Chelsea 1 (2) Eintracht Frankfurt 1 (2) (Chelsea win 4-3 on penalties) Thursday 9th May 2019 20:00 I could not have put it better myself. The credit, however, goes to the mad bloke jumping and down behind me when the last penalty went in. In the News: I’ll get back to the usual mockery at the weekend, but I want to say something about what hasn’t been in the footballing press of late. A creditable apology. Earlier this season Colin Wing was accused of making a racist remark against Raheem Sterling. He always insisted that he called him a “Manc c***.” In the context of the game this was shortly after Sterling had dumped one of our players on the floor. Mean response, maybe. But the simple fact is that if you removed every fan who said something horrible to a player in the heat of the moment from a match, grounds up and down the country would be empty. Some people do it, some people don’t, but if you’re a match going fan, it is not new to you. It is an environment you willingly enter. The press even hired their own lip-readers who backed Mr. Wing’s claim, and not even the player was able to claim that he heard anyone racially abusing him. We need to do everything we can to kick all forms of discrimination out of football. It revolts me. It should revolt everybody. Nobody should be expected to work in an environment where they get that thrown at them. I know I would walk off the job. I am an ethnic minority myself, and I have not one single ounce of compassion for what happens to people who are guilty of these offences, no matter which club they support. That said, they must ACTUALLY be guilty. It is for the police, victims, witnesses and the courts, with the help of the clubs, to work out who is. Not the press. Or the FA, who allegedly offered the Met money to convict. I’d be really interested to know if a transaction like this has actually been carried through at any point and at whose expense. At no point was Mr. Wing ever cautioned, charged or prosecuted for a crime, and yet his life is in ruins. It was a witch hunt using keyboards instead of pitch forks. It made Salem look restrained. To quote a Fancast regular, Joe Tweedie: “Trial by social media is one of the worst things about today. It's so real time that companies feel compelled to act because if they don't they're being "cancelled" or harbouring "racists". No one has time for the due diligence to occur. And when social media is wrong, as it often is, there are no repercussions. People just move onto the next outrage. The next person to cancel.” Colin Wing was charged, brutally prosecuted, he and his family vilified, before he was hung out to dry as a racist within 48 hours by the media. They produced pictures of his house. They harassed his neighbours in the middle of the night. This is wrong. It’s terrifying, in fact, the force with which this whirlwind of indignation destroyed a man whom the authorities and the alleged victim (in this case, I don’t for one second belittle abuse that Sterling or anyone else has suffered at other times) never saw fit to accuse of a crime, and then moved on to the next story leaving carnage behind. I liken all this to submarine warfare in WW1. You had all this established practice about seizing enemy ships and giving passengers and crew time to evacuate safely before you ran off with the spoils from the time of Henry VIII. It allowed for a reasonable and balanced process where people didn’t get hurt and the perpetrators were encouraged not to act like a*seholes. Then along comes this technology that makes it possible to obliterate an enemy ship in minutes without all of this pesky humanity and touchy feely sh*t and it flies in the face of it to surface and give them a warning as to what is coming. So this technology sucks the responsibility out of their actions for those who have access to it. You’re not going to stop people using this invention, because it’s shiny and effective and somehow people are willing to overlook the fact that this new practice is outrageous and casts the established rules aside and causes mass casualties by its appalling behaviour. They’re going to blow you to sh*t and carry on with their day because it’s possible to do so. And that is what has happened to Colin Wing. He didn’t get his due process, and when finally it came out in the wash that he wasn’t guilty, nobody gave a sh*t. Who is regulating these morons who evidently can’t moderate themselves? Since the case was dropped in its entirety, the lack of remorse on the part of these supposed journalists has been non-existent. Another Churchill once said something about great power coming with great responsibility. In this case the power comes with great numbers of followers, a great reach in the world of social media. The people manipulating them, because that is what is is, do have a duty to act responsibly, and in this case, they did the opposite. And now the law has proved them incorrect they should acknowledge it. Matthew Syed, you can go first. The Others: Epic games involving English clubs this week. Chelsea women won 0-8 at Yeovil on Tuesday night and the following evening Everton U23s seized a narrow victory over Newcastle’s youth in what was a pulsating game. Probably. Ok. I will pick these bits out because you know the press would if it was us... Nothing but respect, we were told as the Red Scouse gargled along to that god awful song before kick off. Yes look at the darlings. I wonder which were the ones setting off the fireworks so respectfully outside the Farca hotel the night before the game? Not enough media spunk to go round with Scouse and Messi in the same game. The following night was equally as sickening. We had Jermaine Penis waffling on about the Diving Little Sh*t and his reformed character. His matureness. Is this fool on crack? Ali tried to start a pinch up in the first leg? Us: Hudson-Odoi outside in his pyjamas eclipsed anything involving personnel on the pitch. The Beard up front, and yes, Hazard started. Them: They wore white and their flags were made out of bin liners. I was too nervous to notice anything else, except for the fact that despite how raucous they were in the ground, I was in Fulham from about 3pm and their behaviour appeared to be impeccable. Last home game of the season. Firm start from us, not the hideous stuttering we’ve borne witness to on occasion this term. I wondered if they would try and conserve energy after the faded so badly last week, but it didn’t look like it. Slightly less of a headless chicken approach, but the difference was negligible. First shot from them in the shape of a header, but it was a comfortable save from Kepa. 10 minutes gone and a penalty shout. Looked more hapless than malicious, but it did seem that he just fell over Ruben and took him down. Nothing doing. Another couple of close calls but on twenty minutes and we still hadn’t had a clear shot. On 23 minutes, after much faffing on a free kick we finally took it and I was sure Luiz had flicked it on, but somehow they managed to scramble it clear. Gits. In the opening half an hour, 99% of our crosses into the box so far had been toss, but it you are going to trust any player right now to take matters into his own hands it’s Ruben. We were in a direct line with it in The Shed and you could see it was going in as soon as it left his foot. BOOM. 1-0. He was almost in again straight afterwards, and moving on there wasn’t a lot coming from Frankfurt that looked like it was actually going to get them a goal. When they did look scary on 36 minutes, Luiz came to our rescue. Willian tried to pick a fight with Falette after a sh*tty tackle. Good job the referee intervened, otherwise Little Willy was getting knocked into the ground like a tent peg by that beast. Gilt edged chance for Ruben to get his second on 39, but it was deflected out. All in all a very satisfactory half of football. Didn’t trust us. Obviously saving up all the batsh*t crazy drama for after the break. Great block by Dave to start the second half. They were screaming for a penalty on 48 minutes, then again on 49. Neither of them were, because I say so, but it’s ok, we were feeling benevolent so we let them have an away goal anyway. That seemed to give us a boot up the a*se. The ball was flicked back to The Beard by Hazard on 50, but he socked it wide. We couldn’t quite get a proper grip on the game. Nothing The Beard tried paid off up front, no real magic from Eden so far either. In fairness to Sarri, he did, actually, look tired. Familiar territory. Our season in a nutshell, but it was a measure of Ruben’s strength that they’d just taken to kicking him because they couldn’t handle him. They were all over us. On 58 minutes Kepa was required to punch it clear, but then like the loveably(ish) incompetent, bonkers lunatics that we’ve become this season, we were straight up the other end and trying to scrap it in. Willian off on 61 for Pedro Pony. No offence Willy, but I feel much better with him chipping in at the back with the pressure were under now. All of which is if our own making. First corner of the second half for us on 69 minutes. Typically sh*t. A thumping long range shot from Luiz was off target. We were a man down shortly afterwards with Christensen’s forced departure. Instead of bringing Cahill on, Sarri moved Dave in there and brought Zappacosta on on the right. If this was to go tits up now he was really going to get it from the fans. Perhaps he didn’t think Cahill had 45 minutes in his legs if it went to extra time. Bearing in mind he’s ignored him all season. Free kick on 75 minutes. Get everyone up. And then do nothing. Urgh. The football gods wept at the state of that. Ruben dug us out of a hole straight afterwards and the result was a long shot that needed prompt attention from the Frankfurt keeper. But no cigar. We just looked utterly cagey with the ball now, terrified of f*cking it up. Ruben defending like a boss with ten minutes ago. And he needed to, because we kept giving the sodding ball away. Why have we always got to be the problem child? Everyone one else has got the job done and taken their place in the finals and here we were. Dave was almost sent off on 83, because he was playing in the wrong bloody position. The one he got away with after his yellow resulted in a dangerous free kick. An actual dangerous free kick, not when Bet365 tells you it is and the opposition are still in their own half. Luiz’s face put the block in. He was becoming more and more dominant in the box. Pandemonium then when Sarri decided to take Ruben off for Barkley. Outraged boos as our best player tonight walked off to a chorus of “f*ck Sarriball.” On 87 Ross did drive us forward for The Beard to have a rare stab at goal, but it was straight at the keeper. Total inability to pass the ball to each other as the seconds ticked down. Dave was marking someone a foot and a half taller, two foot wider than him and he was on a yellow. Excellent game management boss. If we were going to make it through this, it was arguably in spite of the game plan, not because of it, but do we have to give him the benefit of the doubt for knowing better than we do what shape each tired individual is in at the end of a long season? Five minutes added on. Free kick on 90. God love the guy behind me. THIS IS THE ONE, he shouted. Christ knows where he managed to find any positivity after this half. But it was us doing the pressing. Corner. Taken slowly. Nobody attacking it and it sailed into the keeper’s hands. Then the game rolled over and died. If you were us. Attempting to just pass it around and not lose. Ended up giving a free kick away. Luiz to the rescue again. They were even less enthusiastic about taking a corner. I’ve seen Sam Allardyce move faster after a trip to an all you can eat buffet. Oh goodie. Extra time. Can we bring Ruben back on? Sliding save from them as we began the first half. Lots of Chelsea players shouting at each other, apart from Ross who was concentrating on trying to bury it in the top corner. Close. We looked somewhat rejuvenated, they looked like they were wasting time to get to penalties. The Beard, who’d been sadly ineffectual all night, went off after five minutes for Higuain. Somewhere Sheldon (sitcom alias) was screaming at his TV. They sloppily gave it straight to Hazard, but then we couldn’t get our sh*t together in the box. Just sloppy football end to end now. Panic stations.We nearly cocked it right up after ten minutes, lucky not to be out. Their keeper was making Ben Foster look like a whippet every time he had to put the ball back into play. Hurrah for Ross, who was at least trying to kick the ball at the goal when he got it. Lots of oafish, late and very tired tackles coming in from them by now. If only we were sensible enough to take advantage of their exhaustion. Fifteen minutes left for us to get our sh*t together. Another crucial save from Luiz’s face. It didn’t look like either team could be particularly a*sed by now if I’m honest. We had a minute wiped off the clock by someone tying their bootlace. Nobody wanted to win, they were just terrified of losing. Emerson tried to win it single-handedly on twenty minutes. Nearly did it, sadly also nearly killed himself in the process. Really well held up by Barkley to win us a corner when play restarted. Best shot in ages on 24 from Zappacosta but tipped away. Goal? No. Free kick to them. This is purgatory. It’s Lost and we’re destined to live this game on a loop for all eternity not knowing if we’re going to win it. Remember how we all lasted six years watching that programme and then realised that it was in actual fact a pointless waste of time? This is where this semi-final is headed. 29 minutes and up we go again. Pedro Pony lined one up. It it was deflected early. Zappacosta booked for kicking the ball away as they broke. Couldn’t blame him at that point. I’d have made the most of it and kicked it at someone’s face. Luiz with the clearance again. Whatever happened from here he’d played this like a final. He’d left absolutely everything out there. Penalties against Germans. My favourite thing ever. After drinking battery acid and watching anything that involves Alan Carr. We got penalties at the shed end for once. Here’s a vote for you - was it A) because Mark Worrall moved to The Shed for the night or B) Because they are running away from Mowgli who had gone down to the MH? Them first: Easy along the ground Ross: Emphatic and smashed in Them: Kepa right way, just under his body Dave: Low and to the corner, too slow. His body language telegraphed where he was sending it. Them: I had to run for a pee. Not a clue. Jorginho: Go on, everyone has got to say something nice after tonight. Total opposite of Dave, no hint at which way he was going. Them: Best penalty stop ever. One knee from Kepa, killed it dead. Luiz: Belted it. Them: Saved! Atchung bitches! Proper save this time. Tonight’s hero. Hazard: Fate. Not been that confident since The Drog walked up in Munich. So: We had the chance to bury them in the first leg. We didn’t. We had the chance to bury them in the first half. We didn’t. At all other times they chucked everything at us. But all of that is forgotten. Ruben was outstanding again, Luiz grew into the game like the warrior he has been for us since the CL campaign in 2012. Kepa may have the least scary face in football, even when he’s gobbing off before a spot kick, but he still managed to fend off the opposition when it mattered in the shootout. Verily, we have slain the best that Europe has to offer. Ahem. We have chewed a path so far through the continent that we’ve actually come out the other side. For a final in Asia. F*ck sake. And with quite probably his last kick of a football at Stamford Bridge, Eden, we never doubted you. AC
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Chelsea 3 Watford 0 Sunday 5th May 2019 14:00 No, not Eden. But Sarri was tasked with top four. And he’s done it. With a game to spare. Strap yourselves in, because you’ve got to live with his methods, his substitutions, his love affair with poor, maligned Jorginho AND that hideous new shirt come August. In the News: Hazard valuation. £30m less than Pogba? F*ck off. Luiz looks more likely than not to stay on next season, Ruben contract likely to be addressed sooner rather than later to avoid another mess like CHO, and Kepa has given a frank interview re the cup final incident that admits that his dad gave him a right whooping aftewards. Podgettino to be given a WAR CHEST of £100m. That’s not a war chest. That’s barely f*cking pocket money anymore. The equivalent, apparently, of Pogba with one and a half legs. Yeah that’ll do it. That will solve all of your Sp*rsy problems. Roma, Lyon and Celtic all in for Chequebook Pulis. Give it another ten years and he will just be another Steve Bruce/Neil Warnock bobbing up and down between the Premier League and the Championship. And Farca fans apparently looking to exact revenge this week in the land of Scouse by pushing locals unwillingly into job centres. Badoom-tish. The Others: It’s like the tenth circle of hell listening to Scouse orientated pundits w*nking themselves silly every time they score a goal during this title run in. God-willing by Monday night City will have gone ahead again. Klippity Klopp said he’d pack up and go and manage in Switzerland if he didn’t win a title in four years up there. Fingers crossed. His middle name is Norbert. I did not know that until I Wikipediaed him to see how much longer we have to watch him jumping up and down like Wurzel Gummidge smacked off his tits on Match of the Day before he f*cks off to the land of watches, hidden bank accounts and awesome chocolate. Oh Sp*rs. No away points since 20th January. Is that worse than Arsenal’s away run lately? And note that this horrendous and hilarious decline began immediately that they insisted that they were a third horse in the title race. Down to nine men, Son suckered into a red card that is karma when measured against his diving, and it was a day that ends in a y, so “Eric Dire was lucky to be on the pitch.” A tale of two penalties elsewhere in North London. They could only draw with Brighton, thus sending us into the Champions League next season and making it all but impossible for them to join us unless they win the Europa League. This from my one Gooner friend on Emery: “He could or could not be a good manager but when you have defenders like Mustafi, Sokratis & Lichsteiner with Xhaka, Iwobi, El-neny in front of them you’re going to struggle… Still find it ironic that when we have a poor season and Chelsea have a poor season, Sp*rs will finish three or so points ahead of us and 1 behind you yet they are the f*cking future of football and we should all be dipping down to suck their cocks. They’ve lost a third of all of their league games!!” And United have spectacularly bombed out of the hunt for the top four completely with a tragic draw with Huddersfield. All they had to do was beat two already relegated teams to put themselves in with a chance. They need to cull their squad dramatically. Which is ludicrous when you considered what they have spent on wages and fees of late. Apparently willing to SPEND £13m to get rid of the woeful, pathetic spectre of Sanchez. Allegedly their divas lose 25% of their wages for not qualifying and Pogba misses out on £1.8m bonus. However will get by? They don’t deserve the money or the Champions League. And the relegation scrap is done. Nobody should suffer what Cardiff did with the loss of a player in such awful circumstances, that was terrible, but Warnock has blamed literally everyone but himself for their plight, before snapping that he won’t miss the league that he insists they shouldn’t have been relegated from when they go down. On about not being able to afford to say what he thinks, and conversely speculating about, nay, threatening, to write a book. Whatever. He’s gone. Again. Gringott’s can have him back. Us: Higuain back in the starting eleven. Sheldon (sitcom alias) refuses to refer to him as anything but Fatty Boom-Boom. And the welcome, for me and many others, addition of Cahill to the bench to cover the two centre backs. Immediately wanted to see him at least for a token appearance at the end so that we could give him an appropriate send off. Them: Urgh. Troy Deeney. I said last week that he had a face like a doner kebab. I want to amend this: to a doner kebab that’s been dropped on the floor outside the shop at 4am and trod on/tripped over by Andy Carroll. Incidentally, when asked if he wanted to defend Deeney on the radio on Friday, a Watford fan said he loved him as a player, but couldn’t defend his face. Watford clearly turned up, putting the thought of their cup final to one side and stomping all over us in the opening spell. They had a shot well wide on six minutes, that they got a little too excited about, before an excellent save by Kepa kept us in it. I thought he’d jumped too early but somehow he got his hand to it and turned it out. Sadly in the same move Kante was broken. F*ck sake. We’ll only see him again this season now, speculates Sarri, if we make it to Baku. Flat start for us. No shots on or off target, thirty percent possession and Pedro Pony had spent the whole game fiddling with his left boot so far. Ruben came on after just 9 minutes to replace the stricken N’golo and promptly picked up impressively where he left off on Thursday night. We started to slowly improve. A deft effort from Jorginho after a cut back from Eden on 13, but it looped high and into the keepers hands. It has not gone untouched that getting smacked over the head the other day has meant he suddenly speaks English football. Sadly there was never enough on that one. A Fatty Boom-Boom effort (I know, it’s mean, I’ll stop) was blocked on 15 and inexplicably resulted in a goal kick. Oh joy. Ben Foster. The worst time waster in the league. Kebab face was making a nuisance of himself at the other end, and they had a shot over the bar on 19 minutes. Only one team in it at the moment. The chap behind me was only willing to pass them the slimmest of compliments: “They’re like a good Burnley.” A sublime ball from Jorginho was about an inch too long for Hazard, who went straight back in but then had a shot at the corner flag. My pre-match prediction was 2-1 after they scored the first and we went through the wringer, but this had looked a tad optimistic up till now. They almost scored again, before Mowgli pipes up with: “How long have we had a red stripe on our backs?” Naturally we looked at him like he was a madman. Since kick off. Dickhead. “They don’t usually wear the new kit the season before do they?” Sigh. We’d got slightly better, but were still frustrating. Typical cynical foul on Eden on 28. The free kick went across the face of the goal, but when it came back, Luiz was sat on. This game was exactly what you would have predicted before hand. Turgid. Brilliant work from Eden on 35 in the box, he finally got his pass out to Pedro Pony but the latter didn’t have the right angle for the shot. This was a classic example of our ineptitude: Ball dug out by Jorginho. Ruben turns, very skilfully. Faffed on edge of box before Eden crossed it right in front of the box. Higuain just watched it go past, no effort to find it at all. He gets that that is his job, right? Another fine effort at getting forward on 39, another corner not given despite the fact that Watford put it out. Great interplay between Higuain and Pedro Pony from a Ruben flick, but the shot was wide. A minute later Foster put the ball back into play. Git. Typically we were starting to look good, just as we ran out of time before the break. Possibly sulked a bit too much at half time because we had improved and played our way into it. And because we scored straight away. Hazard shot goes out for a corner. He takes it short to Pedro Pony, who gives it back and a flick up from Eden finds Ruben muscling Chalobah off the ball on the edge the six yard box. Banging header. We were nearly in again straight away, and were smashing them at this point. Either Sarri had said something sensible or they’d all chuffed down their Weetabix at half time. Unlike Mowgli, who inexplicably had drunk A GLASS OF WINE. Awful, awful, AWFUL defending by Watford about a minute after the goal and Luiz rises to head in another and double the lead. As his hair has started to recede, every time the wind lifts it up he looks more and more like Doc Brown. Legend. Take that Foster, you muppet. All that work for nothing on the part of the visitors. T*ttenham Hotsp*r it’s Happening Again was the refrain all around the Bridge. Delofeu came close for them on 55. How has he ended up playing for them? How we didn’t make it three shortly afterwards I can’t tell you. Hazard stays on his feet in the box, plays it to Pedro Pony whose shot is palmed away and Ruben can’t quite get a proper attempt off with a defender sliding in. Just wide. Cahill warming up. Good. 39 games in a row, apparently, since we’ve seen him. Typical flying save against Chelsea from Foster from another Higuain shot. Refwatch: Paul Tierney: Learn what a corner is you bellend. Other than that some good use of advantage and did not fall for any shenanigans. Other than Ben Foster, who seems to have some f*cking Jedi power when it comes to wasting time that ensures that no official can see it. Or maybe it’s as simple as him hiding behind that tramp beard. 73 minutes gone and they were calling for a penalty. I couldn’t figure out why, and I didn’t really care. Four minutes later the whole thing was over when Higuain dinked it over Foster. They couldn’t muster anything more but smacking the crossbar and scoring an offside goal. We got our Cahill love-in. Deeney fell over on the edge of the box. The fact that he tried to roll inside and claim a penalty was funny because a) he left a dent where he originally went down and b) he found out he was too cumbersome to turn himself over. That was it, save for The Beard coming close on 88 and a last, daft effort in injury time. So: 3-0 probably harsh on them, but who really cares? Sheldon still isn’t having Higuain. Says scoring against Watford, Burnley, Fulham and Huddersfield ain’t all that. Bizarrely, considering a rollercoaster of f*ckwittery and some of the worst football I can remember us playing, coupled with some of the worst decisions by a manager since Fabregas kept getting played in his utter w*nk, purple and non-magic-hat phase, we have cemented a place in the top four. And come Thursday we might be in a European Final. Go figure. AC Eintracht Frankfurt 1 Chelsea 1 Thursday 2nd May 2019 20:00 In the News: Our new kit is rancid. I think I last saw something that nasty on Byker Grove in the early 90s. Anyone who says they like it and wasn’t off their face on acid during that time period, LIES. Knowing that the club make a point of butting against the Peoples Republic of Nike when it comes to their ludicrous demands I dread to think what the alternatives looked like if THIS is the one that got through. I’m not offended because I wanted to buy it. I didn’t want to wear it. I’m offended because I’ve got to LOOK AT IT for nigh on a year all over Europe. That’s how sh*t it is. Oh yay, Eden is wearing it in the picture. Maybe, but he looks like it is causing him actual, physical and emotional PAIN. After one photoshoot. We might as well have got a cattle prod and zapped him closer to the door. “Of course I want to stay at Arsenal,” says Ozil. “I have two more years left here.” No sh*t. What he meant to add was, “and I’ve realised that I’m more likely to trip over a purple unicorn outside Finsbury Park station than find anyone else stupid enough to pay me what they do for turning up to work one match in five.” Ferdinand in line for a Sporting Director role at Old Trafford. Whatever gets him off my TV screen. And Casillas has had a heart attack. At 37. Shocking. And yet thankfully looks like he will make a full recovery. Whether he returns to football remains to be seen. The Others: To Dare is to Do. I suppose its snappier than: To Dare is to Fall Flat on Our Faces to he Amusement of the Rest of the Footballing World. The sound of Jermaine Penis bashing one out at his microphone for ninety minutes made me nauseous. Almost as much as the rampant use of language condemned by the World Jewish Council that nobody, ;east of all Sp*rs themselves will do anything about. Thankfully Ajax’s well deserved goal shut the “Y*d Army” up and we didn’t have to listen to Jermaine spaffing himself silly. I never thought I would be so joyous when plonked in front of yet another Farcelona w*nkfest. But when they destroy the Red Scouse it would just be churlish not to enjoy the ride. Obviously the donkey-faced, racist, cheating little bitey f*cktard celebrated when he scored. Poor them. They defended him when he called Evra a n*****r. They even had t-shirts made. And now he does this and reveals himself to be a c***. Of course, anyone who isn’t one of their special breed of delusional twat realised he was a c*** WHEN HE CALLED EVRA A N*****R IN THE FIRST PLACE. But what can you do? You’ll never change them. And for that reason we will continue to gag on our sick at their nonsense. Here’s a potential song that arrived via Barkles (special alias) Not as good as the Brendan Rodgers one, but that was special. As soon as City have done their job we can start singing it: He never wins a trophy He’s never gonna stop He is a trophy dodger And his name is Jurgen Klopp. Them: Da Costa said they aren’t afraid, but that there is respect for a great team. Er, not that great, but thanks. Us: Hazard only on the bench, which considering they aren’t easy to score against is retarded. Even if they weren’t, its a European semi-final, and he’s our best player. 17 days, 334 minutes of football. Not that much, in the scheme of things. But Sarri says he’s tired. Urgh. Wants him to change the game from the bench apparently. Would we even need to change the game if we started? At least Higuain is next to him though, in favour of The Beard. The first Chelsea player to reach double figures in European competition in a season. Sarri might have been forced to eat a slice of Walder-Frey-style humble pie at the back had Cahill’s achilles not a*sed itself up. Sad times. So a back two pairing of Luiz and Christensen, who are the only two centre backs we have. They needed to do well. Walked out by our “unlikely” leader according to BT Sport. Not as unlikely as Klopp bagging a trophy this season, she dares to suggest. Dickheads. The presenter tonight was so orange that she actually clashed with the set. 4th in the Premier League vs 4th in the Bundesliga. They are having their best season in a quarter of a century. And they break quickly. However, they are a bit like us under Conte in the first season. Doing very well, but with limited personnel. And apparently they are getting tired. Positive start from both sides, with nothing alarming happening at either end in the first ten minutes. Terrible challenge from Christensen for a yellow card, and shortly afterwards their Captain, Abraham was left by Emerson in the box and had all the time in the world to take the ball down and have a shot, but thankfully it was sh*t and went over the bar. I don’t think he could quite believe it had got to him. We weren’t let off the hook for long. Ball given away by the Beard and they were off. Four in the box, none of them expecting Jovic to get on the end of a sh*t cross and somehow head it in. We didn’t roll over. Chelsea taking sh*t corners. Who’d have thought? At least we were getting up there though, I suppose. The Beard down in the box with ten to go, but he had shoved the defender over first. P*ssed off he’s not getting the ball. Christensen really was skating on thin ice on 40. One more and he’s gone. Loftus-Cheek powered one at the goal at the other end, but it was deflected out for a corner. About as good as its been for us in this half. Yet another failed corner followed, but back came RLC, skipping along the edge of the box like Eden, totally unmolested. His shot was just wide. We were plodding away at it, and then finally, on the stroke of half time, there was Ruben yet again, slicing his way around the box and digging the ball out from another corner, laying it off to Pedro Unicorn who sliced it past the keeper. Thank f*ck for that. We have an away goal, and a world class player sitting on the bench getting off on looking at burger menus on UberEats when he could be helping us put this to bed. If we don’t fully wrap this up in this leg, without him, to justify this nonsense about not wanting to make him tired, then I will have a smoke detector (like the ones in aeroplane toilets) that also delivers an electric shock, sewn surgically into Sarri’s ball sack so that he can never have a moment of peace. Ever. Again. Frankfurt looked leggy at the restart. They’ve not actually won that many games of late. Fingers crossed our own unpredictable ineptitude doesn’t f*ck us out of a favourable result. Pause while Jorginho gets a headband. Presumably to protect everyone else from those bloody ears, bless him. 53 minutes and Ruben was off again, broke from midfield and left three for dust, got it back for the shot but it bounced off his shin and went over. Balls. Willian was next with a go, straight at the keeper and not enough power. Frankfurt were looking ropey, and had delivered nothing going forward. Hazard was stripped. This concept is thrilling on many levels if you are of a sausage persuasion. Meanwhile Luiz had taken his sweeta*se time on a free kick. But it was so, so close to putting us ahead. They were picking up cards now, for trying to kill Ruben, among other things. Eden on for Willian. Our shiniest toy versus very tired looking opposition. Yet another corner thanks to The Beard on 62. He looked chirpier now that Hazard was on. To be honest he had really put a shift in thus far, with not a lot of personal reward to be had for his effort. They were still potentially dangerous if they could break, but passes were wayward and long, thankfully. It was like watching us in the mirror. Slightly flailing, not looking like scoring, giving the ball away and getting rapidly closer to disaster as the game went on. Excellent header by Luiz from an Eden free kick on 76, but dammit it went straight at the keeper. They were screaming for a penalty a minute later, but it appeared to come off The Beard’s chest. I’m just going to pause for a moment to visualise his chest… … The referee had had a reasonably good game. If we didn’t score again it would be a travesty as we had mashed them into a pulp in this half. They were hanging out of their a*ses. They came close on 80 but were wrongly flagged offside. No, Chelsea. No. Then Frankfurt started to stir again, as if they had got through the very worst of it. Once again Abraham’s complete lack of a sense of direction saved us on 84. Then they were coming at us again, however, no matter what their intentions were, they were dead on their feet, dogged by exhaustion and cramp and tortured with an extra five minutes. So: I need a pair of nail scissors, some crocodile clips (just because I’m a sadist), a needle and thread, a smoke detector and some chloroform. That I’m pretty sure I can just convince him to smoke without any forceful application. Frankfurt will be muchly satisfied that they somehow managed to cling on by their fingernails to this tie. Well done Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who completely rose to the occasion in the biggest game of his career so far. We have broken a record, going 15 games unbeaten in this competition, but it doesn’t feel like much of an achievement given that this tie was there for the taking. Will be a nervy affair next week given that there were seven goals when Prague came to visit. Watford now. Deep joy. Deeney, who has eaten so many kebabs that his face has morphed into one. I’ll be bringing a small person with me who could do with a proper spoiling if you see me. AC Manchester United 1 Chelsea 1 Sunday 28th April 2019 16:00 Red Scouse 2 Chelsea 0: Thankfully I was “yomping about the mountains of Peru with my pet idiot” (Mowgli) and missed this limp, pathetic display. Midway through the Inca Trail when we somehow managed to concede a hatful against a team from which I can’t name one player. Chelsea 4 Slavia Prague 3. Not a convincing procession into the semi-final. Then the internet went into meltdown when we only managed to draw against bleak relegation fodder. Chelsea 2 Burnley 2. 400 metres up a sheer cliff face for that one on the way to sleep in a London Eye type pod hanging off the side of a mountain. Had I been forced to watch it I might have considered unclipping myself and taking a quick way down that didn’t involve the zip lines. But sadly, you can’t even avoid how hapless Chelsea are under Sarri in the Andes. It’s inescapable. Then again you’d have thought that having surprised everyone by booking Heaton for time wasting for half an hour and putting a stop to Burnley’s Championship level w*nkery, that Kevin Not-My Friend might not have still ended up behaving like a total thunderc*nt. Sarri was charged with misconduct. Probably because of his inability to bring on Giroud until the game was basically over and hoping that Higuain would make the difference against a defence of meatheads instead. Duh. In the News: Hudson-Odoi is broken, does that mean he is unable to run away this summer? I’m coming to terms with the fact that after seven odd years I can now count the number of times left that I will see Eden Hazard in a Chelsea shirt on one hand. Speaking of Chelsea shirts - if he was unsure of whether to go or not, the new kit would have done it. What he actual f*ck is that about? Just when Nike were getting a clue, or at least being bludgeoned into submission in the megastore, along they come with a f*cking hideous tribute to 1991. IS this genuine? Are we to jog out to warm up wearing a matching shell-suit? If we are in the market for a new manager this summer, let is not be Jimmy Floyd, who reportedly claimed that we should flog Eden and bring back Morata. God help Roma, who are apparently either going to get Sarriball or Conte and his alternative personality. Atletico are undecided about whether to keep Diego around after his implosion and his eight match ban. If we buy him back, he may just be surly and fat again, but at least it will shut Mowgli up complaining about how much he misses him. Eden is being far more classy about potential Real departure than Pogba, who unsurprisingly is taking the spoilt, egotistical brat approach. Statistically did you know he has spent more time this season WALKING about the pitch than any other midfielder in the league. Unsurprisingly, because he is a sh*t of the highest order, Donkeyface says he will have no problems celebrating in front of the Red Scouse fans should he score against them in the Champions League. Given that a large measure of these are the same morons who defended him for biting people, I find it hard to give a sh*t. The level of press spunkery over the Red Scouse it getting unbearable. You can hear them willing City to lose. Dean Saunders can’t understand why neutrals don’t want them to win. It’s because they are smug a*seholes, Dean. Cardiff fans judged mean for chasing a Scouse fan. Out of the home end. When he celebrated them scoring. And Chelsea fans accused of making up an incident where a disabled child had to be treated by paramedics because of a smoke canister and then have to mount a social media campaign to get the Press Plebs to write about it. FIFA levelled an utterly pathetic 20,000 Euro fine at Montenegro for all of the racist abuse flung at England players. Go. F*ck, Yourselves. You crooked b*stards. Sanchez has now earned £30m for just 30 woeful starts in Manchester, and is being touted as the worst value signing, ever. Poor West Ham, who’d have thought that Wilshere and Carroll would prove to be a waste of time and effort? Well, everyone who isn’t West Ham, probably. It looks like Cardiff will now join Huddersfield and Fulham in the Championship next season. Bye bye Warnock, with your weird Gringott’s goblin face and Peggy Mitchell “get out of my pub” sneer. On the down side, Norwich are back, which means another of the most tedious road trips in football. Good to see a Sheffield side coming up too though, for something different. And just in, there has been a mini-bus crash in Turkey injuring the likes of Stephen Caulker and Papa Cisse and killing Josef Sural, a Czech international. You may not have heard of him, but Petr Cech is amongst those paying heartfelt tributes. He was just on his way home from a game, and he leaves behind a wife and two daughters, one of whom was only born in February, so spare a thought for them. The Others: Even if our ineptitude and f*ckwittery is inescapable, thankfully, it also seems to be catching. Even if we lost we would stay fourth, though we would have had to win 9-0 to go third. Because suddenly (and luckily for us) nobody in contention for the Champions League games feels like winning. Arsenal suck more than any other club in the country away from home, Sp*rs are too busy prematurely awarding themselves the CL trophy to pay attention to the league and United are just the same as they were under Chequebook Pulis since Ole got the job full time and crashed whatever it was he was “at the wheel” of into a brick wall of sh*t football. Since I’ve been away we’ve been losing half our games as a group. West Ham took a giant dump in the shiny new toilet bowl that is Wait Hart Lane, the Goons have lost to Palace, Wolves and Leicester since I went to South America, and United have had seven defeats in nine. Meanwhile in the race for the title I’ve never been so invested in what another club are doing; shrieking like a banshee the wilds of Peru as City clawed their way over the line in every fixture. Them: A team with a more miserable run than us at the moment. This is rare. Five of them not got a lot of football in them of late. Half of them used to play for us. Us: Kovacic and Jorginho together. Which statistically means no goals. Joy. Front three of Willian, Eden and Higuain. It was a fiery start - in which we actually attacked. Hooray. Kante with the first bursting run into the United box at the Theatre of Plastic Dreams. Seconds later Rudi was caught right out by the lolloping, unfit mess that is Lukaku, who thankfully has all the grace of a drunken water buffalo and f*cked it up. He makes one run and looks like he’s just reached the sun gate at Machu Picchu after a four day ordeal. Another run from them was ultimately hacked apart by Alonso before we were off again. Sadly Dave’s cross on the counter attack was pathetic. Hazard quick to point out that it’s no good if he doesn’t have a hope in hell of getting the ball. It was just end to end, but without any real attempts on goal by either side. The desperation on display by both sides was palpable. Nobody wants a Thursday-Sunday schedule next season. Least of all the fans, whose drinking schedules and social lives are buggered by such a travesty of fixtures. F*cking ludicrous defending put us behind. Mata went to celebrate then his class took over. Not so Lukaku. Kepa clutched his side as it went in - clattered by Shaw but it mattered little. F*ck sake. Marginally appeased by Young getting booted in the head right after the goal, but now they looked settled ad competent. We hadn’t stopped giving it a go. I’ve seen us far more pathetic this season. However every time we played it into the box their entire team was there. De Gea hadn’t even made a save. This state of affairs suited them fine because they were just sitting there waiting for the chance to counter attack whilst we ran around like a*seholes. Eric Bailly squandered another chance on 29 thanks to our woeful zonal marking setup, but we escaped. We sprung into a counter attack straight after, but Higuain was offside. He spent most of the game offside. Lukaku throwing his considerable weight straight at Dave almost cost us in the box on 33, and we didn’t look very competent in the final third at all. And yet more competent than the officials. Matic thumps Dave in the face. Atkinson ignores a head injury. Play only stops when Rashford goes down and United put the ball out. We’d lost seven of our last twelve games away from home and you could see why. After trying to kill us, Herrera picks up the first card, deservedly so, and they start singing: “Fergie’s right, the refs are shite.” Oh please. Then AHAHAHAAHAHA Another f*ck up by the “world’s best goalkeeper” just before half time to get us an equaliser out of nothing. After the choker he had against Farcelona, he spilt the ball woefully from Rudi’s long range shot and Alonso was there to pounce and make him look like a c*nt. Again. Flat beginning to the second half. United lacked the drive they had before the break and we looked more settled and pretty grateful to have lucked our way back into it. On the hour we lost Rudi - same knee he injured at Anfield. Christensen up and warming up. Which meant Loftus Cheek had to sit back down. Because god forbid you couldn’t just make two substitutions at once. Then Luiz was broken. He got up then Kovacic was clattered. Not as badly as Bailly, who he landed on and who limped off in tears. Finally Ruben got on and we looked better after the changes. We are second only to the Red Scouse in goals in the last fifteen mins so fingers were crossed. Rojo should have been off on 79. Shockingly only a yellow for almost killing Willian. Refwatch: Atkinson. The most lenient referee in the league, which is all well and good providing you aren’t blatantly overlooking infringements that injure players. Was not helped at all by dumba*se assistants who couldn’t see what was happening right in front of them. The match was cagey by now. Nobody wanted to lose. Unsurprisingly, Willian didn’t survive that f*cking challenge. Pedro Pony was going to have to get involved. Look Willy gave Rojo said it all. Rojo’s response was to laugh. Dirty, horrible little prick. Not sure why Higuain was laughing with him either. The match ended a scrappy pile of sh*t. Gone was the memory of an entertaining and positive first half from both sides. Seven minutes added on, but in truth I never believed anyone was going to score in the second half. Pedro Unicorn did have to clear it off the line after Rojo, who shouldn’t have even been on the pitch headed one on target, but a draw it was. So: A better result for us. What we absolutely didn’t want was to give United three points and a way back into the fight for a Champions League place. We remain in fourth, and if you ask me it’s more likely to be us and Sp*rs than the Goons, who still have to play away or Solskjaer the fraud. But then we have set new, record levels of f*ckwittery this season and neither Watford nor Leicester are easy. Hold on tight, because the next two weeks are going to be bloodier than scrapping over Winterfell with the Night King. AC Chelsea 2 West Ham 0
Monday 8th April 2019 20:00 As if readjusting to the temperature at home wasn’t terrifying enough. Chelsea created a neanderthal photo mash in tonight’s programme of Ampadu, Cahill and The Beard. Still looked more intelligent as a life form than anything playing for West Ham tonight. Everton 2 Chelsea 0: The less said about this pile of sh*t the better. Cardiff City 1 Chelsea 2: Herewith my live tweeting from a beach bar in southern Thailand: It’s Sunday night here in Thailand. I’m going to attempt to blog live from @TJsKrabi Until my battery dies anyway. My reaction to the team news has been to order another drink. These socks are a travesty and deserve to be punished. This is not a good start. Dwight the travelling bear has collapsed after two minutes. This does not bode well if he’s bored already. Who is number 17 for Cardiff? When you look like a wildling extra from #GoT you shouldn’t go down like a fanny. 11 mins. Leave it to Pedro Unicorn to give me hope. Rudi. I love you. But please don’t ever shoot again. The ball just rolled into Krabi and past the bar. There was less advantage to be had there than if Harry F*cking Kane took on @carolvorders in a math-off. This referee is a moron. There are octogenarians around the corner in the red light district with a more dynamic finish than we’ve had in the opening half an hour. We’re making Cardiff look good. Not only are Cardiff terrible, but they are managed by a someone who predates dinosaurs. And they’re Welsh. This is skinny kids who couldn’t make with the egg chasing and were cast out by their leek-munching brethren. I experienced less pain than this this afternoon when I was stung by a bit of rogue jellyfish. Willian going down easier than a PatPong superstar. Difference is the girls will deserve their money at the end of tonight. Must do better. Hazard’s face says: I’m going to need at least a fucking half pounder after sitting through this shit. With extra cheese. Not beating the Welsh at football would be like me climbing up on a table in Bangkok and firing a ping pong ball out of my moo-moo in front of 11 stalwart veterans with enough velocity to take someone’s eye out. Just rude. Cardiff 1. Chelsea 0. I’m going to go to the toilets and cry. Cardiff 1 United 5 Cardiff 0 Sp*rs 3 Cardiff 0 City 5 And then there’s us. Right now I wish that Jellyfish at Poda Island had finished me off. That free kick sums up the utter arse I’ve seen so far. Ruben’s incoming message: “I don’t know what the fuck he’s going on about with the notepad and the clipboard. Let’s just pretend he’s not there and try and score a goal.” Seven defenders versus three in the box. When we’re losing. So what’s the plan? Hope we change the habit of a lifetime and take a decent corner? Every #CFC performance I watch at the moment where we fail by doing exactly the same thing is like I’m Charlton Heston reliving the end of Planet of the Apes where he finds the Statue of Liberty on repeat I am officially conceding my crown for the least subtle resting bitch face to Callum Hudson-Odoi. Cardiff 1 Chelsea 1 We are less offside than @CesarAzpi and we’re in the Far East. Oh well. Watching Neil Warnock combust might be more worth it than the point at this stage. Cardiff 1 Chelsea 2 I’m just going to roll over and die laughing at Warnock’s expense. After the rest of injury time because we can’t be trusted. Ross is off to dig a hole with his bare hands and climb in it after that miss. Babies make me cringe. But if Craig Pawson rocks up in Krabi tomorrow and demands to impregnate me. I will let him. Could only have been sweeter if in the act of having a giant bitch baby fit the winning goal had gone in off of Warnock’s massive beak. This is no way makes up for 85 minutes of the most turgid shit football I have seen since... well, the last time Chelsea played. Let off the hook there Sarri. Please note that Rubens’s plan worked. Only side ever to have scored an offside goal in the league, judging by planet football's reaction. Chelsea 3 Brighton & Hove Albion 0: Hurrah. A drama free waltz to victory, finally starts in the league for Ruben and CHO. In the News: Hazard is practically off already. Devastating. That said, anyone calling him a traitor or slagging him off needs to give their f*cking head a wobble. People want Sarri to be off. Jesus. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but if you can’t actually defend it then you might want to turn the volume down. Elements of CFC Fan TV are doing the equivalent of a Mel Gibson in South Park when he goes batsh*t crazy and runs round dressed up as Braveheart, shitting on people’s car bonnets and shouting KABLAM! That said, the revelation that the manager couldn’t be bothered to watch a player’s England debut, a full debut, happening at 18, is piss poor. Do I love this manager? Not right now. Have I wanted to club him like an errant baby seal (disclaimer: I love baby seals) throughout this season? Yes. But I sat on the Fancast and advocated the idea of bringing in less of a drama queen, high flying manager who behaved like a brat and taking a punt on someone else lower down the pecking order. The club did this. Would he have been my choice? Nope, (Eddie Howe!) but I kind of think in this scenario I have to accept that it might take longer to get this bloke going than some of the previous, short-lived incumbents. For that reason, though I have no problem being pissed off with him when he shows all the movability of Sam Allardyce at a buffet table, I’m not going to sit here and demand he gets the sack. If he gets us into the Champions League I will write this season off and accept that it sure weren’t pretty, but he got us over the line. But I will expect much better next time out. Right now I don’t know how I’ll feel if we don’t make it. In the meantime I don’t see the point in screaming hysterically about how much I hate him and making a tit of myself. Let’s have my favourite Press Pleb nonsense in a nutshell from while I’ve been away. Paul Scholes was never going to last at Oldham. They had no coffee machine. Well OK then. Kepa to Real: Apparently they’ve given up on De Gea and want to give us £50m for a player we paid £70m for less than a year ago. Good luck with that. United want CHO. Good luck with that, too. Even funnier, they are considering a bid for Zaha. And Pogba apparently thinks he is worth £500k a week. Which is what, nearly Hazard and Kante put together? Dickhead. And Courtois set to be axed by Zidane. Ahahahahahahaha. As long as we aren’t stupid enough to buy him back. That would be a f*cking disaster. We wont need him anyway, we’ve got Rob Green. The press appear to have noticed that all racism in football does not emanate from Stamford Bridge. Shocker. So far as the England game is concerned, I’m with the “should have walked off the pitch” camp. If the governing body of whoever I was employed by refused to take proper action and it was me being racially abused, I would refuse to work until they did, and I would expect everyone to back me. We’ve had more of it since on the domestic front. Chelsea have offered CHO counselling after this deplorable chain of events in the Balkans. While this is laudable, I think the perpetrators are more in need of having a professional dig around inside their head. Apparently, no English footballing body keeps an official record of racism issues as and when they arise. What the f*ck? Danny Rose says he has five or six years left in the world of football and he can’t wait to see the back of it. That’s sad. But I think weak. I’ve been racially abused aplenty, and it only makes me more determined to rub their faces in what I can do. And as it’s him, I feel that although this is a very serious subject, and nobody should be subjected to this abuse, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that I can’t wait to see he back of he diving little f*cker either. Also in the world of arseholes thinking that its ok to say and do whatever they want to someone they have seen on television, there are whispers that this new influx of pitch invaders trying to get at players could be dealt with by specialist taser stewards, who would get to zap the b*stards as soon as they set foot out of the stands in that direction. Perfect. The Others: City are still just about on course to save humanity from a Scouse title win. Ole says United will be back winning the league. As they drop to sixth. It would be amusing if he started to believe his own press. The Goons have slipped up. Brilliantly, they have the second worst away form IN THE COUNTRY. We’re probably first. Urgh and I’m glad that I was on the other side of the planet when Sp*rs finally moved into Wait Hart Lane. Resplendent with West Ham and Chelsea memorabilia under the floors and in the walls. They have an on site sommelier but no cheese room. Cutbacks. Peasants. Bet they don’t have f*cking pic ’n’ mix on tap either. Huddersfield are down, equalling Derby’s lamentable record for the worst ever season. And they aren’t even lumbered with Robbie Savage. Sadly, Fulham have gone too, despite spending a fortune last summer. Us: CHO gets a second start, Loftus-Cheek too. Pedro Pony, Willian presumably being saved for Thursday. Either that or Sarri has had a sudden epiphany about pissing off our youth products and how not to do it. Them: Meh. Usual combination of thugs at the back and has beens/never weres elsewhere. And of course Donkey Carroll in injured. Naturally the game began with a huge rendition of Franky Lampard scoring 200 against the pikeys. In the meantime they were singing about us having no history. Right. Great play between Higuain and Hazard after ten minutes set the Belgian off and running. Noble was forced to take a card rather than be left for dust as Eden walked it into the net. You’d think that that might have humbled him, and shut him up, for once; but he continued to bitch and whine his way through the game like a twelve year old denied WiFi. The ensuing free kick was claimed by Emerson, and it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t quite on target either. Just over by Kante after he carved a path through their defence on 16. Watching Ogbonna in their defence is like watching a walkman run out of battery. He’s so f*cking big that by the time his brain sends a message to his legs to move, the game has moved on fifteen yards. It wasn’t just him. Every time we picked up the pace and started flicking the ball about, they were completely dumbfounded. Last night was marked by controversy. See I’ve been told that this Hudson-Odoi song is to Buffalo Soldier. Which seems perfectly plausible. Some wrong’uns from the Matthew Harding end are banging on about Banana Splits. On the basis that bananas are sick and wrong I’m sticking with the Shed on this one. In the opening spell West Ham had contributed nothing but a general smell of body odour in the away end to events at Stamford Bridge. A great forward run by Dave on 21, slicing through them like Sam Allardyce pawing at a Meat Feast pizza. Their confusion was telling, even more so a couple of minutes later when Hazard took out six of them AND their keeper on his way to a sublime goal. I’m going to miss him so much. 1-0. If they were baffled before, they were brain dead now. So this is us. Get the goal. Then utterly fail to progress on and leave ourselves scrabbling around desperately trying to make sure of the points. 25 Higuain almost squeezed one in, 28 CHO was away but he couldn’t quite find Higuain in the box. Penalty shout straight after. Stone. Wall. But after Cardiff we are never, ever going to get the benefit of the doubt again. Ever. Plus the referee was a knob. 32 CHO was trying to chip the keeper from an impossible angle, Eden was still buzzing round like a wasp at a picnic. They’d barely been out of their own half and yet we only had one goal to show for ripping them a new arsehole for more than half an hour. Is this the library - they sang. Ironically considering we hadn’t heard a peep out of them for nearly 20 minutes. How the f*ck would you know? Have any of them ever used a book for anything but a doorstop? 40 and Hudson-Odoi was off again, up against two defenders alone and forcing a fingertip save. How the ball stayed out of net on the corner that followed not even Hawking could have explained. 42 it had to be two, but for some reason instead of just heading the ball, Higuain tried to bring it down first. Explanation from a wit behind me? He didn’t want to lose any more hair. So 1-0 it was at the break. If I took Eden Hazard to my mum’s Slimming World meeting and let him run at them, he would have faced more opposition than he did from West Ham tonight. They could. Not. Touch him. West Ham late out after the break. Presumably still punch drunk after the first half. Little Pea(nis) had gone off, having not touched the ball. Replaced by Snodgrass. Verily did we tremble. We picked up where we left off. Squandering chances. On 47 minutes the ball flew across the face of goal. We were nearly outdone by our own stupidity early on. Thank the lord for Kepa and Toni Rudiger. And for the fact that Arnautovic hasn’t got two half dead brain cells to rub together. Thankfully this was a very rare occurrence. Moments later, Ruben almost went it in to double the lead after Dave thieved the ball off them like he was one of their own. Another shot from Loftus-Cheek bent wide on 56, before he wrestled forward to oversee another effort that flew at the keepers hands. But sadly they had got the whiff of an equaliser now. Ever did West Ham like the idea of getting something for nothing. Like their stadium. We were just asking for trouble by not getting a second and for doing silly things like ignoring Arnautovic and his multi-coloured meathead in the box on set plays. If it wasn’t for Rudi, we would not have still been winning this game. They tried to shake it up. Noble finally f*cked off and spared us any more of his moaning. Replaced by some other bloke. Ruben off at the same time for Barkley. On 73 Hazard drew a foul on the edge of the area. Please god let this be it. Barkley wanted it, so did Luiz, Emerson hovered about a bit for effect too. Sideshow clumped it. Straight at the wall. Not his finest hour tonight. Actually, in Churchill terms (the fat bloke with the cigar, not me) not only was it not his Battle of Britain moment, consider him a lonely, soggy little ammunition pouch left on the beach at Dunkirk. Higuain off for The Beard with fifteen to go. In the meantime Hazard had taken one to the nuts so painful that his eyes were visibly watering on Sky apparently. Good job he’s already got half a dozen kids. Barkley nearly went the same way trying to slide in in the box, but saw the goalpost coming at the last. Refwatch: Chris Kavanaugh. F*ck knows where they have dredged him up from. My guess is somewhere where a thumping attendance just about reaches double figures and his mum hands out chunks of orange at half time. Hasn’t mastered what a penalty is, or the offside rule. So I suppose if you were looking for a silver lining, he’s on a level with half the other dickheads overseeing the Premier League already. There was a baffling moment on 82 minutes when it looked like they had scored, but they hadn’t, but we all thought they had, and they thought they had. For what seemed like an eternity, you could have heard a pin drop, until we all started laughing hysterically at them. F*ck sake Chelsea. Kepa got booked for time wasting, and our response was to waste even more time by changing CHO for Pedro Pony. The ball was on the roof of the net on 85. We were making so much of a meal out of this that Henry VIII couldn’t have f*cking swallowed it. The frustration was palpable. Luiz’s expression every time Kepa did the wavy hand action to send him and Rudi up the pitch on a goal kick was priceless. (12 year old, WiFi) Across the face of goal on 88. Mother of god can we just finish this? Gloriously, a minute later Barkley ignored every fan in the ground screaming at him to shoot. Instead he played it in to Eden who, despite having been effectively castrated, made it two and secured the points. Thank you baby Jesus. So: You’re not West Ham anymore, we sang. But I beg to differ. Toothless, ‘orrible, and sh*t. Looked like West Ham to me. I’d argue that Rudiger was as crucial as Eden Hazard tonight. He was intrepid at the back throughout. Up to third we go, with some proper daylight between us and United now; though we’ve had an extra game played over the rivals for the CL spots. Attentions turn to Europe, and a much coveted trip to Azerbaijan. (I’m not joking - Baku was WW1 memorials) With luck the club have worked out exactly who we are actually playing in Prague by now. AC *Scary picture comes from the Chelsea programme last night Dynamo Kiev 0 (0) Chelsea 5 (8) Europa League Last 16 Thursday 14th March 2019 17:55 Chelsea 1 Wolves 1: I was there, but thankfully, given that it was dross, I was paying little attention to the game. For those that know how much maternal instinct I have, it will amuse you to know that I was entertaining a trio of boys: 10, 4 and 3. Our little chum from the domestic violence shelter had his day out. You may remember the eldest received a Xmas present and an invitation to come find him when he was at the bridge from Eden Hazard. Well, he got treated like a little VIP on Sunday. He got a tour behind the scenes, watched the team arrive from the tunnel, and he met Eden too, which sent him into absolute stunned silence. We had to do a second take at their photo together because he was so overcome that in the first one it looked like Eden was trying to abduct him. A trip to the megastore, which thankfully now stocks something other that Nike sh*t, then excellent seats for the whole family courtesy of one of our CFC family, a terrifying amount of sweets from another. Our little chap is astute. He turned to me part way through the game and said: “Is it me, or can Chelsea never take a corner?” And later on “I wish we’d just stop passing it about and worry about scoring a goal instead.” Out of the mouths of babes. I felt what might have been a swell of pseudo-parental pride. That said, this game was always going to be a sh*t slugfest. It was Rocky I. They were Stallone and we were Apollo Creed. Much better, but unable to stamp any class on proceedings, because the other side jus won’t f*ck off, resulting a turgid dead heat. Anyone who is running round screaming about sacking Sarri again is a knob. No, his team choice wasnt inspiring, especially the combination of Kovacic and Jorginho, but his substitutions weren’t the turgid f*ckwittery of old. This was a tough day out, and it led to a sh*t result. Sarri reverted to form a bit, but it was not a repeat of the Bournemouth game. Our little chap’s day was rounded off by tea afterwards. He chose Pizza Express, which I think I might be banned from now after one of the smaller ones punted a soft football into someones dinner plate (see sweety reference above. Mix in a gallon of coke and vegan cupcakes, which they inflicted on themselves voluntarily and they were slightly hyper by this stage) To cap it all, Mowgli (special alias), playing the part of the pied piper, got told off by security for leading them all off starting a mini riot in the shopping centre with a football match. This is what happens when you let someone with a mental age of twelve do the adulting. Three exhausted but very happy kids, one of whom snored and dribbled on me all the way home. Our little friend hasn’t played football in a year, but now can’t stop talking about finding a club and wanting to play for Chelsea. Or about when he can come again. Thank you to Chelsea, Eden and to everyone who contributed on the day to spoil them rotten. In the News: Callum Hudson-Odoi has got the England U21 call-up he richly deserves. Asked about transfer ban, Willian says he is happy in every way with life at Chelsea and doesn’t want to go anywhere. I’d have loved to have seen the meltdown in some quarters on Twitter. Zidane has returned to Real apparently ready to shell £300m for Neymar to secure his escape from the Parc des Princes, which the ungrateful, spoilt little f*cker acts is akin to the Bastille. They’ve already shelled out £42m on a centre back since his return. He wants Eriksen too apparently, however, Eden is their number one target, and surely now he will go to join his hero. Hold tight though, the messiah may not be around for long in Madrid. Rumours that Zidane is to be sacked again after he wore f*cking cropped pedal pusher jeans to his unveiling. Rio Ferdinand says Sterling wont win the Ballon d’Or because he is black. No, Rio, he wont win the Ballon d’Or because there are several dozen players who are better than him. You moron. People keep running on the pitch and attacking players. What the f*ck? In my mind its the rampant spilling over of everyone’s appalling online behaviour into the real world. You insult who you want, you say what you want with little or no consequences and generally get to be abhorrent on a daily basis. Rio’s case is indicative. You spaff (new favourite word) nonsense all over the internet and inexplicably end up doing it on TV. The Birmingham dick has been jailed for 14 weeks, which sends a decent message, but this new source of neanderthal entertainment is pathetic and we’re just lucky as a sport that none of them have reached the lower level of stupidity where they take an offensive weapon with them. FFP investigation for City. One of the cases under investigation is the signing of then-14-year-old Sancho. A number of other clubs intend to write to the Premier League wanting to know what they are going to do about it. Led by the sanctimony of the Red Scouse. In that respect (whining, hypocritical b*stards) they will always be truly unbeatable. It might be the death of St Pep’s love in with the club. Rumours that he has verbally agreed to join Juventus on a four year deal. Likes a challenge, doesn’t he? Klippity Klopp is moaning about not getting special consideration in the scheduling. Everyone else is too busy being indignant that they got the f*cking Porto tie in the quarter finals. Lukaku reading mean tweets. With a face like thunder. I’m still laughing at the “Lukaku runs like he’s got a Deliveroo bag on his back.” Ranieri was only out of a job for eight days after Fulham. He’s taken charge a Roma. There are some desperate divas on the continent at the moment. “Ill tell you the I feel ready to play,” Icardi says to the Inter Milan boss. Coutinho is being booed off the bitch at Farca and has issued a “come-and-get-me” plea to United. Presumably because they’d be the only club stupid enough to stump up over a hundred million for the idiot. The Others: City are just about clinging on to top spot with a couple of unconvincing wins, Sp*rs keep losing, United got done by Arsenal, so you’d hope that the spaff-fest over Ole might die down. Still, if I hear the words “Spirit of ‘99” again I might choke on my own vomit. Morata is out of the Champions League. Shame. And Ramos called all the Real players together for an inquest after Ajax spanked them out of Europe. If Ramos is the voice of reason, then they really are f*cked. Them: Critical absentees thanks to a vague, Ozil sounding sore throat and suspension and a massive, uphill climb in prospect to try and surmount a three goal deficit created in West London last week. They didn’t even have a shot on target and it was hard to see where they were going to come from. Us: Loftus-Cheek with his first start since the third round of the FA Cup and CHO, fresh from his call up to the England U21 side finally gets a shot in the starting line up. No room for Barkley, The Beard up front in his favourite competition. Nights off for Emerson and Higuain and the bench for Dave, Luiz, Jorginho, Hazard and Pedro Pony, so a strong side and ammunition on the bench should the unthinkable happen. Sarri was raging about the “potentially dangerous” state of the pitch with a day to go, which was watered heavily the night before and then left to freeze before kick off. It seemed have improved significantly in the meantime, but being a man he still wasnt having it. Neat move making Little Willy captain, for he is always ready to rain more misery on the city of Kiev and throughout the night he was really going to rub salt into their wounds. All whilst patronising commentators made cheeky f*cking comments about his English coming along. Better than yours, douchebags. Wait for it. We scored from a f*cking corner. Surely this deserves a medal of some sort struck and a round of free Singha at the next home game. Awful zoning defending, if that’s what even was. It could have just as easily been complete incompetence. Nobody doing an effective job in the box and they were all behind The Bears as he darted forward to stab it in. His seventh goal in the Europa League this season. 4-0 up on aggregate. Job done after four minutes. Ruben could have made it two on 10 mins but the keeper managed to get some part of his body on it. Another corner from the fuzzy-headed, most unpopular man in the Ukraine, but the resulting effort went straight into the keepers hands. All Chelsea. Any rare foray from them broke down and within three passes they were defending deep again. They had it in the back of the net after twenty minutes, but the flag was up because they were the length of an aircraft carrier offside. Foot off the gas somewhat. Shortly afterwards CHO conceded a free kick that gave their fans much hope, but then life got even more miserable for them just after the half hour. Excellent cross from Alonso. Loftus Cheek muscled them off the ball, Marcos rules out three defenders with the cross and thanks to a run from The Beard it was 2-0. Two one-touch finishes from him, which if you’ve witnessed Operation Stack lately in Kent is a commendable French efficiency and proof he should be Minister of Customs when he retires. A whole miserable hour left to go for a side who looked utterly deflated already. By half time it was three thanks to Alonso. To get anywhere they needed seven, with no goal scorers on the pitch, and we had only conceded four in this whole competition so far. As you were at the beginning of second, with utter dominance, but then they loosened up a bit and mustered a first shot on target in more than two hours of football. Shortly afterwards the goal was wide open for them, but they hit the post, before scoring again from an offside position. That pretty much sucked the life of them quicker than Sam Allardyce eating a creme egg. On 58 The Beard stormed to the top of the goalscorer table outright by securing his hatrick. Free kick won by Zappa, excellent swinging free kick from Willian, but it was the fact that no defender was anywhere near The Beard as he rose to nut it in that did for them. 0-4 Seconds later they gave away another free kick on the edge of the box by scything down CHO. Losing their sh*t now. Alonso took it and it was one of his stunners, sailing right towards the top corner, but it was. just about saved by a flying dive from the keeper too push it onto the post. For once the defence was awake and the ball was smothered away. But soon we were running at them again. Yet another free kick, yet another stunner from Willian but the keeper reacted well to Rudi’s effort. Kante off for Jorginho on 64. Very much liking his attitude in the press lately. In short: “Fans have a right to opinion, I have a right to disagree, but I will prove the critics wrong and they will learn to appreciate the way I play.” Dave came on for a limping Zappacosta, then Willian went off to an ovation from Blue fans to be replaced by Pedro Pony. On 77 minutes it It was CHO’s turn to get on the scoresheet. So: We did to them what City did to us. Early goal to obliterate their game plan and then just capitalised on their every weakness to destroy them. Three Chelsea youth products on the pitch. Hurrah. The Hyphenators did well. Loftus-Cheek was the better in this game, really stamped his authority. Hudson-Odoi not so much, but when you win 5-0 and he gets a goal you can’t be criticising. Yes, the opposition resembled crispy Darth Vader clawing his way out of a lava pool missing two legs and an arm, but you couldn’t have asked for more out of any of them tonight. We were still running at them in injury time, despite an eight goal lead. On to Prague. God help Prague on that away day. Thousands of p*ssed up Chelsea in a stag do destination. What can possibly go wrong? In the immediate future some rested legs now in preparation for Everton, which I wont be at because I’ll be doing bath time with elephants in Thailand. It's voting time in the Football Blogging Awards - I'd appreciate your efforts, as would the Chelsea Fancast. You can either on their website or on twitter. Simply tweet: “I am voting for @CFCgwlb in @TheFBAs for #BestClubContentCreator" or “I am voting for @ChelseaFancast in @TheFBAs for #BestPodcast" AC Chelsea 3 Dynamo Kiev 0
Europa League Last 16 Thursday 7th March 2019 20:00 In the News: The appeal is in against the transfer ban. Don’t know whether yet whether that will enable us to sign people this summer. Sarri’s been having talks about pre-season. Probably along the lines of “why the f*ck are we going to Boston three days after the Leicester game?" Never one to sugarcoat it, Rudi says perhaps some time in the gym will benefit Jorginho as he carries on acclimatising to English football. If the PR team at the club aren’t regularly doing shots before they send the German out to talk to the press I’ll be amazed. Oh and not wanting to rush things, Chelsea are apparently finally looking to replace Emanalo (who has been gone since 2016) with a football brain in the shape of Lille’s Sporting Director, Luis Campos. I googled his name and got a drummer in a Mexican rock band on Wikipedia. But apparently he’s Portuguese, and happily he was not only a major scout for Real, but he was the one masterminding Monaco’s shock Ligue 1 win in 2017 and their run to the Champions League semi-finals. Whilst he was there they acquired James Rodriguez and Bernardo Silva, brought through Mbappe, but bought Bakayoko from Rennes, so pick the bones out of that. Unfortunately, the rumour came out of France, where the Press Putains like making nonsense sh*t up more than our lot do, which is saying something. Podgettino is “stunned” by his two match ban for confronting Mike Dean. Us too, but not for the same reasons. Sp*ds have an ultimatum from the league - play your next game at Wait Hart Lane or you have to stay at Wembley for the rest of the season. United are introducing an atmosphere section in the Stratford End. Ole has been to the dry cleaners. Apparently this is news. As is the fact that Harry Kane spent a day visiting relatives at London Zoo. And if you think Fernandinho is a nasty little c**t, (he is) a player in the Turkish third tier turned up for work toting a shank which he used on the guy he was marking. Evidently didn’t think his teeth were up to Suarez’s standard. The Others: Podge has banned his dickheads from dressing room gloating until they win a trophy, (so permanently then) but they don’t learn. Celebrating getting out of the last 16 in the Champions League like they’ve won the bloody thing. Something about football fundamentally changed last night at the Parc de Prince, and I don’t like it. We went from VAR assisting the referees in coming to the correct decision, to using the technology to fundamentally change the way in which a potential handball is viewed. Apparently now that they have it, the referees have received a directive that says “any move to make themselves bigger” in the box that results in a glance off the arm is an infringement. Where do you draw the line between not being able to jump to defend the goal without driving yourself upwards with your arms, to being guilty of a deliberate attempt to use them to impede the ball? Because PSG absolutely did not cross that line last night. United deserved a beating in the first leg, and PSG were in the act of bottling the second, but what transpired was that a critically important game of football that had thus come to be balanced on a knife edge was decided on the flimsiest pretext I have seen since UEFA sent Overbo to West London. Anyway, give Solskjaer the job full time. Because if the fact that Ferguson, who let us be reminded was critically ill last year, was ON THE PLANE WITH THEM does not tell you who is pulling the strings at Old Trafford in terms of managing the side, then you need to purchase yourself some Stevie Wonder glasses and start busking with a mini-keyboard at Fulham Broadway. A very risky plan for a massive football club, and not at all long term. You’re essentially just hoping that Ferguson can impart everything he ever did on an ex-player who everyone likes and has never done anything more in management than boss a Norwegian side named after fungus. Good luck with that. Hilariously, he wont be able to move back into his house up north, because he’s renting it. He’s Virgil Van Dijk’s landlord. What a bad tempered week it is turning out to be in Europe though. Neymar apparently tried to break into the officials’ room after PSG crashed out. What a knob. Perez threatened to kick Ramos out of Real. I’m not equipped to lyrically surmise how delicious it was watching Sergio suffer on the sidelines after getting himself suspended on purpose. It needs some perverted voiceover from Nigella Lawson complete with her licking a spoon covered in melted chocolate. In just her bra. Solari is a dead man walking, with Chequebook Pulis or Podgettino touted to replace him. Hopefully neither of which will inspire Eden to go there. (You’d have to say that the former would have him running screaming in the other direction after last time.) Courtois has been chucking missiles at photographers’ cars in the aftermath of his latest humiliation, (whahahahha) the Roma sporting director had a punch up with their fans at the airport, and they sacked their manager after going out to Porto. In the Europa League. Arsenal kicked off early in their tie against Rennes. It was all going so well, until it wasn't. Sokratis doesn’t look like a brainiac, but you’ve got to be a special level of moron to commit three yellow card offences in one half of football in Europe, where the referees are doubly touchy. They were lucky Granit Xhaka didn’t go too, but I’ve said it aplenty before, what more do you expect from a guy who is named after a rock? Lovely gesture by the Rennes fans with their welcome home banner for Petr Cech. I laughed so hard watching the Rennes goals that I scared Bertie. Before anything else, Glenn Hoddle made his return to punditry tonight at the Bridge. Huzzah. We went into this one of only three teams in the competition unbeaten so far. On we go trying to maintain our record of winning the damn trophy every time we’ve been it. I just want to laugh at them trying to lift it after the final. Bloody thing weighs a ton. Us: Most importantly, Ruben and CHO didn’t start, which was w*nk. Zappacosta, Alonso and The Beard, who was the joint second highest scorer in the competition before kick off, came into the starting lineup. Rudgier took to the bench for a well earned rest, as did N’golo and Eden. Emerson and Dave got the night off. Them: If I told you I cared, you’d see right through it. They were short on strikers, and five were under 21, but half of them are in the Ukraine squad. They had scored in every single one of their away games going into this. Whatever any of that means. Very positive start, lots of movement down the right and pinned them right back for the opening five minutes. Pedro Pony might have taken better advantage of a silly error by them at the back after 7. They were all over the place, picking up an early booking and generally clinging on. They’d only made one convincing foray into our half in the opening fifteen minutes, and shortly afterwards we made out dominance pay. Put through by The Beard with an awesome flick, Pedro Unicorn (He’s been promoted again already) runs on and slots it between the goalkeeper’s legs. Should have had a brace moments later, three yards out, but somehow it didn’t go in. From then on Kiev started to get a toehold in the match. That said, Barkley could have made it two, had the keeper not learned his lesson the last time and kept his knees together. Just. That’s a faster learning curve than some of the girls I want to school with. Badoom-tish. Pedro Unicorn went down a bit easy just before the half hour mark, no VAR in this competition to give us free penalties. The little scamp could have been on a hatrick. On 33 he was in again but this time it was a great save by the Kiev man, who must have hated the f*cking sight of him already. Alonso tested him almost immediately afterwards. Chances pouring in, and already we could have sent this tie well to bed and saved many, many heavy legs a trip to the other side of the continent. Another squandered chance from Pedro Unicorn and we went into the break just one ahead. Not lost on me that we’d scored just about the most complicated of them either. The Ukrainians would have been pinching themselves after naively playing out from the back against a better side. Wonder where I’ve seen that lately. Typically, given our complete domination, we came pondering out of the blocks after half time with about as much impetus as Sam Allardyce looking for his local gym. We finally had lift off after 53 with yet another chance for Pedro Unicorn. By this time Ruben and Kante were out warming up, it was as well, as Kiev began pressing for an away goal. Barkley and Jorginho made way for them on 61. Free kick on 63 - could Willian stick the knife in? Yes. With a spectacular effort into the top left corner on his 100th European appearance. Goalkeeper had done well tonight but barely moved. Thank f*ck for that. Now bring on CHO. Whole stadium agreed. Made us wait ten minutes tho. Another move on 82, great run by Ruben but the full back put him under enough pressure that he sent it over the bar. Of course it was us, so we were not above f*cking around at the back and inviting disaster as the clock ticked down. Showed all the concentrative power of Andy Carroll watching University Challenge in the last five minutes of normal time. And yet. Some lucky chaps will not have to board a plane to the Ukraine thanks to Ruben and CHO linking up after Pedro Unicorn’s pinpoint accurate pass to make it 3-0. So: Hurrah. Could have been more, equally we could have f*cked it up at the end. Are we on a collision course to meet Napoli in the final? Pedro Unicorn sublime again, but the two young subs couldn’t have done much more to stake a claim. Three wins on the trot, knackered players got a night off, and the lack of drama is unnerving me. I’ve already decided that I’m calling this season’s blog book Sarri Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. AC Fulham 1 Chelsea 2 Sunday 3rd March 2019 14:05 This was the 82nd West London derby. Fulham have won precisely nine of them. Hence why this away-day excursion is thoroughly enjoyable, and nobody wants to see them go down, but it doesn’t pack a punch. In the News: What a difference a couple of results makes. Sarri’s sense of humour has returned. He looks less like he’s about to set fire to his synthetic tracksuit with his lighter on the touchline. Having compromised with the players about defending a little deeper, and reaping the rewards on the pitch, it’s safe to say he’s not going anywhere for now. And by that, because it’s us, I mean like, a week. Have a guess at which Blue accumulates the most fines in training? St. N’golo of Kante. Always late for training apparently, should probably trade the Mini for something with a more impressive engine to get him there on time. FIFA are doing their best to try and implement this transfer ban whilst the appeal is ongoing, which strikes me as b*stardry, but UEFA have dropped any investigation into the sketchy accusations of racism in Budapest last December. They are, however, looking at banning City from the Champions League after they fiddled Financial Fair Play. Jason Puncheon has been cast out by Huddersfield after a bust up with the manager. For me, he will only every be noteworthy for running off the pitch to take a dump that time. At least he didn’t do it in his pants like Lineker. Chequebook Pulis continues his foray into punditry. Not impressed with Madrid in El Clasico. Apparently the Spanish giants are going to try and give Bale back to Sp*rs to try and leverage getting Eriksen out of them. Celtic unveiled a banner for Rodgers that read: “You traded immortality for mediocrity.” Get over yourselves, much. The Others: Gloriously, Sp*rs have dropped eight points in a week. Karma. Aaron Ramsey was running about screaming “this is my f*cking pitch” at Wembley. Only he’s Welsh. Whatever, if he caused them pain in the act of doing so, I’m on board. Klippity Klopp is blaming the wind for their inability to beat Everton, which, even more gloriously, means that their “destiny” (God the Press Plebs are tedious) is now out of their hands. The irony that he is a massive windbag is not lost on me. He took it all out on a twelve year old ball boy who took the p*ss out of him. The Scouse have of course notified the police, the FA, UEFA and FIFA of said 12 year-old’s transgressions. And Klippity cuddles stewards so obviously he’s a f*cking saint and nothing will happen to him, because everyone is sprayed with a teflon coating on their way into the Scouse. Just as nothing will happen to Harry F*cking Kane after his lame head butt on Dave. Leicester lost, despite the arrival of Brendan and his giant teeth, Palace heaped more misery on Burnley, with Michy scoring again, City cut it fine against Bournemouth and United made a big deal out of their tie against Southampton. Them: Denied a reunion with the loveable Ranieri because it’s his fault they bought too many players and then it turned out they cant play together. Babel and his luminous red hair is worthy of a slating. Looks like a f*cking snooker ball sitting on his shoulders. Us: Sarri has concerns about how tired the players are. Kepa, having taken his medicine, is forgiven. This apparently really is over and done with now. Rotation at the back saw Emerson and Christensen return and Alonso and Luiz sit this one out. In midfield it was Pedro Pony’s turn to take a back seat after his Wednesday heroics and Willian came in. If he doesn’t give Hudson-Odoi the chance he has earned on Thursday I will shake my fist at him. Blogging this was always going to hurt after nigh on a week spent with the various chapters of Chelsea in America who were over. My liver is actually crying. The rampant narcissist in charge of Chelsea Chicago has demanded the attention he is due in this blog with a mention. So here we go: Brian. Grown men with clappers is only a step below turning up for the game in a full kit. Apparently it is five years since we were last here. Last time I was stood two seats away from Ray Wilkins. God I feel old. Two gins with a raging head cold meant I was cuddling a lovely chap called Steve that I don’t know before kick off. It was a very positive start. In the away end we amused ourselves by celebrating the annual collapse of Sp*rs title “charge” (which as usual was a tentative, marauding f*cking amble at best) We manufactured some half chances before a stupid error on 5 minutes needed a quick reaction by a furious Dave, but we survived. Higuain could have put us ahead shortly afterwards if he’d just hit the bloody thing. They were finally getting somewhere on 10 before the referee put in an outstanding block. They were doing all right now. On 17 minutes Kepa fumbled the ball and Babel should have been in, but the keeper came flying back and risked a boot to his baby face to get his hands back on the ball. A shot from Barkley curled high and wide, before bang on 20 minutes Higuain flicked it in. 1-0. Cuddle buddy Steve thinks he’s rather like Thibaut. If he has to react to something quickly he’s great, but the second he takes a touch, therefore engaging his brain, it all falls apart. Rather than motivate Fulham into action they became more cautious after the goal, but it soon passed. Another great save from Kepa, but absolutely ludicrous defending from the resulting corner destroyed our lead. Absolutely nobody marking Calum Chambers in the box, nobody on the far post and even that great oaf had even enough time for his walnut sized brain to register how to bring it down and fire at the target. 1-1. End to end then, but on 30 we were the ones with the time and space. A perfectly placed shot to make it 1-2. We were there when Jorginho scored. Sarri’s illegitimate kids on top. Just over again from Higuain on 32, before at the other end a volley from Denis Odoi went well wide. Eden was in on 36, but had to settle for a corner. Which was as traditionally sh*t as always. Leading into the break, we scrapped well for the ball on the edge of the box, but Eden’s shot went straight at the keeper and there was nobody there for the follow up. Higuain could have had another in injury time when the ball came along the floor from Dave, but his shot was spectacularly tipped out by the keeper. All in all, we really should have put it to bed by now, and we hadn’t. Fulham were fully on the defensive at the restart, but we still couldn’t score again. Then our ability to pass the ball to each other went wayward for a bit. Fulham were by no means out of this. If they’d have played like this all season they wouldn’t be in their current predicament. Side netting for Little Willie on 52, before a handball/penalty shout on 53. Refwatch: Graham Scott apparently. Not particularly consistent. Not sure what was going on with the f*cking drinks break before half time either. Doesn’t know what constitutes a corner. He does however get bonus points for mocking Dave’s massive overreaction to the penalty claim. Handbags in the box on 57 resulted in Eden playing it across the face of goal, but again there was nobody there trying to tap it in. Best chance yet for Fulham on 59, a block from us landed at their feet but the shot was just over the bar. The the managers rolled the dice. A change from them ignited a flurry of recognition re the score line. Time to change this up. Inevitably with Kovacic for Barkley, right? Though a bit of CHO wouldn’t have gone amiss, as it had become all about them looking or an equaliser. Jorginho off for Kovacic. F*cking hell he’s full of positive changes all of a sudden. Bit of a tasteless cheer from us, but he was at least then sung off the pitch. Think it was more that Sarri was making a different change than an expression of antipathy for one of our goal scorers. Another change from Fulham. The snooker ball limped off for some bloke I’ve never heard of. I would have quite liked another f*cking goal now, because it was still it was all about them. Punched clear by Kepa on 71, before Rudi saved the day again less than a minute later. Tired Hazard off for Pedro Pony on 73, but they were still fully in pursuit of an equaliser. All we needed was one counter attack though. Barkley off for Ruben on 78, but we were faffing with disaster. There was a chance to put it to bed on 84, but again there was nobody waiting for it in the box. We squandered another as the rain lashed down. We were time wasting against Fulham, who were desperately trying to get something out of the game amidst our mockery. “We forgot that you exist,” and “You’re going down.” Poor Fulham. So: Poor Fulham my arse, for then they nearly scored but for a diving save from Kepa after Ruben gave the ball away. Five minutes added on, and they thought they’d got a point with seconds to go but it was offside. A stupid error to concede, and all we did was give the ball away for the last twenty minutes. But though we huffed and we puffed, we got a result. Some games are just like that, and this wasn’t a reversion to the awful form of pre-City. They were on a traditional bounce after the dismissal of a manager and it is their cup final, after all. Rudiger was excellent again and although Christensen broke my rules governing centre backs not wearing long sleeves, he slotted in nicely again and with Emerson picking up where he left off against City the defence looked competent. Only three days off before it’s Kiev. God if this schedule is ruining me no wonder Eden looks like he needs a fat quarter pounder to revive his little legs. AC Chelsea 2 North London Jellyfish 0 Wednesday 27th February 2019 20:00 Ahahahaha, another season, no home, no trophies and a deep sense of emptiness for a club that one week ago thought they might just win the league. In the News: The fallout from Kepagate/Sarri’s tantrum continued after Sunday. Apparently Kepa was a pariah, despite being very apologetic, Big Willy was p*ssed off and the camp was split down the middle and highly sympathetic of Sarri. AC Milan don’t want Higuain back. Wages are too high. Want to know where your flag was on Sunday? Apparently they weren’t fireproof, so Wembley wouldn’t let them in. Chelsea then spent £120,000 (give or take) on buying all the scarves in the Wembley storeroom at sticker price and putting them out, at which point people moaned that they didn’t get one (guilty) or that they had just purchased one outside only to get one for free. And demanded their money back. Chequebook Pulis has been yapping again. Apparently he’s plotting a return to Real (as well as Inter) and thinks Hazard will fit in well. What are the odds on Eden wanting to play for him again after he got fat on quarter pounders and refused to do anything last time he was his boss? And this week CP is blaming the scouts for his failure at United. Everyone is injured up there - Ole has broken them all. Bet Fred still can’t get a game. Podgettino faces a touchline ban after screaming in Mike Dean’s face at Burnley. After telling someone else they were a mercenary for leaving Celtic for Leicester, Brendan Rodgers has left Celtic for Leicester and even if we are a complete clusterf*ck, at least Icardi is nothing to do with us. From what I can gather his wife Wanda is his agent, and they are nutjobs and he is now at war with the club, his teammates, his manager and the Inter ultras. Watch us sign the lunatic. The Others: No upsets, tho City cut it fine with a single penalty in taking the points over West Ham. London is awash with Blues from America so we did some predictions in the pub: Chicago: “We are smashing those f*cks 2-0 or 4-1 it’s in my bones.” San Francisco: “I would love 4-0 but I think 2-0.” Dallas: “3-2 Hell yeah!” And, randomly, Hillingdon: “I feel something good, 3-1 like the old days, theirs will come on 78 mins.” Us: Drops Kepa. Mixed messages - a wash of coverage telling us it was a misunderstanding and then he benches him. Which providing we didn’t lose I don’t think anyone really had a problem with, so long as this is the end of it. No Emerson. This enraged me on principle. If a player does really well there should be reward, progression. Otherwise you end up with a dressing room full of sulking and anarchy. Them: Scanned the pitch and couldn’t see a giant meathead looking like walking and breathing at the same time was the most confusing thing ever, so presumably Dire is wandering round North London in full kit, lost, with dirty knees and his finger stuck up his nose. No Diving Little Sh*t either. Probably arrested for crimes against fashion after those hideous Boohoo adverts. No Danny Rose to start, which robs us of the chance to sing “Cry in a minute.” A lively start from the diving scum, but we were by no means overrun. In fact, pretty soon we began to give as good as we got. Gilt edged chance for Higuain on 5, we all thought he’d stunned the keeper but it smacked off the inside of the post. Unlucky. Already niggling each other. Was loving our determination to win the ball back in the opening spell, admirable determination to get in there and kick them to get it back. Pedro Unicorn (for verily he deserves a f*cking upgrade after last night) couldn’t quite get his head properly on another cross on 7. At the other end Son had already thrown himself to the ground twice and been told to pack it in by Marriner. Surprised PGMOL gave this one to lurch but as it turned out he wasn’t that bad tonight. We looked much the stronger in midfield, which makes a nice change. Handball shout in the box on 11. To be fair to Ben Davies, because he’s fit, (though obviously you’d have to wear gloves because he is Sp*rs) he was trying to drag himself out of the way. Another shot soon after, but it fell to the white man’s answer to Mikel (Kovacic) and went 30 foot over the bar. Easily on top so far, with some great passing in tight spaces. First to everything it seemed, though actual shots had been at a premium so far. They were feeding off scraps, but we all know that means little in the world of Chelsea. An absolute gift from Lloris on 18 with one of his regular brain farts. Passed the ball straight out to Higuain, who hit it decisively, but it swung wide. The game was getting more bad tempered as the half went on especially after some cheating from Harry F*cking Teflon Kane, who should have been sent off for a head butt action on Dave. Not least for the trauma suffered by the defender when he got a face full of slobber. Shot high from Kante on 38, then one of their whinging muppets cracked the bar shortly before the break. We’d pressed high, and done well at smothering them on the ball, but nobody’s efforts had yet been on target at either end, so 0-0 at halftime was hardly surprising. And actually not depressing, though that might have been the gin. Real intent as soon as the second half kicked off, but still no end result. Higuain scored on 53 but was flagged offside. Sooner or later we’re going to have to manipulate a shot on target to go with all of this effort, right? RIGHT! Pedro Unicorn! Dave played him in and he had absolutely no right to find such an easy pass by Lloris. Then again, it helps when the goalkeeper is probably p*ssed. 1-0. Hazard off for Willian on 58 in what was a very astute change, where is this suddenly coming from? Eden looked leggy and you absolutely couldn’t remove Pedro Unicorn, because he it was like he had sprouted wings and was high on fairy dust. I’ve grown accustomed to not expecting common sense with out substitutions. This sp*rred the rotten b*stards into life. KICK THE C*NT! Screamed Gonzo (Special alias) as Son fannied about on the edge of the box looking for an opportunity to dive. Nothing they could muster could find a way through our defence. The inclusion of the much maligned (by me too, I admit it) Alonso tonight did nothing to shake the rock hard foundation we managed to muster at the back at the weekend. Claims we booed him were b*llocks. Rudi was the excellent and Luiz was in Munich Mode as the night wore on. He was a beast. They were all outdone on the hour, however, by Pedro Unicorn who put in the defensive tackle of the season so far to rob Sp*rs in the box, then skipped round another one of the a*seholes and ran off with the ball. If Sideshow was a beast tonight, then Sissoko was an animal. There’s a difference. Clattered into anything that moved, smacking people about off the ball and then crying like a little b*tch baby every-time someone touched him. Wanker. I don’t think we necessarily intended to fall back and defend but they definitely pushed us there. And yet, here was another positive substitution! On came Ruben for Kovacic. F*ck me. Refwatch: Andre Marriner in charge. Actually had control of the game, which is a first in this fixture, but is a massive bellend for not sending off the dribbling chimp. Hilariously, Mike Dean, who was the fourth official after overseeing Podgettino’s hissy fit at Burnley, ended up running the line. Two games for Sp*rs featuring him in less than a week, and they’ve lost them both. I officially love Mike Dean now. In fact, details of how to sponsor this blog via Patreon are below. I’m considering ploughing the money into sending him to every one of their games, home and away. First Sp*d change. Son stayed on his feet long enough to f*ck off, a miracle. Replaced by Maura. Higuain didn’t have the best game, but he was a gnats fart away from scoring and could have had another, and his effort was not wanting. Off he went for The Beard on 82. No sooner has that happened than Kieran Trippier has a brain fart that made Lloris look like a f*cking genius. In trying to pass the ball back to said keeper he booted it right past him and into the goal. We couldn’t have placed it better ourselves. More like a brain implosion. Total shutdown. Wouldn’t be surprised if he shat himself and forgot his own name at the same time. Know what makes it better? Swedish Sp*rs podcast tweeting at the beginning of the second half: “I don’t want to jinx it but Trippier has been phenomenal.” Oops. Podgettino’s response? (Other than eating his body weight in sausage in the dressing room after) Brings on Danny Rose for Sissoko. A Sarriesque, wank substitution if ever I saw one. Only Sarri appears to have been body snatched. Their fans couldn’t get out of the ground fast enough now. By this point, Knobhead, my one Gooner friend, was getting very excited on a WhatsApp. Apparently we stole “It’s happened again” from them, but in this case L’Arse are willing to share. Who gives a f*ck what happened for the last five minutes, they were beaten. “Hugo Lloris Don’t Drive Me Home” we can claim though. A rousing chorus of “You’ve had your day out, now f*ck off home” as Kane assaults Luiz. Almost a punch up. First two yellow cards of the game, one of which for a player who could have been sent off a second time. So: Well. Sarri has for the time being, completely turned it around. He’s not actually Sarri anymore. Not only in results, but in his entire conduct of running a football match. Forgive me for being so shocked by this, but as a girl, you have to understand that this is a MAN, who has been told repeatedly that he is WRONG, who has actually not only LISTENED but changed the way he does things. In the history of humanity, this is f*cking unprecedented. The only explanation I can think of is that after the United game, someone, probably Willian, he likes a good player revolt, offed Sarri and shoved him in a biffa bin. But not before someone who looks potentially psychotic (let’s go Kovacic) skinned him. Ever since it hasn’t actually been Sarri on the sidelines, it’s Guus Hiddink wearing the resulting bodysuit as a disguise. Smoking the odd fag to make it convincing. You heard it here first. AC If you would like to sponsor this blog, and keeping me merry enough on match day gin to cope with watching our nuthouse of a football club in action, or indeed fund the possible presence of Mike “Dobby” Dean at every Sp*rs match forever and ever ever and ever amen, you can do so here: Chelsea 0 Manchester City 0 (Citeh win on penalties) Carabao Cup Final Sunday 24th February 2019 16:30 A flatter set of fans on their way to Wembley for a proper game (not Sp*rs) you never did see, but by the time everyone converged at the ground we were all more than ready to make an enthusiastic go of it. In the News: Zidane won’t be put off by transfer ban and will be given £200m to spend. Is anyone else seeing the conflict in this sentence? If any of this is true, and we do get the ban reduced, he must be smoking some seriously wacky sh*t to want to be a part of this madness. But shall I be a killjoy? It wasn’t especially hard to win trophies with the most awesome squad in Europe. We are an entirely different prospect. Michael vs. Marina. This is obviously a lot more convoluted but I wanted to throw some FACTS out there in the style of a certain Spaniard given where we are now, and how mach of a pariah Emanalo was for so many fans: Emanalo was appointed Technical Director in summer 2011 with Roman demanding that instead of throwing money around, Chelsea needed to be more savvy in the transfer market. In the first 18 months or so: 21 year-old Kevin de Bruyne for £8m 19 year-old Thibaut Courtois for £8m 18 year-old Romelu Lukaku for £14.8m 21 year old Eden Hazard for £31.5m 22 year-old Dave for £7.9m 21 year-old Mohamed Salah for £14.8m All of that for little over £80m. In the windows since he left: Ross Barkley The Beard Emerson Palmieri Jorginho Rob Green Kepa Mateo Kovacic on loan Gonzalo Higuain on loan Christian Pulisic Discuss. If you can be a*sed. City could be next with a transfer ban apparently. Clattenburg and his mercenary hair plugs are off to China now. Someone has got to deal with Fellaini and his elbows I suppose. Courtois has been named the best keeper of 2018 by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics. If that doesn’t clarify that 90% of all statistics are a waste of energy I don’t know what does. United have actually been covering their pitch in garlic. Call it an overreaction, but when it comes to Firminho and those teeth you can never take too seriously the threat of vampires dropping by. In the pub pre-game we laughed muchly about the United excuse I was given this week about the reason for giving Phil Jones a lengthy new contract. They didn’t want to get caught out should he go on a free. I’m pretty sure the only offer he’d have got would have been £10 an hour from Morrison’s. And even then they would have had him out the back of the bakery sweeping crumbs and nowhere near the customers. That said, it is always possible that Lidl could have swept in with a better offer. The Others: After a humiliating result, Leicester canned Puel. Brendan Rodgers is the favourite to replace him, which at least means he isn’t coming to Chelsea. Little Pea did an Henry to sink Fulham. No sooner does a Sp*rs player (Sanchez) go and claim they are contenders for the title than they then go all Sp*rsy and lose to Burnley. That’s the universe telling you to sit down and shut the f*ck up. Dropped points by the Scouse (Yay for humanity) and United, which means if we win against Sp*rs we might not be so monumentally f*cked trying to get into the Champions League. Klopp was caught conferring with Ole about what a sh*t game it was. But Arsenal won. There’s nothing worse than a pseudo middle-class Gooner walking a yappy dog, with a sleeve tattoo, (him not the dog) a massively receding hipster hairdo and a pot belly, wearing a skintight shirt. And sunglasses indoors. Not even on his head but his forehead. Who gets out a pink f*cking blanket for the mutt. And a Tupperware water pot. I almost wanted to glass him and put him out of his misery. But they gave us plastic cups at the pub in Marylebone. So his torment endures. Us: Gone in 60 Minutes. Hardly any lectures. He gave them a break in preparation, and it certainly seemed to have paid off. No Alonso, no striker either. No starting place for Hudson-Odoi after his exploits on Thursday. Them: Urgh whatever. Loads of expensive people. The usual final fanfare. Charles (special alias) was impressed by the cahones on display from the FA. To invest all that effort on a massive banner bearing Sarri’s likeness when you weren’t sure he’d even be there. That said we don’t know that they didn’t have ones of Blanc, Holland, Hiddink, Zola a blank one and even f*cking Wenger out the back just in case. DISCLAIMER: If I’ve got any of the players wrong, its because we were so far away from the pitch that it was a miracle we could spot the difference between Kepa and Kante. Five minutes without conceding. We’ll aim low to start with. We can do this. Four seconds for Aguero to start cheating. For a start, he ran into Jorginho, who is a quarter of his size. There is no way his big a*se is going down in that scenario without his own intent. Unless he’s going to claim that Jorginho’s ears took a swipe at him. 50 more seconds for them to win their first corner, but as it turned out, we went longer without conceding than last time. Jokingly, from on the roof where our beloved club had seated the first people to buy tickets, we set ourselves the lofty target of matching Newport County, who went 51 minutes in the cup without conceding to St. Pep and his minions. Of course they had much of the early possession, but on nine minutes Luiz put a fine ball up to Kante. Who was promptly fouled. You’ll understand why nothing was done about this as we continue. If I can see a foul from two and half miles away, lord knows why the official picked for the biggest fixture of the weekend can’t. But we were doing well. We looked disciplined at the back, which made for a change against decent opposition. In the opening twenty minutes they hadn’t even had a shot. Neither had we, but let’s not get carried away. Over the bar from Aguero on 21. By the half hour mark their fans were getting frustrated about the lack of goalmouth action. We were just relieved. We almost had a hideous own goal for them in injury time, and a corner to end the half. With which we didn’t even manage to clear the first man. But its all about perspective. We were not four goals behind at the break. As the players reemerged we had six more minutes to survive as long as Newport County. Both sides were willing to attack. Another foul by them unpunished, another high city effort to begin. Still no shots on target at either end. Our defence was still holding up well. The magic 51 minute mark! This time at the Etihad we were about to go 5-0 down. Not only were we not losing, but we were trying to score at the other end. On 52 Hazard broke and we were off, only to be wholly outnumbered in the box. Then they hit us back, but it was finally ushered out. Aguero was blatantly offside on 55, not that their excitable fans noticed, despite his luminous, early mid-life crisis hair. VAR was invoked. Wasn’t going to make it any more onside. Refwatch: Jonathan Moss. Are you f*cking serious? Couldn’t they have just flown Oliver down after the United game? Or found a Big Issue seller looking for some freelance work outside the tube? A litany of the usual sh*t decisions in the first half. 57 minutes before he finally booked any of them for the cheating sh*thousery. Wouldn’t know what persistent fouling was if it ripped his cock off, covered it in scotch bonnets, doused it in petrol, lit it on fire and and shoved it down his throat. Couldn’t get throw ins right, even fell on his pudgy arse at one stage to crown a typically flaccid display. Anyway, ensuing free kick from rare sensible refereeing decision was a complete waste of time. Landed on the roof of that car park next to the stadium that looks like it’s made of f*cking Meccano. 65 mins we were in again, best chance yet but blazed over. Probably by Eden Hazard but he’s small at the best of times, never mind from this distance. Rudi was great from the off, Luiz got stronger and stronger. But the star of the defence today was Emerson. If he hasn’t budged his way in as the first choice left back this week then truly, Sarri is blind. This was a finely poised game, but it was going to hinge on the changes. Oh dear. Kovacic for Barkley in the next five minutes. You heard it here first. In the meantime we broke again, Hazard gunning towards the goal, played in Pedro Pony, who for some godforsaken reason didn’t shoot. Arrrrgh! It was end to end now. Take a deep breath, but Hudson-Odoi was our first sub. 30-odd thousand absolutely stunned Chelsea fans watching Sarri make a sensible change instead of bringing on Kovacic. With a little over ten minutes to go, both managers made a change. PP paid for his transgression by making way, and David Silva went off for Gundogan. We were pressing far more now, and trying to be completely objective, our attacks outnumbered theirs. Dare I say we looked like we were actually trying to win it? Which was terrifying knowing what City can do to you on the break. Pep made his last change bringing on Sane for the Ginger Prince (so nicknamed where we were sitting because he was untouchable no matter what he did) We were really pressing with two minutes to go. Of course Moss knew exactly where to find his card when it came to Jorginho. He deserved it, but but it grated when he had failed to punish them for anything. Barkley for Loftus-Cheek. F*ck me, had someone switched out his cigarettes for something more potent? Sarri wanted to win this in normal time. The cynic in me thought it might be because he couldn’t get away with smoking on the premises at Wembley and he was just desperate for a fag. City burst into life with seconds left of normal time. Four minutes added. In truth it would have been unfair If anyone scored in the dying seconds, as it had been an even, well contested game. Not that I would have given if a sh*t if it had been us that snatched it at the death. We had one tipped over from the free kick, another narrow offside decision. The Lino was right on this occasion but I thought the excuse for letting Harry F*cking Kane through against us was that they had been told to keep their flags down when VAR was present? It was, however, the right decision this time. City rounded off with ten men after Fernandinho was carried off. Karma for all the times he’s tried to decapitate other people. Jammy buggers were going to get an extra sub for extra time, which meant they could bring their numbers up. Unfortunately so were we, but more on that soon. It was a low key start, apart from the pitch-side beer swilling homophobe on the other side of the divide who barely paused for breath. As the stewards watched on. It took nearly an hour for someone to finally drag the little scrote out. Higuain on for Willian after five minutes, I might get a nosebleed with all these attacking substitutions. He made an early break alongside Kante, but the best they could manage this time was another corner. Higuain and Kanye set us off on seven and won a corner. Both teams threatening to break, and the game was simmering nicely. A lot of faffing in tight spaces on 10 minutes before a wide lash from Jorginho, another high effort from Hazard moments later. After the short interval we had to scramble it off the line, though we were sure they were offside even from a mile away. Rudi fell over and they managed to forge a terrifying opportunity, but Kepa saved, breaking himself in the process. Were we going to see poetry now? A former city keeper to come on for penalties? Then came Mutiny on the HMS Chelsea. Firstly, all this crap about Sarri bringing on Big Willy as a tactical decision because he is a penalty specialist is b*llocks. Surely every goalkeeper would claim to be a penalty specialist? It’s their job? Kepa has been injured Kepa looked to have broken himself in the same place again Sarri went to replace him on this basis Kepa was OK to continue There was a lack of communication on this point, exacerbated by the medical staff coming off and telling the manager that he needed to be replaced God bless City, they were booing away as if this was a ploy on our part to waste time. Nope, we are just actually this ridiculous. Moss goes to stamp his authority, Terrifying. Kepa refuses to make way. Moss gets it right, because the recommendation in this scenario is apparently to just play on Sarri loses his sh*t. Sorry but Team Chicago and Team Sweden and self watched the video back in the pub and cried with laughter. The Chuckle Brothers do Wembley. The Wengeresque water bottle slam was nothing compared to the hulk style shirt-rippage that came just before it like Sarri was about to bust out of his special tracksuit (because kudos, he made an effort, he was not in his usual pyjamas) - A moment that was so intrinsically Chelsea. As in bonkers. Then he appeared to go: “F*ck this I’m going for a fag” and stomped off towards the tunnel Before he realised he had two more minutes of extra time and a penalty shootout, both of which he was required to lead us through “Player power” scream the press plebs after the whistle went and others, mainly Rudi, made a pointed effort to keep the two apart. This is not player power. This is extremely smart on the part of those involved. We had a shootout to try and win. And any fallout should not have happened in public. Well done Rudiger. Being as dumbfounded as everyone else (apart from Little Willy, whose face was a classic portrait of “Oh HELL no!”) does not make Dave a sh*t captain. Daily Fail cites “fans” saying he is a disgrace. I debate whether these are actual fans, along with the ones giving it the “Kepa should never play for us again” I love that the Red Swarm just dip into the cesspool that is social media daily now to find outrageous quotes they can use to blanket attribute a nonsense opinion to everyone in blue. He’s apologised - let it go and play him on Wednesday. Tear a strip off him in private if need be. We talked about who might be the one to start a mutiny in the final on LoveSport on Friday night. I called Eden, another suggestion was Luiz. Nobody called Kepa. He doesn’t even shout at his own defenders. As a side bar, we spent a fair but of time perving over someone on the bench whilst reviewing all the screen caps of Hulk Sarri, before we realised it was Rob Green. I feel no shame, whatsoever. Anyway: Jorginho: Saved easy to read, slow, ponderous. He was suitably devastated. Gundogan: Sends Kepa the wrong way Dave: High but emphatic Cheating peroxide dog nonce: almost saved by Kepa. Jammy bastard. Emerson: Close, but in Some Bloke: Saved!! No f*cking idea. Someone in a light blue shirt with dark hair Luiz: Keeper guesses right but the f*cking thing hit the post. A rare spot kick faux pas from him. B Silva: Scored Hazard: Easiest one yet, after a lame attempt by Ederson to put him off. Kepa goes the right way for the last one but it slips under his body and goes in. Balls. So: I can’t be angry at the result. We gave it a go, HE gave it a go. The defence was disciplined, and nobody had a bad day. Sarri made all of the changes we’ve been begging for in recent weeks, and every one of the outfield changes was aimed at winning the game. We were talking fine, fine margins today and we just fell short, against a team that decapitated us a couple of weeks ago and shat down our neck. Sarri has more wins in his first English season that Pep did at the same point. He thinks its unfair that he is deemed to be failing when Emery is in exactly the same position. And he has made a final where the waxwork has not. He could not have done any more to keep his job today, but I require much, MUCH more convincing if he is to stay long term. Starting with a continuation of this fine performance and his adaptation against Sp*rs on Wednesday night. I will admit thought, there was a part of me that watched him flinging stuff about like a crazed lunatic and going into meltdown on the touchline, actually showing some proper emotion, that thought: Bless you, you big scruffy dope, perhaps you could be one of us after all. AC |
AuthorAlex Churchill Categories |