa - Morata
We’ve brought youth through to replace JT - Christensen
We’ve replaced Begovic - Caballero - for free. 
We’ve replaced Oscar with a different kind of player more suited to reinforcing our new system - Zappacosta.

Yes. Woe is us. What a crisis. I've read a stat I'm too lazy to check that says we've spent c.£180m. We haven't disclosed a lot of info so it's not an exact science. 

If you are a Chelsea fan, and I'd have told you in May that "by August Alvaro Morata will be a Chelsea player," and you say you would not have wet your pants in excitement. You lie. 

Likewise, if you don't at least appreciate the potential of Rudiger, a beast who has defended in Italy, where it is an art-form, or Bakayoko, who was a significant part of Monaco's stunning season last time out, then nobody can help you. These three were our big signings. And I am happy with them.

If you want to complain about bringing Christensen through (remember we've bought a Rudi too) instead of trying to buy the likes of Van Dijk, then I don't want to hear another word out of you about loaning kids out or not giving youth a chance. Ever. Chelsea have been true to their word with this particular kid. This season he would get to stay and fight for a place after a two year spell in Germany. The coolness of his performance against both Burnley after coming on and at Wembley has already vindicated this for me. I wouldn't put him ahead of Cahill, but many would and I wouldn't mock them. It's not a stupid debate by any means. 

I far more appreciate a scout that can ferret out talent that can then come and stun us all than I do a club that works out a deal to spend £100m plus on someone who's already "arrived." I couldn't do it, and God knows City have been proof of late that buying the shiniest players at a massive cost and throwing them into one dressing room doesn't automatically equate to a winning team. Unlike all of the nappysh*tters ™ the scouts don't base their entire assessment of a player on FIFA 17. George Michael turned out to be a gem after they all soiled themselves about signing a former Bolton player so let's wait and see, eh? Because Zappacosta is arguably more established than George was when we brought him in and look at how well he has done. I am quite excited to see what Conte gets out of him. We badly needed reinforcements for this area. Deal well done. 

Drinkwater isn't shiny enough? We didn't buy him because he is a world beater, we bought him because midfielders left and only Bakayoko had come in. He has a proven partnership with Kante. We now don't have to consider playing Fabregas in a holding position when we are facing strong teams. It's more options, and more depth. 

This assessment is by no means supposed to be a blanket defence of the board. There are things about this window that have either frustrated me or made me want to repeatedly slap resident pantomime villain Michael Emenalo's silly grinning face with a wet kipper.  

What hasn't gone right? 

We wanted another striker. Some wise person pointed out the probable reason we didn't get Llorente was because a club came in after our discussions, which including booking a medical, and offered him a two year deal. We don't offer more than one year if they're over thirty. I do wonder what Antonio makes of this policy. Seeing as he is Italian and they play till their 70 over there. Possibly didn't make a difference. As at some stage the player agreed to whatever terms he was offered. Not signing a striker means Michy has to step up. He did it at West Brom. Now we want consistency.  He has had time to acclimatise to life at Cobham, he absolutely has to step up regularly now as a reliable number two behind Morata.

As for Diego, though this is Chelsea and anything could happen, his being on the squad list, simple HR manoeuvring if you ask me. If this supposed law suit appears we can argue he was given the chance to play. Had he left South America. 

We needed more cover at wingback. Oxlade-Chamberlain appears to be under the illusion that a move to Liverpool means he can play in the centre of midfield. Bear in mind he never broke into the Arsenal team until he went wide. Whatever, he wants he wants, and it isn't what we wanted. A lot of Scouse fans and even pundits, Carragher is one,  are baffled by this concept of him at CM. My attitude is much the same about anyone umming and aahing about whether they can be bothered to pull on a Chelsea shit. F*ck 'em. , At the time I was p*ssed; but we did get the Zappacosta deal through. But they wanted two. This means that Kenedy is going to have to do his bit, at least until January. He was good enough for Newcastle to be bugging us about a loan deal, so lower end of the Premier League? We can hope that at the very least this means he will be a competent deputy for George Michael in any domestic Cup/Champions League dead rubber action. Just pray that our bouffant little free kick superstar doesn't get injured until we can revisit this in the January window.

Stats - We have already established that we have made good the losses from the first team since last summer. Well, to the extent at least that we have no need to be stamping our feet and whining like little b*tch babies facing the end of the world. 

Last season we had 23 players leave either permanently or on loan. This summer 43. From JT at the top down to teenagers you have never heard of. But who out of these loan deals would you actually have wanted to see in the first team if the occasion demanded it. Let's just stick a pin in the list in a few places. 

Zouma. Had all of last season to stake a claim and couldn't manage it after long term injury. He needs to get his career back on track and play regular football. With Christensen being given his chance and Rudiger coming in, there are not enough opportunities for him at Chelsea this season. Ruben. There's an argument for saying we should have loaned him out earlier. I had kind of come to conclusion by the end of last season that he needed to get out and see some of the world. He is one of the best prospects we have but he needs to play. In retrospect, could we have used him with our subsequent lack of numbers? Keeping him would certainly have been in our best interests, but not his. The same goes for Tammy Abraham. Swansea is the best possible place for because he has made a textbook progression through the leagues and impressed every club he has been at. Bristol City to Chelsea is too much in one hit for a kid unless you are going to suddenly chuck him in at the deep end like Harry F*cking Kane at Sp*ra and play him every week. That happened because the Sp*ds had no other option. With Morata and Michy to think of, barring biblical scale, unfortunate events, this scenario is not likely to emerge to Chelsea this season. Boga. This one irritated me a lot. But I suppose in his position he just won't play enough either. I was really impressed with him though, and had a sulk. At random for the lesser knowns, The Red Swarm made a huge deal out of Jameson because they were starved of newsworthy chat on TDD. He is highly regarded by us apparently. If he was that highly regarded, we wouldn't be letting him go on a permanent deal. Secondly, if he was the next John Terry, Pulis would have given him more than a one year contract in the West Brom development squad. 

Lukaku - I fully concur with the club decision not to offer Willian or Fabregas in part exchange as Everton wanted, (source: Blue Squirrel) or, in that instance to pay £85m all in for him. I will lose literally not one second of sleep over this. I want to watch a player like Morata (and not just because he's hot) more than I want to watch us hoofing it up to a lump of a centre forward. I said dozens of times, too often he's behind the game. It's either because he is lazy, which you could kick out of him, or it's because he cant read the play quickly enough. For me £85m is too much to spend when you don't know the answer. And we got, in my opinion, the better all round footballer of the two. 

Ake and Chalobah. This grieves me. But we're back to the human element here aren't we? They've been out on their loans, they've been back and they've decided that they would rather not play for the champions every now and again, and play every week instead. They've not gone to rivals - you could argue that being at the level required to start for Watford and Bournemouth means that they weren't good enough. Some have. Here's a stat for you from BlueSquirrel. Of every 200 players that Chelsea invest time and money in from the bottom up, so U7s or whatever and onwards, they hope one will be a JT. So if you're expecting a clump of them to filter through a la United and the class of '92, your expectations are far higher than the club. This isn't the way football works anymore. Either way, we couldn't hold them hostage. I wish them all the best, and I wish they hadn't chosen to leave, but they want something different from their careers right now than what we can offer them. If you're not compatible there is no point making the player and club suffer. I am sincerely hopeful though that we have managed to get buy back clauses in their deals, so that if they reach another level we have first refusal, without being robbed. 

I don’t much care that Matic  wanted to leave, but I resent that we sold him to United, even if the player did want it as his first choice. Tough. If he has to go somewhere else for a year, and we have the take less money, then he can get picked up by Chequebook Pulis so be it, not our problem. And he’d be a year older. He's started well for them, but they have yet to see the erratic form or dopey mistakes that are as much a part of his game as the excellent performances. Still, it irks me and this could well bite us in the a*se. 

As for Barkley, in my own opinion no club should be signing seriously crocked players, and no seriously crocked players should be moving until they are fit again. Surely you want continuity of treatment? Surely you don't want to be starting a new life at the other end of the country when your primary focus should be getting back into a football pitch? Regardless, he was a dope to let the deal get as far down the line as possible before running away. There will be a bun fight for his signature now. Seeing as it's Sp*rs I'm prepared to use my fingernails of Chelsea need me.  

I think if this window has shown us anything, it is the difficulty of trying to build a competitive squad at the bottom end, either in recruiting. quality players to not be your first choice when they are fully aware that they could go elsewhere and play every week, or managing the players of a certain lever you already have in both their best interests and yours as a business. You’ve also got to factor in that we put ourselves in a dumba*se position where we needed specifically homegrown players coming in which put us in an even tougher predicament. That nobody was monitoring this baffles me. 

Praise Baby Jesus this madness is at an end, till January at least. We have the players we have, now let's just play football. I don't consider us necessarily weaker than twelve months ago, but certainly at least two of our main rivals are stronger. On paper. Let's not forget that this is the Premier League, which week in, week out is as mad as a box of frogs on acid. 

On reflection we haven’t has the perfect transfer window. But we haven’t had one that warrants nonsense hysteria either. Whenever you feel your blood pressure rising take a deep breath and repeat these words after me: 

"We're not Arsenal."

AC

*Photo of new signings with the fan punching bag is from the Chelsea website