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Chelsea: Fifa use sledgehammer to crack an egg

Times Online — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:06:06 +0100

Fifa stepped up their bid to stop English clubs dominating European football yesterday with an extraordinary ruling over the transfer of Gael Kutaka.

It was ruled that Chelsea had induced Kutaka to breach a contract signed with his former club. The punishment handed out is the equivalent of using a sledgehammer to crack an egg.

It is particularly vindictive that the ruling was released just TWO days after the last transfer window closed, even though the decision was ruled on the 28th of August. Coincidence? I think not.

Another mystery is why has it taken two years to make a decision? Is this connected in any way with the Eduardo da Silva ruling in that it’s another commitment to punish English clubs. Is it now fashionable to pick on Premier League sides?

Fifa have set themselves a precedent they must maintain for the sake of their credibility (if they have any left), in much the same way as Uefa have made a rod for their backs regarding Arsenal’s Eduardo. Both have to be consistent with their treatment of ALL football clubs, if not you can bet Chelsea will let them hear about it.

Here at CFCnet we are pleased that the club has already stated an intention to “mount the strongest appeal possible” and as supporters we will back the club anyway we can. We are convinced that Chelsea have been singled out as many clubs carry out the transfer of players with similar arrangements. We don’t think for one minute that Chelsea are the exception.

One thing you can be sure of is that Chelsea won’t fall apart, and it will make winning the Champions League even sweeter (fingers crossed). Maybe even Blatter himself will hand over the trophy.

Pete Sampson
CFCnet

Chelsea: Ancelotti getting the best out of Ballack

Times Online — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:46:18 +0100

Fulham away was nearly as good as it gets. Sunshine, cold beer, a cracking atmosphere and a 2-0 win over our closest rivals.

A hot summer Sunday afternoon always provides a good excuse to seek liquid refreshment especially on a match day and when the fixture is just over a mile further from the regular establishments.

The Chelsea fans were outstanding yesterday especially considering that the Fulham fans were so quiet. Roy Hodgson's team deserve better considering their Premier League placing last season and qualification for European competition.

Carlo Ancelotti surprisingly dropped (arguably) two of the best performers from last Tuesday's 3-1 victory over Sunderland, causing much debate amongst some of the Chelsea following.

Regardless of the changes, Chelsea were quite dominant and apart from an early scare Fulham didn't really look like scoring.

Didier Drogba opened the scoring and on this occasion resisted the temptation to remove his shirt. Nicolas Anelka put the tie to bed late in the second half just before news filtered though that England had won back the Ashes. Unfortunately, the Chelsea fans were unable to get a reaction from Mark Schwarzer, Fulham's Australian goalkeeper.

Youngster Sam Hutchinson made an appearance just before the end of the match and maybe he will be one to follow in John Terry's footsteps in becoming a regular first teamer.

Here at CFCnet we would also like to give Michael Ballack a special mention for his performance and it looks as if Ancelloti is getting to grips with how to get the best out of him. Yesterday the German's
touches, movement and passing were mostly outstanding.

Good luck Carlo, we're depending on you.

Peter Sampson
CFCnet

Chelsea: looking forward to watching Ancelotti's adaptables

Times Online — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:19:52 +0100

Now that the Community Shield is done and dusted and safely tucked away in the Chelsea museum for the next few months, thoughts turn towards the forthcoming Premier League season.

But before that starts in earnest we had the unusual prospect of an England game in early August. Whatever your thoughts on an international fixture so close to the start of the season, the game was actually quite entertaining. Even with Rio Ferdinand and Gareth Barry doing their best to throw the game, England performed well and Carlton Cole and Jermain Defoe may just have done enough for Fabio Capello to look at them again in a few weeks. Hopefully the guys who committed themselves to the squad last night will take preference to those who decided to take an easy route out and not participate due to having a slight groin strain or any other minor hindrance.

The England fans excelled themselves in the Amsterdam ArenA and I was delighted to hear songs dedicated to Sir Bobby Robson. In a similar vein it was nice to be amongst Chelsea fans at Wembley on Sunday who also paid the upmost respect to the former England boss. In fact I can only recall Chelsea fans chanting a footballer's name unconnected with Chelsea on one other occasion and that was for Peter Shilton, when he played for Derby County, who received a half decent greeting from the Shed End for his contribution whilst on England duty in Italia 90.

Isn't it strange how some broadcast media are ignoring the goings on at Everton? Although John Terry is undoubtedly one of the biggest names in the game surely even the lesser known Joleon Lescott should be getting some similar negative coverage? Which player do you think should be getting a slating? One who says nothing but stays loyal to his chairman, manager and fans or one that demands a transfer request against the wishes of his chairman, manager and fans? Can you imagine the virtual kicking Chelsea and Roman Abramovich would have had if JT had handed in a request earlier in the summer?

Talking about the receptions that some players receive at Stamford Bridge I would imagine that Stephen Hunt is looking forward to his on Saturday lunchtime. The game against Hull will be interesting as it's another chance to look at Carlo Ancelotti's diamond formation and an opportunity for the players to show how adaptable they are. I'm not keen on trying out these differing formations and most Chelsea supporters still remember the Christmas tree-type formations that Glenn Hoddle and Ruud Gullit tried and ultimately binned. Me, I'd much rather see a good old 4-4-2 any day of the week and expect to see it reverted to after a few weeks. Good luck Carlo, we're depending on you.

Chelsea: Players need to earn their money

Times Online — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:15:29 +0100

Peter Sampson

What is the feeling among the fans for the forthcoming season?

Chelsea haven’t spent a whole load of money but with three astute signings, the imminent return of Joe Cole and key players such as Didier Drogba signing longer deals, Chelsea are definitely stronger than last season.

Guus Hiddink got the best out of the players and if he had taken control earlier Chelsea would have pushed Man Utd last season. If Ancelotti fails to make his mark in the early stages I’m sure Guus will be waiting in the wings as soon as Russia’s World Cup qualification is sorted. I don’t think Ancelotti will be the next Scolari, though.

What is the best you can realistically hope for?

If we stay clear of injuries and if the team can sparkle in Ancelotti’s diamond system, I can’t see why Chelsea can’t win the Premier League.

I don’t think Man Utd are as all-conquering as some pundits will have you think and I don’t think Benitez will ever win the League with Liverpool.

Both Chelsea and Man Utd were below par last year and the sale of Ronaldo will not improve their chances of retaining the Premier League. The Champions League is also another possibility although winning both may be little more difficult as Carlo may have to focus on one or the other as the season progresses.

And the worst?

Worst-case scenario would be for Liverpool to win the title. It doesn’t mean I’m predicting that it would happen but it would be the nightmare scenario for a lot of football supporters of a high school age in the 1980s.

With just one appearance in the Champions League final after what seems like a hundred semi-final defeats, another loss that late in the competition would also be hard to stomach for both the supporters and probably the board as well.

What have you made of the arrivals and departures over the summer?

Very shrewd. Nice to see some young English players at Cobham with the arrival of Ross Turnbull and Daniel Sturridge. Obviously the intention is to bring the average age of the squad down and prepare for any additional “foreigner” rules that Uefa can throw at us in an attempt to stop any English club performing well in European competitions.

Who will be your key player and why?

I can’t wait to see Joe Cole fit again. He lives to play football and I’m sure he would play for free if he had to. Joe is one of those players that can create a goal from nothing. He’s entertaining and exciting when he’s in form. Losing him for most of the second half of the season was akin to Man Utd not having Ronaldo fit. Personally I think Joe matches Ronaldo’s skill levels but as he’s grown he’s limited his show-boating which was something that Mourinho didn’t like in Joe’s game. He will be an important part of Chelsea’s season and of the England squad in South Africa next summer.

Is there a young player or a new face we can expect to make a name for himself this year?

The arrival of Yuri Zhirkov was a clever acquisition, which has gone rather un-noticed due to a low transfer value. However, a winger who notched up 26 goals in 74 games with his first club, Spartak Tambov, could make a surprise impact in his first season. Quite worryingly, though, Yuri used to support Blackburn Rovers.

If you could give the team talk before the season's first game, what would you say?

Get out there and earn your money!

In Defence

Rob Hobson — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:17:45 +0100

After a quick scan of the nationals this morning, it seems that there’s nothing to be said that hasn’t already been covered. Still, a fan should have the resilience to comment about last night’s fiasco, even while the bile of defeat is lingering on the tastebuds. Bile cappuccino for breakfast? I don’t recommend it.

There are no words to defend Didier Drogba, whose actions went beyond reasonable protest and into the realm of the embarrassing and histrionic. Just as Eric Abidal and Co raised their hands and pleaded with the referee after what looked a harsh but perfectly defensible red card – what’s he going to do, change his mind? – so several Chelsea players felt the need to express their dissatisfaction in the strongest possible terms short of giving the hapless Norwegian a good kicking.

It certainly wasn’t right. But the incompetence that preceded it has only ensured one thing: that Manchester United will choke the life out of Barcelona’s much-vaunted attacking stars every bit as effectively as Chelsea did last night, and that UEFA’s showpiece final will have an ending every bit as predictable as the Titanic movie. I wonder what Sir Alex’s chuckle count was in the final minute or two of the game. Edging the dozen, I’d think.

After all the ill will, though, one can only offer some congratulations to Barca, who stuck to their guns and earned a priceless reward with the final round in the chamber. The previous wild shots may have all been blanks, but the last one was armour-piercing. And if you think that metaphor was laboured, you should have seen the tortuous bugger it replaced. It was, indeed, a brilliantly-taken goal from a player that I described last week as the world’s best central midfielder. On last night’s showing, any team coveting Messi should cast their eye a little inwards and wonder how much money it would take to prise this diminutive spectre from Barca’s grasp. He’s a genius.

By contrast, his Argentinian team-mate was comfortably held in check by stolid, creative and – for the most part – relatively comfortable defending. The nerves were mainly inspired by the narrow nature of the lead, not the constant piercing of the back line. Eto’o, who might as well not have been on the pitch for large swathes of the game, was the worst offender. How the blaugrana missed Henry.

And Drogba missed his chances. The big man’s profligacy in front of goal in both legs has come back to haunt us, as he disdained two golden opportunities to put the tie beyond doubt. Florent Malouda, working as hard as I’ve ever seen him, created decent attacking outlets that we couldn’t quite turn into goals. Frank Lampard lofted some beautifully-weighted passes into the Ivorian’s path. It wasn’t to be.

Make no mistake. If you’re leading 2-0 and walk off the pitch 5-2 down, you can’t blame a single refereeing decision for turning the game. If you have 3 or 4 chances to win the game and don’t, there are only so many excuses you can make if the result doesn’t go your way. I’ve read “3 or 4” penalty appeals. John Terry, I think, has been quoted as saying “5 or 6”. Personally, 3 sounds about right. But 2 of those – the shove on Malouda early on where a free kick was given outside the area, and Pique’s handball – were nailed-on, stone-cold, are you ****ing blind penalties.

Bitter? Damn right I am. If nothing else, now I have to consider the possibility that - shudder - I may be supporting United in the final.

Chelsea: cynicism or sense?

Rob Hobson — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:44:34 +0100

Now I know how Tony Mowbray feels.

See, earlier in the season the sages of Television Centre, Hansen and Lawrenson, were united in lip-curling contempt for the West Brom manager’s, er... optimistic, shall we say, approach to the game. Despite being ‘blessed’ with what is effectively a Championship squad sprinkled with players with some Premiership form – Jonathan Greening, for example – Mowbray insisted on playing the way that had brought his team success in the lower division the year before. Pass and move. Room in the middle. None of this negative campaigning. The players have talent, so let them express it.

Well, Albion are rock bottom with a smattering of games to go, so we all know how that went. In the League, their top scorer is Chris Brunt with a credit crunchy 8 goals to his name. But then, Mowbray has done something few have had the cojones to try before. Instead of condemning team and fans to 38 exercises in teeth-grinding tedium, he’s opted to keep faith with his footballing philosophy. Perhaps West Brom fans can tell me if they’d trade the spectacle – assuming they’ve had any this season – for the results?

This also wouldn’t be a Chelsea post without at least a passing nod to the man that defined the current squad – José Mourinho – and his ‘park the bus’ quote seems as appropriate as ever following tonight’s game. He wasn’t talking about his own players when he made the remark, but Chelsea certainly went to Camp Nou last night lacking the attacking ambition that fans of a top European team might expect. Instead, viewers were treated to a cynical masterclass that ground down and eventually completely nonplussed a side that has been lauded worldwide as one of the most incisive attacking outfits in recent memory.

Not that I, necessarily, condone how they went about it. Chelsea and Barca have form and both sides have found reason to criticise each other in seasons past. I don’t think it’s ever been a vicious or spiteful encounter, but there have been plenty of contentious moments. Last night, with Ballack and Mikel set up almost as a holding pair and a purported attacking trio actually sitting back to form a midfield five, we kicked and hassled and harangued the playmakers, barged Messi when we could get away with it and crowded him out when we couldn’t, and eventually – through sheer weight of defensive numbers and a couple of inspired saves from the much-maligned Cech – walked out with a clean sheet. No mean achievement, but – perhaps – achieved in a mean-spirited way.

Do I care? It’s a hard one to rationalise. At times, particularly when watching the mesmerically-gifted Iniesta, I thought we were playing a ghost side. They drift out of tackles. They reverse pass with effortless accuracy. Iniesta himself – for me, both the best player on the pitch and the most naturally gifted central midfielder in the world – can shift his body shape and momentum so deceptively, so quickly and with such devastating effect that I was almost assuming we’d end the game with 10 men. Perhaps it helps to be 5 foot nothing and to weigh less than my sister.

It’s almost like watching an effective Arsenal. Except then they spoiled the whole impression by not being able to score.

It’s interesting to see the comments knocking around on message boards this morning. I mean, if Barcelona are the ethereally-gifted outfit that we’re all agreed they are, is there genuinely any disgrace in going into the game with spoiling tactics?

Well, yes, probably. No one likes to see their team be dictated to, and Chelsea were all about reacting last night. Nothing proactive, except in the sense of getting plenty of men behind the ball when they didn’t have possession. Which was most of the time. Essien felt marginalised to me out on the right and Malouda, whose renaissance of form has surprised everyone of late, didn’t do enough to cover Bosingwa at left-back and forced Terry to come across more times than felt comfortable. If I were Pep Guardiola, I’d be doubling up on Ashley Cole next Wednesday, even if that does leave what will be a makeshift back 4 a little light.

All that aside, Barcelona’s whinges and gripes this morning will give Chelsea heart. You could see the frustration mounting as early as the first half, when Dani Alves’ flashpoint was exploited by both Malouda and Drogba in quick succession. The Brazilian was a marauding menace in terms of territory, but did little to actually affect the game beyond a fizzing drive or two and spent much of it with the body language of a man who has been, somehow, wronged. Messi’s contribution promised much and delivered little, and Eto’o and Henry were marked excellently throughout. The two or three occasions when they did wriggle free were dealt with brilliantly by Cech.

I have hope, both that we can win this tie and that we’ll play a different game on Wednesday. Having said that, we’re never going to open wide and play Barcelona at their own game. Our passing may be good at times and excellent at best, but the Catalan outfit’s is sublime even when they misfire. Discipline, application and obduracy are going to win this game for us. Well, that and a few long balls to Drogba. We’ll save the fluidity and artistry for Arsenal in the final.

Chelsea: Takes two to moonwalk

Rob Hobson — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:05:48 +0100

It’s easy for me to say it, and no doubt Liverpool fans won’t particularly want to hear it this morning. But all I can summon up is thanks. Thanks for contributing to a tie which has gone a long way to banishing the leaden memories we all have of previous encounters, and producing one of the most astonishing nights of football I’ve seen in a long time.

From the persistence and delicacy of Lucas – Lucas! – taking the vacant Gerrard role behind the striker to Alonso’s domination of midfield in the first half, and from Kuyt’s energy and industry to Mascherano’s complete nullification of Essien as a contributor to the game, Liverpool produced a barnstorming 90 minutes of football. The fact that both sides littered their intricate and occasionally scintillating approach play with some baffling mistakes at the back – Messrs Cech, Carvalho, Ivanovic, Skrtel and Reina were all more than culpable – may have added to the frenzy and created the spectacle, but it’s as far away from the catenaccio of previous games as it’s possible to get. Whatever the result had been, the forward trio of Messi, Eto’o and Henry would be anticipating a glut of opportunities in the semi-final meeting in two weeks.

So my applause and respect to Liverpool, a side that has exchanged plenty of bile with Chelsea over the past few years. Perhaps, with this game falling into step with a solemn anniversary in Yorkshire and on Merseyside, it’s fitting both that the game was of such mesmeric intensity, and that the two teams and managers showed respect and warmth to each other when the tie was over.

After all, it is only football. Heart-freezing, can’t-turn-away, can’t-bear-to-look, teeth-clenching football, sure. But, in the end, just a game. I hope we all remember that when the inevitable Champions League tie between these two teams comes around next year.

Something To Offend Nearly Everyone

Rob Hobson — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:56:21 +0100

I don’t know how other Fanzone writers go about it, but I like to set myself a challenge when I sit down to write a Chelsea piece. Something like ‘Don’t make a predictable crack about the lack of Salford-based United fans’ or ‘Try to avoid comparing delusional Toon supporters to the unwoken meat puppets in The Matrix’. In theory, it stops you from getting lazy and phoning in the gags. In practice, it means that you can occasionally knock out an opening paragraph like this one, bemoaning rubbish stereotype jokes and using them at the same time. Hey, there’s a recession on.

Today’s theme is ‘Don’t mention Frank Lampard’ who, as the solitary seasoned Fanzone Chelsea reader – cheers Grahame - will tell you, is something of an obsession with yours truly. At this point, I’d go off into an extended paean of praise and harp on interminably about the man’s gifts, but not today. Today is ‘Don’t mention you-know-who’ day.

So, as the freakshow Gestapo redhead chap says in Raiders of the Lost Ark... what shall we talk about? I suppose there’s some sort of game coming up in midweek that’s probably worth of a mention, but the sheer ennui of metaphorically walking out of the tunnel and standing face to face with sodding Liverpool yet again... well, pass me the Xanax and the Laphroaig bottle. Another pair of bloody cup ties with everyone’s favourite victims, and not even the cursory amusement of a little José to brighten up what promises to be another 180 minutes of stolid, turgid, indigestible football. The barium meal of the World’s Greatest Club Competition, if you will. Is there a more depressing sentence than "Some managers want to play too many mind games. With Hiddink, it will just be about football"? Christ, Rafa, the mind games were the most enjoyable bits of the whole debacle.

Of course, you could never accuse Sir Alex of playing mind games: not when his barbed verbal hand grenades carry all the psychological insight of Lesbian Vampire Killers. Still, it was interesting to see him benefit from one of European football’s repellent legal loopholes at the weekend. For those that aren’t keeping up with soi-disant Saint Platini and his attempts to modernise a few of the rules (or, to your bigoted knuckle-dragging Barry, to hamstring In-ger-land’s great clubs in Europe) there was a recent presentation made to the European Parliament in which Platini suggested that labour laws be tightened. Specifically, the UEFA president wanted to make it illegal for 18-year olds to be the subject of international transfers.

I talked about this some time ago and it inspired some interesting debate. The pick of the comments were:

“What about youngsters playing in poverty stricken countries without proper facilities. It is not fair on them and hence the law will not be passed.”

Wonderful, “Sam”. That’s what the clubs are really up to... providing a much-needed service for promising young starlets to fight their way out of poverty. Christ, I can smell the altruism from here. Or is it bull****?

“So Platini thinks it's ok for the French army to recruit 17 year old kids and ship them abroad, but it's not ok for an English football club to bring in kids from abroad to play football until they're 18.
Laughable.”

That one, in case there’s any doubt at all, comes from “Wrightstuff”, so it seems safe to say that he’s a Gooner with one nervous eye on how much further off the pace Arsenal will get without the chance to buy job lots of skinny francophone Africans every other year.

I bring this whole issue up again because of the quote made by Lazio president Claudio Lotito today. Signor Lotito is rather miffed that Lazio had a promising 16-year-old half-inched from his books by a certain American-owned Salford-based company. This promising lad, now 17, then went and scored a rather important injury-time winner for said American company on Sunday.

“I talked repeatedly with Macheda's parents, we established a dialogue, but it was not possible to do anything. We could not compete with United's offer. That is not right, we have to be provided with more reliable and concrete rules than those which govern Italian clubs."

Frustrating. And don’t think for a moment that I’m singling out United: it’s just a timely example. Many “big” clubs do this. And why wouldn’t you? It doesn’t cost you much. Italian law, like that of many other European countries, forbids the club from signing professional terms with the player until they turn 18. It’s a very similar situation to a few years ago when Barcelona were apoplectic at the sleight of hand with which one of their most promising teens was taken from them just before he was eligible to sign. You might have heard of him: Francesc Fabregas.

Yes, I can hear the United supporters cracking their knuckles as we speak, all ready to type their comments about jealousy and the League (for the record, I didn’t think we could win it before Hiddink won 6 out of 7 and I still don’t). It’s just so obviously wrong to do it. This is the part of the argument that I just can’t understand... the bit where everyone looks at Platini and starts bitching about bias, or prejudice, or anti-English sentiment, or whatever. How can it possibly, possibly be a bad thing to make the game less bloated? Look at Liverpool’s squad... 62 players, with 17 kids out on loan. Having said that, look at Chelsea’s squad before Mourinho trimmed it. Or our embarrassing snaffling of Leeds teenagers. Or any number of other incidents involving any number of clubs throughout the continent.

I’ll give the last word to another commentor from the previous Platini article, because it’s one of the purest examples I’ve ever seen of someone utterly missing the point.

“Yes, money has changed football, but it has made it better! Players are pushed to huge heights by the rewards of success and costs of failure. This is the first time ever that English people can honestly say the ability of teams in our top flight compares to Italy and Spain, and even that we have the "best league in the world". Because of this, we pump more money into it, and our footballers get paid more. The only thing that doesn't make sense is the lack of really large campaigns to have ticket prices slashed. Maybe it's because fewer people care about that one than is thought?”

Thank you, “Michael”, for editing out English football’s European heyday in the 70s and 80s, celebrating a business model which thinks it’s acceptable to pay people a reasonably large annual salary on a weekly basis, and ignoring the last gasps of supporter activism in the country. Thank you, and good night.

Platini and the soul of football

Rob Hobson — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:03:28 +0000

Is it too late to save football’s soul?

There’s much to admire in Michel Platini’s recent – and clearly heartfelt – appeal to the European Parliament. For those that haven’t had time to look over it, the two issues that stuck out for me were:

A ban on international transfers of players under the age of 18.

An exemption from European competition law for football clubs, effectively allowing the long-mooted idea of salary and transfer fee caps to be implemented.

Now, the former seems to me to be fair enough. There have been a number of harrumphs on the subject of large clubs trying to ring-fence promising young players. Current European law, as I understand it, defines a “child” (in a working context) as someone under the age of 16. Platini, however, rightly points out that in many European countries the school-leaving age has been raised to 18. And, from a purely common sense point of view, you must remember the maturity and eye for your own future that you had when you were 17.

Blinding a fledgling superstar and his family with the offer of a nice 4-bedroom in Surrey or Warrington so you can fast-track him into the reserves... well, it isn’t a very pleasant idea at the best of times. Asking him to travel a thousand miles to do so, uprooting him from his culture and his language at arguably the most impressionable time of his life, is even more repellent. I’m not saying the idea is a no-brainer, but I’m sure most of us can agree that there’s plenty of merit to it. One to watch.

But.... da da daaaaaaa... cometh the salary cap issue once more. On the face of it, this one has got to please Real Madrid more than anyone. After all, when they finally get their hands on a certain gel-slathered Madeiran winger, it might mean them paying rather less than they were resigning themselves to.

In fact, Platini had his broadside aimed at a rather more predictable target: Manchester City. Using City’s abortive bids for Kaka, John Terry and Thierry Henry as ammunition, the UEFA president laid out his vision for establishing what he referred to as “financial fair play”. And I’m sure that you can imagine the rest for yourselves.

If I’m honest, the first analogy that sprang to mind was to compare City to those twin emergent economic powerhouses India and China.

See, for decades us in western democracies have enjoyed the fossil-fuelled fruits of our relative affluence. Two cars per family. Unlimited electronic gadgetry. Homes heated to sub-tropical temperatures. Plastic carrier bags hanging from every tree. And, just as India and China come charging up the world economic rankings to make their bid for membership of the ‘Mercedes For Every Citizen’ club, we turn round and start finger-wagging. “What of the environment?” we admonish. “Is it sustainable? Think of the future.”

Bollocks, thinks middle-class India. I’ve waited through the East India Company, the Raj, Gandhi, and decades of posturing with Pakistan over Kashmir, and now I want a 5-litre muscle car that gets 2 miles to the gallon and seats one spindly teenager.

India, of course I exaggerate. Accept my apologies. But you get my point: through an accident of timing and the increasingly strident voice of the environmentalism movement, these energetic economies (well, pre-credit catastrophe) have the eyes of the world upon them. Conspicuous consumption is out. The new frugalism is in.

So spare a thought for City, who struck oil on the halfway line and are now being told that they’re only allowed to use it on their door hinges.

To give us a little context, I’ve been looking at the ever-enlightening transferleague.co.uk and Endless Soccer’s run-down of the most expensive transfers of all time. And I’ll make my confession right from the start: I was out to get Real Madrid. Circus though Chelsea may be at the moment, even with Captain Hiddink in to steady the ship, we’re but an amuse-bouche to Madrid’s 18-course banquet with 14 cases of Lafitte 1787. Two most expensive transfers of all time? Zidane and Figo to Madrid, for a combined total of £81m. That was in successive seasons, by the way. Not to mention Ronaldo (£29m), Beckham (£25m) and Anelka (£23m). 5 out of the top 15. If you’re interested, United feature twice with Ferdinand and Veron, and Chelsea a wallet-pinching once with Drogba. Having said that, the list looks not to go past 2005, as I’m sure we paid a fair few nicker for Essien and got paid in the same region for Robben. Who went to Madrid.

Obviously if you confine your search to England over the last ten years, Chelsea’s spectacular spending tops the League. In the five years to 2009, CFC spent £221m and recouped just £90m, with a net outlay of £26m per season. Liverpool come a close second, at £24m per season, with United less than a million behind on £23m plus change. Remember, this is transfers only, kids. None of these figures include wage bills or, say, investment in the club’s infrastructure. And rightly so, given the longer-term benefits of, say, building a swanky new training ground in Surrey.

I’m finally getting to the point. Admittedly, there was something distasteful about City waving that £90m at Milan. It’s a nonsensical figure, as even the player himself could admit. By the same token, even Frank Lampard’s most fervent admirers – and I’m happy to say that I number among them – might be forgiven for asking what anyone could do that is worth £140,000 a week. Ditto Ronaldo. Or Kaka. Or Ronaldinho. Or any one of a number of other players. To say that you don’t like Lampard, or Ronaldo, or any player, is to miss the point. I don’t blame these guys for taking the money. I don’t really blame the clubs for paying it to them, insane as it might seem. It’s the situation we, as the current economic centre of the football-watching world, find ourselves in.

So the point is... what’s changed, beyond one club being given sums measureless to man? It didn’t have to be City... it could have been Spurs. Or Sevilla. Or Kaiserslautern. It has been, and will continue to be, Madrid, Milan and Manchester United. I might have missed his diatribe at the time, but I don’t seem to remember Platini registering his distaste when Madrid paid his alma mater £40-odd million for Zizou. Again, for those that say well, United earned that money through merchandising and sponsorship... well, this is true. They earned the money rather than being given it through someone’s munificence. Does that really, honestly make the difference? If we lament the predictability of a League which has had 3 winners in the last 13 years, are we comfortable whining about that for the next 5 decades? The last Chelsea post on here attracted a long comment from a United fan who gave Chelsea’s owner a kicking for his investment – alright, I see your point – then mocked the club’s plans to become self-financing in the following sentence. But isn’t that the whole point? United are, after all, in nearly as much debt as Chelsea are. Shouldn’t clubs aim to finance themselves rather than operate permanently in the red?

Believe it or not, I’m broadly in favour of the capping issue. Implementing the bugger, of course, will pose rather more of a problem than making an impassioned plea to the European Parliament, particularly as the current system plays to the strengths of all the clubs sitting comfortably in football’s top trough. If you cap player expenditure, where does your excess money go? Grassroots football? Straight to charity? Cut-price season tickets? A fund to lobby the government to bring back the stocks as a form of punishment specifically for Robbie Savage?

Platini has attracted criticism over here for his vilification of the excesses of English football. I’ve seen plenty of text-language emails on forums like Football365, for example, accusing him of hating the English and wanting to curb the movement of money to stop English clubs from dominating the Champions League. Personally, I have sympathy for what the man is trying to do.

This country has been monopolised, since the mid-nineties, by one club, with occasional sparks of rebellion from Arsenal and Chelsea. Chelsea’s two years of dominance were marked by the only sustained occasion in which they outspent United. Liverpool, by contrast, seem to have spent poorly. Perhaps their outlay will get them the League this year. Perhaps not.

If the modern footballing era has been defined by Biggest Wallet = Winner, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to mock and harangue Platini for attempting to change things. Maybe it’s worth us thinking about his ideas: ideas that could reinvigorate the national youth set-up, for example, by forcing teams to train and develop their youth teams to keep their transfer expenditure down. If that’s the kind of aspiration the man has, I think that’s worth everyone's support. Even if it does mean classic spectacles like last year’s all-English Battle of the Budgets Champions League final becoming a thing of the past.

Chelsea: Something else broken

Rob Hobson — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:13:20 +0000

At times like this, your first reaction might be to rant and rave. All this talk about continuity, about consistency, about giving the manager the opportunity to create a legacy... all those things that Bobby Charlton was muttering about not so very long ago. Well, they’ve turned out to be so much hot air and Chelsea are looking to hire their fourth manager in 17 months. I've chosen to paraphrase Didier Drogba's infamous quote in the title, not because I believe that we're irretrievably in the mire, but because much of the responsibility for the situation we're in has to fall upon the players as well as the coaches.

Briefly electric, expansive and full of goals, Luiz Felipe Scolari’s Chelsea-ya turned out to be one-paced, containable and defensively suspect. In turn, the manager found that the world’s economic climate was against him. No opportunity to sign the fearlessly creative forwards that he craved. No chance to plug the ever-widening gaps in his ageing squad. Of the 20-odd men who lined up in Chelsea’s squad at the beginning of the season, I can think carefully and objectively and point to precisely 4 players that have come close to living up to their billing this term.

Nicolas Anelka delivered a mini-glut of goals earlier in the season, picking off lesser opposition with aplomb. There was, briefly, a temptation to imagine that Chelsea might be the club he needed to express himself, but non-performances against title contenders belie the initial optimism. Besides, I’ve been wrong before. I remember feeling terribly gung-ho about Juan Veron, a player that I admired and thought Alex Ferguson had never fully understood. Turned out that no one understood him, least of all Claudio Ranieri.

Ashley Cole has, if anything, looked as strong this season as he ever has in a Chelsea shirt. It almost seems unfair to criticise Ashley for humdrum performances earlier in his Chelsea career, as he’s not the sort of player whose work rate often comes into question. The false dawn of the attacking fullback has, unsurprisingly, suited him.

I’ve been harsh about Salomon Kalou in the past. Just when you think the boy is about to step out of Drogba’s shadow and prove precisely why he’s the player that van Basten was so keen to register for Holland, he goes and has one of those non-games where he gives the ball away 35 times and falls over a fair bit. But we’ve needed goal support in the complete and utter absence of Drogba in any game whatsoever this season – one cup sub appearance notwithstanding – and the boy has scored some important ones.

Finally, the evergreen, ever-committed and seemingly un-injurable – touch wood – Frank Lampard, who has yet again been Chelsea’s best, most influential, and most important player.

Everyone else has a case to answer. At a pinch, we might excuse Ricardo Carvalho, but the ever-more-frequent injuries tell their own story.

So while longing for the stability of, say Real Madrid or the Italian political landscape, what are Chelsea’s options? Are they willing to give Frank Rijkaard a real crack of the whip, or would he be tainted by coming in and steering us to, say, a simply-not-good-enough fifth place? Could Avram Grant possibly get past the ignominious manner with which he was shunted out of the post not eight months ago? Dare we, Chelsea fans, dream of José saddling up a white charger and returning to triumphantly steal a third Premiership crown from under Sir Alex’s puce proboscis?

I’m going to go out on a limb here – and, knowing my luck, the man’s in the Cobham boardroom right now putting pen to paper - and say that Hiddink can absolutely do without this job. Why would a man two years Scolari’s senior - and being remunerated very handsomely for an international job which requires about 12 weeks of hard graft a year - want a job that has just chewed up and spat out a respected colleague?

Finally, a little sanity amongst all this heady talk about Saint Franco of Zola strolling in to save the world with his faithful equerry Steve Clarke. No one wants Franco to make a joyful return to the Bridge more than I. But let’s give him the chance to do it right... not to do it when we’re in a mess and desperately fighting fires to stay in contention for the Champions’ League places. Franco’s halo still shines as brightly as it ever did with the fans. Think how depressing it would be to see it tarnished through circumstances not of his own making.

Chelsea: At a crossroads

Rob Hobson — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:04:47 +0000

I approached the Fanzone with some trepidation this morning. Through one half-closed eye, I ran down the list of recent posts. A triumphal Liverpool post would, I thought, act as the Gorgon to my Polydectes, turning me instantly to stone. If, by ‘stone’, I really mean ‘helpless and incoherent bundle of rage’.

Nothing. Not a bean. Looks like I’ll be getting my retaliation in first, then.

First things first. Chelsea were awful. And by ‘awful’, I mean ‘devoid of ideas’, ‘fractured and incoherent’, and ‘offering all the attacking depth of the Women’s Auxiliary Balloon Corps’. Mikel looked lost and harried in a log-jammed midfield. Lampard showed few moments of virtuosity, a flick or two aside, before his harsh sending off. The best we can say of the team is that, had Mike Riley not decided to go for the headlines, we would probably have hung on for a goalless draw. How are the mighty fallen.

What to do with this team, assembled so expensively and now with what looks to be three successive seasons of underachievement to deal with? Nothing is over yet, of course, and the League has a long way to run. Even so, Scolari’s record against the teams adjudged to be title challengers is dismal. There is no consistency in defence, with Carvalho or Terry usually injured and the Brazilian manager's favoured option for width – attacking fullbacks – leaving us exposed time and again when we meet experienced opposition. Claudio Ranieri must be chuckling into his limoncello in anticipation of Juventus’ visit at the end of the month. I don’t suppose someone could slip a Mickey Finn into Del Piero’s Horlicks, could they?

There was an almost audible sigh of relief as José Mourinho kindly donated the out-of-favour Ricardo Quaresma to us as the transfer window juddered to its usual panicky close. On current form it’s an Elastoplast on a gaping shotgun wound to the head, given our lack of invention in the final third last Sunday. If Roman remains as committed as ever – and I note that several newspapers have been at pains to point out that this is the case, doubtless aware of the writ the club has served on an organ not a million miles away from this very website – then some serious thinking needs to be done between now and the beginning of the next transfer opportunity over the summer. The futures of Malouda, Drogba and Deco must surely be called into question. Michael Ballack’s intermittent form is also cause for concern. I’ve used the Elastoplast analogy already, so I’ll have to think of something else to describe Salomon Kalou’s recent goalscoring exploits. The boy has got us out of jail more than once in recent weeks, but that shouldn’t hide his all-too-common on-field demeanour: that of a quick and tricky goalscoring forward who seems, usually, to be neither quick enough nor tricky enough to score many goals.

And therein lies the real problem. Restocking defenders rarely seems to be as much trouble as freshening up an attacking line-up. Predators and creators are, rightly, the most coveted and expensive of employees. Buying in players of the very highest quality – the Messis, the Benzemas – costs lots and lots of someone’s money. If we believe what we’re told, that money won’t be coming from Roman. And, with the club stretching every sinew to break even, the money from a (hopefully) renewed and improved Samsung deal won’t go very far. New stadium? Maybe, maybe not. Merchandising? No good unless we’re winning, surely.

I’ve wittered on about this before, but there is an opportunity for the club to make some serious decisions about where it is going. The dwindling influence of Frank Arnesen is testament to the Dane’s failure to indentify the searing prospects that his CV led us to expect. The culling of a large number of his scouts points to a loss of interest in the Europe-wide identification of promising youth. Perhaps there is already a plan in place to concentrate efforts on a specific region. Chelsea have, under Roman, attempted to tap into English talent, but names like Tom Taiwo, Michael Woods and even Scott Sinclair have not featured on our radar for some time.

I don’t mean, necessarily, that we should avoid spending to spite ourselves. Arsene Wenger has illustrated, rather elegantly, that that’s a one-way ticket to battling for fifth. But the points above are a reasonable argument for describing ourselves as a club in transition... or perhaps a club at a crossroads. Which way does Roman see us turning? What vision does he have of the next 5... or 10, or 20 years?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Chelsea / Manchester City: Employer Power

Rob Hobson — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:40:24 +0000

Try and contain your frustration with the following remark, Chelsea fans.

Chelsea Football Club has a certain amount of sympathy for the situation that Manchester City Football Club finds itself in.

No, this is not the precursor to a sneering 500 words about how Chelsea didn’t have quite the same problems persuading, say, Hernan Crespo to come to Stamford Bridge. After all, Kaka is in quite a different league to Crespo, despite the latter’s place at the top table of accumulated transfer fees. Then again, Kaka is in a different league to just about everyone.

It is now clear that Garry Cook and his team were in negotiations with Milan for some time. Take your pick of the various reports quoting the actual figure involved. My newspaper says £108 million. Yours probably says something quite different. I’ve seen £91m, £243m, and several figures in between. Let’s try and nail it down by calling it “quite a lot”.

Of course, Kaka could never lose this one. Go to Manchester, play for two years and buy Barbados with the proceeds, or stay, get to kiss the badge for years and (on the occasion of his retirement) never have to buy a drink for himself in Milan. Ever. Like I said: no-lose.

The obvious difference between City’s situation and that of Chelsea? The starting point, of course. A team containing Lampard, Gudjohnsen, Zola, Terry and Desailly is a slightly easier sell to a prospective superstar than a team whose most consistent performer in recent years has been either Richard Dunne or Stephen Ireland. All of this is clear. And yet a combination of premature ejaculation at Chelsea board level and a slightly thicker wedge of notes in City’s top pocket led to the arrival of Robinho. Not, quite, at the very top table of European football, but certainly standing ominously behind one of the chairs and eyeing it up for comfort.

The question for City has to be: could this renaissance be over before it’s really begun?

Allow me to throw you a brief analogy. You’re in a grubby nightclub. You’ve been eyeing up the least grimy-looking lass in there for the past hour or two. You’ve finally sunk enough WKD and Aftershock to summon up the mental strength to go over and try your best lines. And then you have a glass of Malibu and pineapple unceremoniously dumped all over your new Stone Island shirt. All the other grimy lasses look on.

What do you suppose your chances will be with any of them? What, do you think, does the unmistakeable scent of eau de rejection add to your mojo? I don’t really need to spell it out for you, do I?

Not that Mr Cook has exactly endeared himself to the market by his subsequent and in no way bitter comments.

“We had entered into a confidentiality agreement weeks ago but, in my personal opinion, they [Milan] bottled it. We had gone through a three or four-stage process in which Milan made it quite clear Kaka was for sale and we made it clear we intended to bring him to Manchester City. As we got to the next stage there were questions they could not answer and I think the political and public pressure made them change their conditions."

Personally, I struggle a little with the idea that there was some vast conspiracy to deny City the player that should rightfully have been theirs. Public pressure? Obviously. Kaka is Milan’s outstanding player: a reasonably youthful man of sublime talent playing at a club where – excuse me, City fans – history demands a certain dignity. Don’t jump all over me for that – I’m well aware of the shortcomings my own club faces when it comes to talking about history (although, having said that, there’ll always be a Scouser or 10 queuing up to say it again).

The point is that 6 times European Cup winners aren’t supposed to sell their talismans. You might as well have tried to prise Messi and Krkic from Barca, or Casillas from Madrid, or even Rooney and the shiny Madeiran from over the road. They may need the money, but do they need it THAT badly? Obviously not.

Throughout all of this, Mark Hughes remains a bit-part figure: submitting his modest and perfectly sensible targets to his Dubai employers and watching as “Bellamy” and “De Jong” are shunted to the bottom of the list, and “Kaka” (and, possibly, the genetically-engineered clone of a 24-year-old Gerd Mueller) are pushed in above them. How do you discipline your players when they, like everyone else, know damn well that you’re even more expendable than they are? What do you say to Robinho when he flounces out of your winter training camp when you’re all too aware that the owners bust a gut to get him, but could replace you in a week?

I have immense sympathy for a man who, although he’ll always be a United player to me, did a fantastic job for Chelsea in his time at the Bridge and who I rate very highly as a manager and a motivator. If he is feeling a little disillusioned as the days of the transfer window drag on to their mucky conclusion, may I recommend a chat with one of the few managers in the world who might be able to sympathise? As far as I can remember, his English is terrible, but he’s a bloody nice bloke.

Give Claudio Ranieri a call. When it comes to being dignified in the face of owner power, he wrote the book.

Motivation, motivation, motivation... the three Ms

Rob Hobson — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:49:27 +0000

How do you do your job? Come to think of it, how do you live your life?

Apologies for the huge, quasi-metaphysical introduction to what will doubtless be a terribly banal bit of football frippery, but I was inspired by a comment left on the last Chelsea article. Sadly, I’m locked out of the comments section at the moment so none of them are published. You’ll have to take my word for it.

If you missed the last piece, it had to do with that enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a short-arsed deep-lying forward: Joe Cole. Hugely popular with Chelsea fans... well, popular with everyone, if we’re honest. He’s one of the very few Chelsea players that it’s acceptable for non-Chelsea fans to like.

The comment, left by a chap calling himself Brian, ran thusly:

“Joe Cole is a player that needs to be kept on his toes all the time to get the best out of him”.

Now, this is the Times, so I’m assuming that most of the readers will have gone beyond the stage at which they think, with the right breaks and a decent spell of fitness, they could do a decent job in midfield for, say, Brentford or Leyton Orient. We’re all adults. We’re well aware of the freakish levels of fitness and athleticism required at the top level (Mark Viduka and John Hartson notwithstanding). But if you’re a football fan you must have yearned, nay, burned to play. Give me a fulcrum and a number 8 shirt and I’ll move the world. Why on earth would I need to be motivated, cajoled, hassled and harried to play football AND be paid thousands of pounds a day to do so?

This is a question shouted on many, many occasions at top-flight matches up and down the country, although I’m willing to admit that the precise phrasing can vary. Sometimes the player’s style does him no favours. Ballack certainly had that problem at Chelsea, and I believe Berbatov is suffering a similar reaction at Old Trafford. Languid, graceful players can conceivably be seen as lazy simply because they don’t tear around the pitch like Wayne Rooney chasing a Spandex-clad Thora Hird. It’s probably why the Chelsea fans never really turned on Shevchenko. Awful, awful mess of a one-time genius though the man was, he tried and he tried. 10 out of 10 for effort, and a hundred-odd grand a week. For that money, I’d have undergone extensive facial reconstructive surgery and gone on the pitch in his place. I wouldn’t have been any worse, he could have worked on his handicap, and there’s always the outside chance I could have fiddled a cheeky knee-trembler with that model wife of his (“Andriy, I’m so impressed with your English all of a sudden... oh, and a new tattoo... darling how nice etc”).

Back to the comment on the blog. Because it doesn’t end with Joe Cole. Brian mentions three Chelsea players that, in his opinion, don’t require a regular kick up the passage. Just three, sadly, and you can probably guess two of them. To add to Captain JT26 and Super Frank Lampard, Brian gives us Petr Cech. Whilst I agree that the lanky fella is a great professional and seems an admirably nice young man whenever I see him interviewed, there aren’t many occasions when you’d be able to barrack a goalie for not trying. You can’t exactly shout abuse at him for not jogging up and down on the spot enough when the ball’s in the other half, can you?

So. Three men, out of a squad of, what, 23 or so? Three people who get up every morning and want to do nothing other than play football. Maybe it is just another job after all. Maybe my romantic notions are nonsense, and when Deco gets out of his Aston Martin 177 and brushes the lint off his baby sealskin slacks, all he can think is “Christ, not another 5-hour day kicking an inflated plasto-leather sphere up and down a grass field”. Perhaps Salomon Kalou, in between slices of swan pate, suddenly throws down his platinum cutlery, irritably shrugs the model out of his lap, slumps onto the Philippe Starck-designed dinner table and starts weeping uncontrollably, overcome by the sheer pointlessness of it all.

Personally, I think Brian’s being a little harsh. I think Chelsea are blessed with some superlatively strong characters, and they’ve got us through some tough times. In the last couple of years, the club has struggled for direction and purpose without the brilliant, infuriating, mercurial man that used to manage it. Much as we owe the owner for his munificence and enthusiasm, he gives the fan nothing to latch onto. After 5 and a half years, we still don’t really know who he is. When Chelsea have come under the pressure engendered by the success of 2004 through to 2006, players like Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Essien, the great Claude Makelele, Paulo Ferreira and, more recently, Ashley Cole and Jose Bosingwa have been there to set examples too.

I’m not denigrating the captain’s or vice-captain’s roles. Things would be that much harder without them. I think the spine of the team is larger – and stronger – than Brian and those that agree with him would have us believe. But there is absolutely no doubt that the current squad has, within, an element with a questionable work ethic. Every company, every business - every organisation where the whole is dependent on the efforts of a disparate group of individuals – has these problems. The nature of people is that some need to be micro-managed. Some can get up every day and find it within themselves to get on with it; and to the best of their ability, without the coaching equivalent of Full Metal Jacket’s Gunnery Sergeant Hartman screaming into their lughole.

Over the next 5 months, we’ll really find out who’s who. And with the League running as tightly at the top as it is, the prizes for being able to motivate yourself are as high as it’s going to get, gentlemen.

Who’s ready to step up?

If Joe Cole isn't the answer, who is?

Times Online — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:56:43 +0000

Devil’s advocate? Not me. That would be Keanu Reeves, starring in a particularly execrable film alongside about 5 per cent of Al Pacino’s range. But it’s probably best to preface the whole piece with those two words, because the rest of it is going to annoy a fair few people.

To give things context, you have to go back to when José lost the title in 2006-7. The early signs of friction between manager and board centred on a point of contention so banal as to be almost ludicrous: Tal ben Haim. The mediocre – sorry, Tal – centre back was held up as an example of the difference between a title-winning side and a runner-up.

With the Israeli’s arrival in the January transfer window, the impact of the injuries we suffered at the back would have been cancelled out. Or so José said.

Ben Haim’s actual arrival didn’t do much for Avram Grant, who played him intermittently if at all. I can remember getting a call from an Israeli journalist in the latter half of that fateful season. Obviously the Israeli presence at Chelsea had sparked some interest over there. What, he asked, did I think of Ben Haim’s prospects in the squad? I’m ashamed to say that I snorted and (possibly) tutted. The journalist murmured in sympathy. It seemed that Tal’s prospects at Chelsea were perfectly apparent to both of us. Words were surplus to requirements. Which is ironic, as... never mind.

This time around, however, the controversy revolves around a rather higher-profile player: self-professed Chelsea fan, fans’ Player of the Year, all-round basket of tricks and the solution to England’s left-sided problem. Our number 10, Joe Cole.

Yes, you remember him. The only England player to walk away from the last World Cup with any dignity whatsoever. Does stepovers and all that fancy dan stuff. Occasionally falls out of glamour models’ windows. Slapped down by José Mourinho more than once for his alleged lack of on-pitch discipline. Lauded by many as having added another dimension to his game under the Portuguese. Tracks back occasionally. That one.

Joe can’t win, really. Mourinho made him work harder, no doubt. Of course, the moment he starts tracking back and making tackles – and he’s not a bad tackler at all – some gimp on Sky or RTE starts complaining that he’s been shackled, and that he needs more room to express himself.

He’s also been played as a winger more or less constantly since 2004, but doesn’t have the turn of speed of –let me pick a name out of a hat... Arjen Robben – and, all too often, it seems as though his number’s been crunched by the opposition.

Eight times out of ten, Joe would rather jink infield and shoot or lay it off than go to the byline. He can cross, but it’s not a strength for him in the way it is for Florent Malouda. Just kidding, by the way. If you can think of one of Malouda’s strengths, answers on a postcard. First correct answer gets a cut-price move back to Ligue 1.

The Chelsea manager has given us some mixed messages in the past month or two. Recently, he explained that he’d only asked Chelsea for one player on his arrival, and that Deco was very happy with his first eight or ten games and had become unaccountably rubbish since then. Part of the previous sentence is a fabrication, but you get the idea. Anyway, I seem to remember him pining after a certain tricky Brazilian who, to the surprise of everyone including (probably) himself, found himself turning out for the blue side of Manchester. We can only hope that he finds the ensuing relegation struggle character-building.

So Felipao never wanted Robinho at all. And yet, confusingly, he’s sort of right. We are missing a creative spark at home. There’s a great phrase often bandied around: “that special kind of player that can unlock defences”. They certainly are special. And usually made of glass, which is why Arjen Robben spends so much time with the physio. What do you do when your special kind of player is injured? Well, that depends. 2004 Chelsea would have bought another one. Madrid still do. Manchester United would pull another teenage prospect out of their bottom (or “Sporting Lisbon”, as it’s also known). But I digress.

The lack of creativity that troubles Chelsea at the moment... well, isn’t that the sort of problem that Joe Cole was supposed to solve? Nasty chip wrapper the Daily Mail ran recently, and I’m sad to say that there’s plenty in there to agree with.

Is Joe just not good enough anymore? Or is Scolari not playing him in the right way/giving him the chance/etc etc? And yes, he’s been injured and out of form, but back for some time. A quick acid test: on the Premier League’s Fantasy Football site, he’s been selected by a mere 2.9 per cent of teams. He has fewer points to his name than Florent Malouda. God help us.

And yet. Joe can do this. And this. And this. It seems that, as far as Scolari is concerned, Joe isn’t the player he needs. So who is? And could our number 10 be used to fund a purchase?

Chelsea: Billy goes to War

CFC Net — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:33:26 +0000

As anyone who grew up in the Thatcher years knows, there’s nothing like a foreign war to deflect attention from your troubles at home. The duly elected Leader of the Free World(TM), George W Bush, took the concept one stage further by creating the nebulous foreign enemy “terror”, who was always there when you needed him. A military Bunbury, if you like.

Ahead of this weekend’s home game to Arsenal – so crucial for both teams – it seems that the beleaguered Arsenal centre-half William Gallas, once such a favourite at Stamford Bridge for being the perfect rapier to accompany Terry’s battleaxe, has had a crack at a similar tactic.

I won’t get bogged down in the mess that surrounds his problems at Arsenal, mainly because it’s difficult to see the case in favour of the former Chelsea number 13. Suffice is to say that he’ll have some work to do in winning the Gooners back round after his open criticism of Robin van Persie and his 60s-era sit-in.

On the eve of this high-profile encounter, then, what does our Billy choose to do? Why, reopen the debate about his departure from his first English club, that’s what. As seasoned Gallas-watchers will recall, he left for the princely sum of Ashley Cole, with a few quid accompanying him on his journey to N5. In the wake of the acrimonious transfer, Chelsea took the unusual (and let’s be honest, rather unpleasant) step of announcing that Gallas had threatened to score an own goal should the club not grant his demands for football elsewhere.

Horror of horrors. It’s the sort of thing you’d imagine some hysterical freak of emotional engineering – di Canio, perhaps, or even Drogba – saying. Not Billy, though. He always seemed so quiet. So introspective. Bit of a loner. Just the sort of things that the neighbours tell ITN while the police are uncovering a mass grave 3 doors down.

2 years on, of course, and our cousins up in Highbury and Holloway are finding out just how hysterical young Gallas can be. Choosing to announce one’s feelings via a French magazine is usually a sign that something’s rotten in Dijon (it’s a trick Drogba’s used more than once). It’s occurred to me that there must be something particularly soothing and reassuring about the presence of a journalist from, say, France Football or Sport Aujourd’hui. Otherwise these footballers might just have to unload their worries on their mates.

Getting up to date, I’ll print the quote from Gallas in its entirety, just so we’re all clear about what’s at issue.

“It's taken time, the negotiations. I've just come to the point where my heart is no longer at Chelsea. You're going to put me on the pitch, OK, but if the heart is not there and I'm not concentrating I risk making errors, errors that I'm not used to making. We could let in a goal, so lose a match stupidly. This is what I said."

Big question, this one. After all, José always said that you couldn’t keep a player against his will; if he truly wanted to leave, you had to come to terms with that. By the same token, I find it a little tricky to have sympathy with someone who is remunerated so handsomely and is called upon to do one thing and one thing only, surrounded by players who have been his teammates for 5 years. And, just as an aside, there’s another quote in there about the cash that might well slip under the radar.

“No one knows how laughable their offer was” says Billy, referring to the money Chelsea put on the table to keep him at the club. Does this remind anyone else of a certain fullback “swerving off the road” at his negligible £55,000 a week? After all, Billy’s on £90k now. That’s over £4.5m a year. Presumably not so laughable.

Some people will see Gallas’ comment as a symptom of the man’s sensitivity. And yes, we’ve all been stuck in jobs where we didn’t feel comfortable and no amount of money was going to make the difference. Even £4.5m a year. Some people, conversely, will feel that there’s a very very thin line indeed between “I’ll score an own goal” and “You’ve distracted me so much I’ll probably make a game-losing mistake”. The answer, as always, is somewhere in between, and probably has as much to do with Ricardo Carvalho’s arrival at the club and Mourinho’s natural preference for his protégé.

Whatever the genuine truth behind Gallas’ remarks, he has almost certainly guaranteed himself a hostile reception tomorrow from fans that once genuinely held him in their hearts. We’ll never forget the good times, Billy. Especially that goal against Spurs which, lest you forget, you scored coming forward from your hated left-back slot. But I’m guessing that, this Sunday, we won’t be chanting your name much either. Well, not without a few choice words attached. Which really is a pity.

Chelsea: Someday Baby

CFC Net — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:28:32 +0000

It was with some dismay that I read the following quote in my newspaper this morning:

“The rules from Uefa on home-grown players and Fifa's proposal for 6+5 puts a real onus on clubs to develop their own talent much more fully. With that comes a lot of benefits, and so we looked at our scouting programme to be more focused."

These words, for those of you drawing a blank, are from Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon speaking at the International Football Arena conference in Zurich. They are, in part, a response to the news that Chelsea have drastically downsized – the management term seems rather apt – the scouting network acting under the auspices of the world’s most expensive talent-spotter, Frank Arnesen.

First things first. Arnesen, the subject of a rather grubby tug-of-love some years ago between Chelsea and Tottenham, is a figure of some controversy amongst the fans. There have been rumours that his growing influence with the owners was amongst the catalysts for the departure of José Mourinho from Stamford Bridge.

The only people upset by this, of course, were Chelsea fans and the media, but the mere suggestion carries with it all the negatives that our island race associates with the multi-tiered management structure of continental football. Moving on to his ability to do his job, you may well have heard his name (assuming you’re not a Chelsea fan) in connection with the original discovery , and signing to PSV Eindhoven, of Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima. Or the “real” Ronaldo, if your frame of reference pre-dates the notorious Portuguese stripling playing for Manchester United... sorry, Madrid... no, no, I meant Manchester United all along, greatest club in the world, it’s a privilege, etc.

Thing is, since Frank has been at Chelsea, we’ve all been wondering where the next Ronaldo is coming from, and what time he might show up. Because Chelsea haven’t exactly risked it all when it’s come to promising youth. Investing a few years in Salomon Kalou, sure.

But Ben Sahar, or indeed Sergio Tejera, or Miroslav Stoch, or even the oh-so-promising Scott Sinclair... well, they don’t exactly appear to have set the first team alight yet. And yes, they’re young, and time is on their side, and we can of course afford to buy ready-made first-teamers while we give them that time. But that sort of brings me back to my original point.

Peter Kenyon made his latest pronouncement in the context of a conference where the future of football, and particularly its financial future, is a huge talking point. In a way, his comments seem admirable. Which team wouldn’t like to find itself in a position where it’s churning out vast numbers of locally-grown, fully organic, farm-bred young players with the technical skills to match their enthusiasm and fire, all ready for the rigours of the top division or, if that is their lot, a lucrative sale to another club?

Let’s be honest... there are some teams doing it, and when they do, the truly promising ones are cherry-picked or thieved by other clubs (witness the uncomfortable war of words and wallets between Chelsea and Leeds over Tom Taiwo or, dare I say it, Arsenal’s snatch-and-grab of Francesc Fabregas a matter of weeks before he was eligible to sign professional terms with Barcelona).

But no title-challenging English team can sustain the ambition that Kenyon aspires to at this point in time. Manchester United achieve some of the English-foreign balance that Chelsea are lucky enough – or wealthy enough –to have, but Alex Ferguson has shown a recent penchant for high-profile raids on South American or Iberian youngsters like Nani and Anderson, a bargain at £30m the pair.

Chelsea were aiming for the signature of Robinho before City discovered their oil well on the halfway line, which would surely have put an emphatic end to any chance Scott Sinclair ever had of starting a League game for Chelsea barring a glut of injuries.

As for Arsenal, whose admirable policy in developing youth relies to a large extent on Wenger’s extensive knowledge of French and francophone African football, enough said.

The player that really inspired this article, though, is England U-21 centreback Michael Mancienne, currently on loan to Wolves. If you’ve never heard of him, ask a Wolves fan their opinion. The boy’s represented (and captained) England at every level from schoolboy onwards, and has apparently made a significant impact within a previously struggling Wolves defence. But will we ever see him break into a Chelsea back line in which John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho, Alex and now Branislav Ivanovic all stand ahead of him?

“I think there is still hope for me at Chelsea - I've been on the bench a few times but not on the pitch yet. I've got top quality centre-halves in front of me (at Chelsea) so it's a hard decision. I've got to see what happens and take things as they come really.”

Staunch words from a really promising talent. It would be a pleasure to think that the club could accommodate his ambitions. Perhaps, given the increasingly crunchy state of the economy, we might find that making the most of the talent we have – and not hankering after the talent we can buy – is about to become the norm. And then the pronouncements we hear from the senior figures in football (and please believe, Mr Kenyon, that I’m not sticking the boot in... I’m just struggling between a cynical disposition and a romantic temperament) might have the satisfying ring of truth.

Chelsea: Why do you fall for it?

CFC Net — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:49:10 +0000

It might be something of a handicap when it comes to writing about football, but I hate football news. I hate rolling updates, 24-7 feeds direct from UEFA HQ via the “Sky News Centre” – a grimy warehouse of a building on the outskirts of an industrial park west of London, if you’re wondering – and in-depth analysis. I hate the fact that players are snapped leaving some fashionable bar at 4 o’clock in the morning with a lolling page 3 girl tucked under their arm... not because I give a damn what Joe Cole gets up to on a night out, mind you, but because I fail to understand why anyone bar his manager and employers should give two hoots. I don’t pay his wages, after all. Oh, I contribute to the coffers of the organisation that employs him, but I don’t feel that that entitles me to some sort of say in how much he gets or how he lives his life. I just want to watch the game, shout a bit, sing a few songs, have a beer and go home.

One of the biggest problems with the 24-hour coverage that modern media seems to think we supporters need (please, Christ, get me a Chelsea fix... it’s been 20 minutes and I’m getting the shakes... if you don’t tell me which restaurant Ricardo Carvalho ate in last night, and whether he ordered the langoustine or the ham hock, I’ll be forced to go out and score crack) is the onus it places on the reporters themselves. Before anyone is tempted to add an acerbic comment to the end of this article, please bear in mind that I don’t count myself as one of the shrieking harridans or bellowing Garys that live on the fourth council estate. This article is written for free. And yes, you do get what you pay for.

Where were we? Oh yes, poor reporters. See, everything has to be puffed. Everything needs its angle. I’m not suggesting that this in itself is anything new – finding the angle is, of course, one of the cornerstones of investigative journalism – but when it comes to the great game, we now appear to need to make personalities of our footballing stars and their managers. Each press conference is littered with controversy. Each goal celebration is taken apart, analysed, and put back together in an attempt to garner every last vestige of insight. Why didn’t Ronaldo smile as he returned to scoring ways? Was he mourning for Madrid? Was he suffering from a touch of the gripes? Or was he, in fact, just not smiling? Who gives a damn?

Then we have headlines that run thusly: Chelsea So Cocky They’re Booking Euro Final Hotel.

Now, I’ve seen footage of the press conference in which this little gem came up. And the headline that reported this nugget, factoid, call it what you will, reminded me irresistibly of the days of Mourinho. Because José gave such good press, everything and anything he said was worth at least a few column inches on all but the busiest of news days. And usually, the way it worked was like this:

Reporter: José, people are saying that Liverpool don’t have the strength in depth to win the title this season. What do you think?

Mourinho: You could be right.

Next day’s headline: Liverpool Can’t Win Title, Taunts Mourinho.

By the same token, Felipe Scolari – accompanied by the monosyllabic and deeply uncomfortable Salomon Kalou – was giving his usual jovial hap’orth to the assembled press corps at the rather swish Cavalieri Hotel in Rome. What do you think, Felipe, asked a nearby press wag... would you book this place for the final?

“it’s a beautiful hotel with great views,” enthused our Brazilian manager. “If the hotel accepts, we’ll book it.”

Collective chuckles. A little verbal sparring. And the press conference ended.

The thing is, these people know they’re making it up. They’re laughing at you. When you – the Liverpool fan, the Arsenal fan, whoever – jump on the message boards and forums to spit “arrogant tw*t” and “typical Chelsea”, the journalists that wrote this crap are sitting around a keyboard in some grey little building laughing themselves silly. Look, Desmond. I just wave the little red rag and off they go. Who shall we do tomorrow?

Christ and culthood

CFC Net — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:39:47 +0100

Some weeks back, I asked readers of this blog how much they hated Frank Lampard. The post still holds the comments record within the Chelsea section.

Despite being an intelligent, articulate man with a phenomenal goal-scoring record; despite being voted England fans’ player of the year for both 2005 and 2006; despite being a multi-title-winning player and runner-up in the Ballon d’Or only a couple of years ago, he remains one of the most divisive players in England.

Now obviously much of this comes down to tribalism. When we go to watch – or, indeed, just sit at home and sneer at – England these days, how many of us go as England fans first and club fans second?

Very few, I’d guess, judging by the bloody-minded inability of so many people to realise that booing your own before the first half is even over is unlikely to inspire champagne footie.

It used to be that the fans got on the ref’s back and gave him a hammering. You never know, it might result in the crucial penalty (as opposed to the spineless free-kick just outside the area) or the downgrading of a straight red to a yellow and a slap on the wrist. Now, England fans come to games with all the bile of the previous week’s league encounter pent-up in their... er... wherever it is you keep your bile.

One misplaced pass from Ashley Cole – or Lampard, or, not that long ago, Crouch or Hargreaves – inspires a torrent of abuse from the knuckle-draggers. Perhaps that’s what Jamie Carragher was really thinking when he decided on throwing a hissy fit and opting himself out of the England selection process. Why should I get all het-up only to be chucked in at right-back when there’s no better option available, and then get several thousand mouths-full from the United and Chelsea fans in the stadium?

Perhaps Lampard suffers from the same crisis of confidence that affects any player for whom goal-scoring is an intrinsic part of their game. With Chelsea, he’s in his element: surrounded by midfielders of superlative talent, all of whom are drilled with precision to know how and when they should move. If anything, his passing range seems to have improved under Scolari. Already a player with an excellent eye for the movement of his teammates, the arrival of Deco seems to have inspired him to greater heights of playmaking and midfield direction.

I don’t want to make too much of the demolition of Boro on Saturday simply because (no offence Boro) the opposition were so anaemic, but despite his only scoring one of the five he was comfortably man of the match for me. For the third or fourth time in only 8 League games. With Bosingwa and Terry, he’s the only player in Blue to have started all 8, has scored 3 and made 2, and hit a pass rate of 85%.

Looking back, did we REALLY consider selling him? And for the ludicrous figure of £10m? If buying Andriy Shevchenko for £30m was a stinker in the transfer market, selling the most consistent goal-scoring midfielder in the world for a nominal sum (in top-level footballing terms) would surely have ranked alongside it.

Moving along briefly – I realise it’s already too late to plead even-handedness, but in a vain attempt to represent this article as something other than an addition to the Lampard Fan Files – I think we’re witnessing the advent of a new cult hero at Stamford Bridge.

Now, the criteria for cult-dom are hard to pin down. Brilliance isn’t always necessarily an element. I mean, it’s easy to say why fans love Zola... or, for that matter, Bergkamp, or Cantona, or Bryan Robson, or whoever. For cult-dom, surely there’s something a bit more eccentric about your reasons. I’ve just done a rigorous and highly scientific straw poll of the 3 or 4 people that sit around me in the office in attempt to pin them down, and so far we’ve come up with...

- Not necessarily that good. In fact, sometimes it almost helps their cause if they’re not the most gifted or brilliant player out there. I’m reminded of the freakishly large German centreback Robert Huth (now, tragically, condemned to Boro) who was never quite as good as his physique suggested, but who cemented his place in Bridge mythology with a free-kick that frequently hit the wall, but with enough force to rupture the poor sod on the receiving end of it.

- Possessed of some kind of ludicrous name / celebration / personality quirk. Alright, a bit harder to quantify so I’ll take refuge in the easy choice of Ian Holloway. Because I sit near a Bristol Rovers fan, and because the man is clearly barking.

- Being at the club for a million years. Steve Clarke. Nuff said. We’ll miss you.

Any of these could qualify you. I suppose you have to add sheer brilliance to the mix because when you look at lists online of players voted cult favourites by their fans, it’s usually the genii that rise to the fore. Gascoigne. Beardsley. McKay. You get the idea.

Anyway, the man whom this very long preamble leads up to is one Juliano Belletti (right), and my reasoning goes thusly. When he was bought, he came with fine pedigree but, let’s be honest, no hearts were set racing. He was aging. He was the fallback position after we’d failed to buy the Sevilla right-back Daniel Alves, now strutting his stuff with the blaugrana. And, after a few games, it became clear that actually, he wasn’t a very good fullback. His tackling is usually rubbish. He isn’t lightning quick. Chelsea haven’t signed many Brazilians but when we have, they’ve invariably – in fact, always – been defenders. Emerson Thome, anyone? Alex, of course – and what a good buy he’s looking now – and Belletti.

Felipao – if he’ll allow me to call him that – seems to have chalked up another incredible transformation. From mediocre (albeit World Cup and Champions League-winning) fullback to dynamic right-sided midfielder with a penchant for scoring goal-of-the-season contenders. He’s scored 3 or 4 for us and they’ve all been 30-yard curling missile strikes. Spurs. Wigan. And now Boro. And alongside Lampard and Mikel in the midfield this weekend, he was excellent. Go back to MotD’s coverage and have a look at their little Belletti feature. He’s always moving, always looking for the ball. Chelsea were rampant and he was a prime mover in getting the ball into dangerous positions. Good passing, excellent awareness, and topped off with a peach of a goal. And I’d assumed he’d be moving on last summer.

So there you have it. Lampard is Christ, and Belletti the Holy Spirit. Which, I suppose, makes Scolari God. And I’ve run out of room with which to praise Kalou, Malouda, Anelka and the fullbacks. So they’ll just have to do it again mid-week to justify another paean of hyperbolic pride.

On-the-job training

CFC Net — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:55:18 +0100

I have to be honest. You deserve no less... this is the Times, after all. I expected Manchester United to hit the ground running this season. No fundamental squad changes. No serious injuries, bar the obvious one to their best player... but hey, that’s what the megabuck squad is for, right? Pretty much every key area of the team is relatively youthful, bar the keeper. I was anticipating a Hamilton-esque screech off the line, and the gradual upswing through the gears that could only be given further momentum as Cristiano Ronaldo returned to full fitness.

So the biggest surprise was the way they were set up to play last Sunday. Perhaps Sir Alex has learned more from his Portuguese nemesis than he’s willing to admit, because from the moment Park Ji-Sung managed to cuff the ball past Petr Cech, pretty much all the champions did was defend.

Alright, there’s no shame in conceding 60-odd per cent of the possession at the Bridge, but United fans surely must be wondering if their manager genuinely thought he could contain Chelsea for 70 full minutes? As he himself mentioned, it would have made far more sense to push on for another, especially with Tevez and Ronaldo available from the bench. Instead, we were treated to the now-familiar site of an increasingly isolated Wayne Rooney – otherwise known as a booking waiting for somewhere to happen – and the blushes of a visiting manager saved by the beneficence of a misfiring Anelka and a lenient referee. Rather unusual, as Felipe Scolari pointed out, to stop a game with the home team about to line up a free kick 20 yards from goal and Lampard, Ballack and Drogba all itching to hit it.

Much is being made, on this site and others, of the “Scolari effect”. There is a suggestion that the big Brazilian has brought a fluidity and freedom of expression to the Blues that the previous two managers either eschewed or were incapable of. There’s no doubt that Chelsea’s engine room looks liberated by the introduction of Deco - he seems to be the player that Frank Lampard has waited his entire career to play alongside – but the Portuguese artist was missing from the line-up last week and yet Chelsea still passed the ball around their opponents for long swathes of the game, particularly in the second half. They retain the unhurried confidence of Mourinho’s best sides: the knowledge that they shouldn’t panic, that if they continue to play at their own pace and with the measured calm that characterises their best moves, they will score against anyone. But the pass and move play is quicker, more flexible and with more purpose. Rarely do we see them spend 90 seconds demonstrating how good they are at passing the ball from fullback to centre-half and back again.

So last Sunday was a frustrating experience for the watching Chelsea fans. United will play worse in plenty of games this season and still take all three points. But I don’t think they’ll come under siege to that extent and escape with a share of the spoils. There’s still plenty of time to find their rhythm and settle into the season. But at the moment, Chelsea – alright, and Arsenal – are using their ‘work in progress’ teams to far greater effect than last season’s double champions. Learning on the job... you can’t beat it.

Sir Alex Ferguson accuses Hackett of cheating

CFC Net — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:59:38 +0100

We await, with great interest, the response from the powers that be after Sir Alex Ferguson's latest thermonuclear strike.

Accusing Keith Hackett, his longtime drinking partner and best buddy, of showing clear bias towards Chelsea following the rescinding of John Terry's red card from the City game, Sir Alex had the following to say.

"From what I have heard, Keith Hackett has told the referee to rescind the red card and he wouldn't do it. If it had been a Manchester United player, Keith Hackett wouldn't have done this. If the referee has made a mistake, this is going to happen all the time."

Two things. Firstly, starting your defence with the words "from what I have heard" doesn't exactly inspire confidence. It's like hearing a far-fetched conspiracy theory in a pub that starts with the word "Apparently...". Secondly, if Sir Alex is going to maintain his good health as he approaches his 67th birthday, may we humbly suggest that he finds an alternative way of dealing with all that pent-up bile. Reiki? Astanga yoga? Or perhaps immersion in the writings of the great Stoic Zeno of Tarsus?

We'd hate to think of these eruptions happening every week. Think of your blood pressure, Sir Alex.

How much do you hate Frank Lampard?

CFC Net — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:40:11 +0100

I’d like to take this opportunity to ask the Fanzone readers what it is, exactly, that they hate about Frank Lampard. Try and restrain yourself. Just one thing will do.

Could it be the badge-kissing? Perhaps it’s his erstwhile apathy for England while still banging them in for Chelsea? Flirtation with Mourinho? Jaw-dropping salary? Ability to form a coherent sentence when interviewed? Decisions, decisions.

Fortunately for this observer, the man has once again demonstrated why he is one of Europe’s pre-eminent midfielders with a man of the match display against newly-wealthy Manchester City. Apparently, he was asked to give the MotM champagne to his artist counterpart in the Chelsea midfield, Deco. The diminutive Portuguese was neat and effective throughout but should have had the humility to hand the bottle straight back.

Lampard, much like his pundit cousin Jamie Redknapp, is almost media-perfect. Privately educated, relaxed in front of a camera, and capable – unlike so many of his peers – of choosing his words carefully. Alright, so in this last respect Redknapp falls rather short. If you were to envisage a career for Lampard at the end of the mega-contract that seems to be a lynchpin reason for the opprobrium he attracts, then punditry would seem an obvious choice. Whereas Terry seems destined for the tracksuit and furrowed brow of the touchline manager, Lampard probably already has his order in at Anderson and Sheppard for the studio suit. Perhaps it is his polished demeanour and quiet manner that gets under the opposition fan’s skin. After all, Wayne Rooney’s continued impotence for England, Croatia game notwithstanding, is comparable to Lampard’s, yet the pensioner-loving Scouser incites a fraction of the bile that Chelsea’s Essex boy does.

Against City, he made yet another mockery of the suggestion that his game is limited solely to goals. Positioned further forward than for Capello’s England, he showed a delicacy of touch and vision of passing to rival even a maestro like Deco, but added to it the dynamism of strong running and an energy when searching for the ball that is not part of the Portuguese’s game. Perhaps it’s because he can look slightly ungainly when in full flight: his neat side-step in the area that opened the space for his beautifully-taken goal was as slick and opportunistic as anything the top flight has shown so far this season. Laughable though the epithet “Fat Frank” might be, he’s no Ronaldo-sized stripling and he jinks rather than glides.

With Essien missing for months, Ballack’s return still uncertain and a long, long campaign to go, Lampard’s continued form and fitness is of paramount importance to Chelsea, just as it has been for the last 5 years. What he also showed last week was that he could be even more important to an England side that struggle to achieve Chelsea's imagination and penetration. Steven Gerrard may be returning to full fitness but he has already demonstrated that he cares less for his national side than he does for another campaign of under-achievement under Benitez, through the simple expedient of scheduling his operation to coincide with crucial World Cup qualifiers. The Liverpool midfielder’s game isn’t all about goals, but when his leadership is cited as a key factor and he captains England to elimination from Euro 2008 in the real captain’s absence, surely a pivotal reason for him being on the pitch is removed? Capello must surely have learned that it’s one or the other, with Barry balancing the midfield. A year ago, Gerrard would have been the obvious first choice. Now, the answer’s not as clear.

Nice horns, Mr Kenyon

CFC Net — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:01:55 +0100

Hellboy, as we all know, files down his horns to “fit in”. Peter Kenyon probably does it so as not to excite too much comment in the boardroom. But there’s no escaping the comedy pair that have been strapped to his bald pate this morning. The Chelsea chief executive has been cuckolded, and in no uncertain terms, by a billionaire even richer and with an even murkier past than Chelsea’s own.

Astonishingly, Roman Abramovich and his dream team of advisors have been outbid and out-manoeuvred in their hunt for Felipao Scolari’s primary summer transfer target. Yes, Robinho has gone to Eastlands.

Yes, while SW6 were thrusting and jabbing with ever-increasing bids in their rush to sign the youthful Brazilian from Francoist comedy troupe Real Madrid, Suleiman Al-Fayim nipped in quietly under their noses and – on behalf of the UAE royal family, if you believe the rumours – bought one of the most exciting prospects in world football. Manchester City, eh? Who’da thunk it.

Mark Hughes, reacting with all the aplomb of a man who orders a Citroen 2CV from the local garage and wakes up to find an F-16 fighter parked in his driveway, was “delighted”. How, then, should Chelsea fans feel about being gazumped by a man keen to advertise himself as the “new Abramovich”? And, just out of interest, how does little SWeeP feel knowing that the man who was going to steal his spot at Chelsea has just been bought by his alma mater? Admittedly, City don’t have quite the same riches in those roles that Chelsea’s squad can boast, but it’s an interesting pickle all the same.

The Robinho thread on the CFCnet forums, which at the time of typing runs to 141 pages and well over 3000 entries, contained a mixture of bemusement and amusement. Surprisingly little bile, but I think it’s fair to say that, throughout the saga, no one here has felt particularly excited or thrilled at the prospect of the lad’s arrival. But why? After all, he’s been saddled with the “new Pele” label. He can, when he feels like it, play some sublime moves on the ball. He does score, although perhaps not with the frequency that his recent employers might have hoped.

As Chelsea fans, did we expect the transfer in the bag from the moment it was announced? After all, Chelsea never announce. Despite the hysteria that follows the majority of our transfer dealings, the club rarely (if ever) issues a statement until the signature’s dried on the page. So was the astonishment at this morning’s news down to complacency on our part? And will we see City attempt to hijack any big money move orchestrated by the top few teams from now on? Perhaps some sort of memo has been leaked to the shadowy cabal of super-agents around the world: whatever you’re negotiating with Madrid / United / Milan / all the others, City will add 25% and chuck you a little signing bonus. Perhaps?

Then there’s our consistent failure to find a winger, or wide attacking player, who comes as advertised. Since 2003 the club has signed Joe Cole for £6-odd million, Arjen Robben for £12m, Duff for £17m, SWP for £21m and Malouda for £13m. All, for various reasons, have moved on, or vastly underperformed, or both, with the exception of the club’s player of the season for 07-08: Joe Cole. In Robinho, I half-expected an easy-on-the-eye lightweight who’d manage 20 league games and the European ties, who’d get thumped a lot by mid-table clogging full-backs, and eventually retreat into a rather sullen shell. I’m probably doing Felipao a disservice here. Or perhaps I’m just jaded at the paucity of attacking threat that we seem to possess without Drogba. Why should the latest one be any different?

Anyway, for we Chelsea fans, last night’s news was a fairly momentous moment. Roman’s experiment – something that, lest we forget, had never been tried before, anywhere – has come to the end of its first phase. You see, there’s someone out there who’s even more gauche than us. In the opera house of football hierarchy, it puts us one step closer to the front of the stalls. But it does mean getting elbowed out of the way – every now and then – on the way to the interval drinks.

Chelsea stroll as Ferguson mobilises

CFC Net — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:37:48 +0100

In my blissful ignorance, I imagine everything in China to be state-owned. Obviously this is unlikely to be the case but, for the sake of a cheap gag, I’ll cheerily depict the Chinese Football League as an entirely state-run organisation where the weekly winners are selected on the basis of regional productivity.

- Ah, I see that handheld radio manufacture is up 22% in Hunan. They shall defeat Sichuan Guancheng by 3 goals to nil this weekend.
- What... no recognition of Sichuan’s grassland-clearing project?
- Very well. Guancheng may have a consolation goal late in second-half injury time.

A quick glance at Wikipedia, that fountain of conjecture and opinion, tells me that Guangzhou Pharmaceutical have changed their badge (and name) 6 times since 1984, each time incorporating their new sponsor’s name and logo. I can’t imagine what the outcry would be if the Glazers turned round and informed Sir Ferg that their team would henceforth be known as Manchester Gatorade, or indeed if the Surrey supporter base would even notice that their home ground had been re-christened “The Gatorade FizzBowl”, but clearly the Guangzhou fans are a patient lot. I’ve no idea what it’s like to live under a communist regime. Forbearance is probably an important life skill to develop.

Guangzhou Pharmaceutical were, of course, Chelsea’s first pre-season opponents on their now-customary Oriental cash-and-grab tour. Something to do with spreading the brand, no doubt. Any concerns about the “Pharmaceutical” part of the club’s name – personally, I wondered if we were about to face 11 exquisitely tinkered-with examples of biochemical engineering... a sort of Universal Soldier for the football pitch – were quickly dispelled as Chelsea went to town on an obliging Guangzhou. 4 goals from 4 players, including the exciting but very gangly prospect Franco di Santo, meant a comfortable win with the absolute minimum of fuss. It was almost enough for everyone to stop talking about Frank Lampard’s contract-or-not.

Almost.

On a different subject, I don’t suppose there’s any chance we could stop referring to Ferguson’s half-baked bile as “mind games”? Even otherwise reputable newspapers seem happy to try and pass off these comments as the opening salvo of a devastating psychological blitzkrieg. You’ll have to excuse me while I refer back to my Sun Tzu and find the particular chapter that deals with destabilising your enemy by making vaguely derogatory remarks at a pre-season press conference. Perhaps it’s in the annotated Wordsworth Classics edition, next to Appendix C: Pre-emptive Strikes in the Transfer Market.

To be fair to Ferguson, there’s actually very little controversy to be found in his recent rumblings. Saying that it’s hard for Chelsea to progress beyond what Mourinho achieved... well, that’s like saying that it’s hard for Sir Edmund Hilary to find a bigger mountain. In terms of domestic results, Mourinho had it all his own way for over two years. As fans, many of us echo the suspected sentiments of our owner. Is it possible for Chelsea to achieve that relentless domination of League football whilst introducing elements of Barcelona-like flair to the tactics? Anyone who watched United consistently last year will know that they approached these heights, but that they never truly sacrificed pragmatism for exuberance. When they played Chelsea in the second League game, it was partly their caution that exposed them. And the same could be said of the Champions League final, where both Drogba (in open play) and Terry had chances to win the game.

So, here we are. Far-flung friendlies and Ferguson’s flatulence. The season’s so close, you can almost smell the money.

The night of magical thinking

CFC Net — Thu, 22 May 2008 08:52:06 +0100

To be a football fan is, almost by definition, to subscribe to what Joan Didion calls “magical thinking”. If I wear my lucky Blue shirt, Chelsea can’t lose. If I need to answer nature’s call before the first half finishes, the opposition are bound to score. If I don’t watch this penalty, there’s no way my captain will slip on a muddy patch and miss.

There’ll probably be no need for me to recommend introspection this week. But while we’re all casting around for someone to blame - and coming up with a genetically-engineered hybrid of Didier Drogba, a patch of mud on the penalty spot and the woodwork of Manchester United’s goal – this observer has other concerns: namely, how do I avoid being told how great Manchester United are for the rest of the month?

Make no mistake: despite ITV and Sky’s effort s to make it all sound terribly awe-inspiring, this was no more than another gung-ho League encounter, with Chelsea coming slowly out of the blocks and obtaining their usual grip on these opponents in the second half. Of all of the players vaunted to make their marks on this grand stage, only Cristiano Ronaldo really delivered, and then only in a period where his marker seemed to have lost all sense of what it is to get tight to his man.

Stand-out defensive heroics were the order of the day. On that subject, John Terry and Nemanja Vidic were consistently the best performers on the pitch, with Rio Ferdinand getting a mention in dispatches for his cynical barge on Frank Lampard moments before Chelsea’s number 8 equalised. Claude Makelele, occasionally looking a little leaden-footed, nonetheless showed again why his name is synonymous with the esoteric skill of fire-quenching. Paul Scholes showed why he will only ever be loved within the bounds of United fan-ship, with his delicate passing overshadowed by his painfully inept tackling.

Roman Abramovich will have much thinking to do over the following weeks. His unlucky manager may not choose another team for this club. His star striker – who covered himself in opprobrium last night – may never pull on the blue shirt again. Introspection is needed. His team came within a whisker of the prize that he values most highly. On another day, Terry would never had had to take that fateful spot-kick, or would simply have buried it off the inside of the post. It was not to be, but undoubtedly Chelsea will be back. The team’s constituents may be much changed in the interim, though.

Chelsea fans buzzing over chance to hand out capital punishment

Times Online — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:39:06 +0100

On the eve of the biggest game in modern Chelsea history, we Blues fans are running the gamut of emotions. Begin your journey at Excitement Towers, with brief stopovers in Trepidation Street and Butterflies Alley. In keeping with the recent Fanzone fashion of musical reference, we may yet finish in (sorry) Desolation Row. And if you think that was a cheap gag, be thankful I’ve resisted the temptation to refer to it all riding on a Simple Twist of Fate.

The chance of being the first London club to win this trophy has got every fan buzzing. And because of the turmoil that seems to have beset Chelsea this season – real or imagined, we may well be losing a manager and several key players this summer – it’s given the supporters a little of that siege mentality that Mourinho was so successful in instilling in his title-winning squads. United have played some outstanding football this season and it would take a real churl to think of them as anything other than worthy League champions. But there aren’t many teams in English football with a better recent record against the Mancs. Go back, even before Roman’s arrival, and take a look at the stats. We like playing Man U. There’s even a 5-0 hammering back there on the stats sheet – I remember laughing and, mea culpa, jeering as David Beckham was substituted – not to mention the confidence the team can take from its run of results in the last few weeks. Arsenal beaten. Liverpool finally put to the sword in this very competition. United escorted out of Stamford Bridge with yet another bloody nose.

Then there’s the kerfuffle around the players. With many thinking that Drogba, among others, will be plying his trade in a differently-coloured shirt next season, this is the big man’s chance to give his fans – and they’re still numerous, even after his rent-a-quote antics – the ultimate farewell gift. I’m pleased to see that both Vidic and Rooney have chosen to preface the final by accusing Drogba of cheating. I don’t believe for a second that it’ll “spur him on”, any more than Benitez’ sour assessment did in the semi-final. If you can’t get motivated for this, you should be doing something else for a living. But Vidic and Rooney clearly fear him, as does everyone else in the United side. We’ve seen him dominate Puyol, Thuram and Carragher. We know he only needs a moment. And, like Ballack, like Lampard and Terry, like Essien, he’s a big-game player. Chelsea, both upfront and in the middle, have guile and craft, but they also have power. Opta have already disproved the long ball myth in their end of season stats report: only Arsenal played fewer long passes than Chelsea in 07-08. But when the direct approach is needed, there are few forward lines that can use it so effectively.

In terms of the actual journey to Moscow, there’s been a fair bit of trepidation mixed in with the excitement. Will we be able to get there? Will we be beaten into a bloody pulp the moment we step off the plane? Will the local bar owners serve draught Kronenberg? As a response to this, I have to doff my cap to the English-speaking Moscow residents that have wandered onto the forums at CFCnet.co.uk in the last week or two to offer and advice and a certain amount of reassurance. Despite initial impressions – that this final appeared to have been planned by someone with all the nous and acumen of Boris Johnson – most people I’ve spoken to seem to be pretty confident that they know where they’re going and what they should and shouldn’t get up to.

Finally, I’m quite relieved to see that the Chelsea squad has – so far – resisted the temptation to have a pop at their counterparts. Perhaps Messrs Rooney and Vidic think they’re indulging in what the press laughably refers to as “mind games”.

It’s clearly not their strong suit.

Rob Hobson
Cfcnet.co.uk

Is Moscow the final straw?

Times Online — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:52:58 +0100

As Chelsea and Manchester United prepare to face off in Moscow, Times Sport work experience girl (and Arsenal fan) Elvira Kemp bemoans the rising cost of top-flight football, and having to turn down the chance to go to the final.

Has the final whistle been blown on following the beautiful game? Horace famously declared “seize the day” but then he wasn’t a Chelsea or Manchester United fan trying to get to Moscow.

Having been offered two tickets to the Champions League final by a Chelsea fan unable to afford the travel cost, my heart skipped a beat and visions of the impressive Luzhniki Stadium raced through my mind, despite my lifelong allegiance to Arsenal.

Why would a Gooner want to travel 1,555 miles to watch two of our fiercest rivals, you may ask. Well, for the love of the game and the once-in-a-lifetime chance of watching footballing heavyweights do battle in exotic surroundings.

But astronomic airline tickets coupled with sky-high hotel costs in the world’s most expensive city soon brought me back to earth with a bump as I realised that a seat in the local pub was the closest I would get to the action.

With return flight packages starting from £900 and the hotels ten miles from the stadium charging £180 a night, maxing out my credit card was not an option for a student in her final year at university, whilst my parents were more concerned with the threat of violence in the Russian capital than putting their hands in their pockets.

With ticket prices at an all time high, there has never been a more financially difficult time to follow top level football. And while Wednesday's final promises to be one of the most exciting matches in the football calendar, the march to Moscow could be the final straw for the regular fan.

Please please please, let us get who we want

CFC Net — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:36:03 +0100

Congratulations to a worthy set of champions for 2008. Despite the drama of the last couple of weeks, the title was always in United’s hands – at the risk of invoking old ghosts, I’m sure José would have approved – and they finished it off in fine style.

So whither Chelsea now? Let’s not look ahead to Moscow just yet, as I’m sure that the protracted grind of build-up will be starting any second now. So let’s plough an entirely different furlough of tedium as we make wildly uninformed speculative remarks about the shape of Chelsea’s squad this season. Why, you ask? Well, everyone else seems to be doing it.

So, who’s moving on? Let’s zip through the obvious suspects: players who may or may not move, but whose place in the team seems to have gone the way of the dodo, or perhaps Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Sorry, Steve Sidwell, but that attempt to show the world that you were as good a player as Michael Essien seems to have reached its inevitable conclusion. The former Gooner and Reading midfielder will surely find a suitor in the Premier League – more than one, if the rumours are to be believed – but a midfield berth at Chelsea seems to have proved beyond your reach.

Up front, both Claudio Pizarro and Andriy Shevchenko must surely be wondering where to buy their next executive home, with neither getting much playing time, nor impressing when they do. Having said that, a late goalline clearance from the Ukrainian has undoubtedly cemented him a place in my affection, whilst at the same time giving me an object lesson in how far it is possible to fall in professional football. Thank you both, and surely goodbye.

Tottenham, if you believe the papers, want Tal Ben Haim – a mighty statement of intent from Juande Ramos – and, with Paulo Ferreira signing a long-term deal this year, Jose Bosingwa’s arrival probably means curtains for long-range goal specialist and awful, awful defender Juliano Belletti. Rarely have I seen a right-back get caught out of position so frequently, or make such half-hearted attempts to recover when a zippy left-winger brushed past him. The last right-back we bought from Barca – the majestic but understated Chapi Ferrer – turned out so well. Perhaps the blaugrana were getting their own back for letting the Catalan go by squeezing £4m for a Brazilian with a blind spot instead of a positional instinct. Sneaky.

The off-again on-again saga of Frank Lampard’s contract must surely be resolved this summer, with unconfirmed reports of a change of heart and a provisional decision to stay in west London for our midfield talisman. Michael Ballack, I’m sure, will hear that news with all the relish of a man asked to pickle and eat his own crown jewels, but the elegant German must also be looking at the button marked “contract extension”. A barn-storming finish to the season has masked his slow start, but he’s now beginning to elicit joy and affection from a crowd that had hitherto felt alienated by his casual style. Retaining that pair, along with the terawatt energy of Essien and the still-developing skills of Mikel, leaves us well catered-for in the middle. Makelele still has some time left in him, as a both player and elder statesman of the squad, and has agreed to stay for at least another year.

Both Florent Malouda and Shaun Wright-Phillips have large question marks next to their names. The Frenchman hasn’t had a bad end to the season, but has comprehensively failed to live up to the impressive billing he brought from France. Given that we’ve persevered with SWP for 3 years despite his consistent underachievement, I find it hard to believe that we’d cut Malouda loose after just a year, but stranger things have happened. Ask Asier del Horno.

Which brings us to the big, big question. It’s Drogba-shaped, and it comes with added uncertainty. I think it’s fair to say that Didier Drogba is a master of the mixed message: from sullen misery to cheerful optimism in a matter of days, or even sentences. Being in a relationship with him must be a thrill a minute. If the big lad is on his way – and my instinct tells me he probably is – that will be 3 strikers out of the door in one summer, leaving only Nicolas Anelka as a recognised target man in the squad. I say target man, but his strengths do not lie in the archetypal English centre-forward zone. The Frenchman prefers the stiletto to the sledgehammer, to put it mildly. There may well be room for Scott Sinclair to finally make the leap to the senior squad – it’s also rumoured that the promising centre-halfMichael Mancienne will be doing the same this year – but that leaves Anelka, Joe Cole, Salmomon Kalou and a promising teenager as our only options up front.

In terms of Premiership pedigree, we’ve briefly seen names like Kenwyne Jones (author grits teeth) linked with a move to the Bridge. Dimitar Berbatov is another name consistently linked with a move away from his existing club, but the Bulgarian shares Anelka’s languid style and his nature would demand a shift in team strategy. This isn’t to say that Chelsea couldn’t accommodate him – in fact, a buy like this could be Grant’s best chance of imposing his own style on a team that still feels full of Mourinho conservatism – but the question is how long that new approach would take to bed in. It might have the advantage of reducing our dependence on a single goalscorer, and bringing Lampard, Ballack and Joe Cole to the fore as goal-getters, but it would take time. Across Europe, the usual names crop up: Mario Gomez, David Villa... perhaps even Samuel Eto’o, who is rumoured to be flirting with Ramos at Spurs. We’d humbly suggest that one of those three, with Sinclair and Kalou as options both central and wide, might be enough, with the possibility of another left-winger should the club decide to cut its losses with Malouda.

With Ferguson doubtless ready to spend another £60m, it’s going to be another long summer of conjecture and flirtation. But where Ferguson is looking to bolster a winning combination, Chelsea may very well be looking for a new style and ethos. It’s going to be interesting.

The trouble with Didier

CFC Net — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:35:25 +0100

I’m sure you all remember the days when you could shrug off the effects of a hangover by 11, leaving you clear-eyed and bushy-tailed when your elders and betters were still groaning into their coffee. Nights spent curled up in the architectural equivalent of Skinner’s box, with your head hanging over the edge of someone’s sofa, meant nothing to your lithe physique. Blessed with the springy, elastic frame of youth, the mild discomfort of a contorted night’s sleep soon gave way to the promise of a new day. But no longer.

Well, not for me. Age catches up with all of us. If a mate doesn’t have a spare room and a decent duvet, I’m catching the last train out of there. And so, in one of the most ham-fisted segues ever committed to the pages of a national broadsheet’s website, on to Didier Drogba, who will almost certainly be perusing the timetables this summer with a view to catching the sleeper service to Milan, Madrid, or one of the other... er... two clubs he said he wanted to play for. One of which is in Milan. Look, you get the idea.

That Didier is a fantastic – and could be a genuinely great – striker is not in doubt. But at 30 years of age, it’s only going to get harder to shrug off those mid-week European sleepovers. For all that the man appears to have been carved out of teak, it’s going to take more than a quick spray of Pledge to get him gleaming and match-fit for Saturday afternoon. Or Monday morning, or whenever else Sky and Setanta, in their infinite wisdom, decide to schedule the league games next season. Midnight Tuesday football, anyone?

So what to do with Didier? Lest we forget, the big fella signed a contract extension last year that keeps him at Chelsea for 3 more seasons. He’s been our most potent attacking weapon for the last two years, international commitments and injury notwithstanding. There is no finer exponent of what he does in world football. If you’re looking for a Big Man with a Good Touch, who just happens to be able to take free kicks, cross well and score from anywhere within 25 yards of goal while simultaneously holding off both Jamie Carragher and Sami Hyppia, the Drog is your man.

But, to the big question. Do the Chelsea fans love him?

After all, the man hasn’t exactly endeared himself to the faithful in the last year or so, now has he? Don’t get me wrong: I’m not the kind of person who would rather just nod along to the relentless beat of optimism that issues from the Chelsea Press Office, but there are ways and means of communicating your dissatisfaction. It’s a pity that so many footballers choose the mass media as their confessional of choice. When it comes in the middle of a season, with the club fighting for trophies, you can’t help but feel a little resentful on behalf of the 30 other players in the squad who are getting on with their job.

Having said that, I admire anyone who can wear their heart on their sleeve. Drogba is clearly an emotional man. When someone asks him a question, he says what’s on his mind. The recent interview with Michael Ballack in Der Spiegel was a paradigm of diplomatic understatement. John Terry is very on-message with his tub-thumping. Frank Lampard, articulate soul that he is, restricts himself to uncontroversial declarations of intent.

There is certainly a school of thought which suggests that the best thing to do is to sell the Drog for £20-odd million as soon as the final in Moscow is over, and put the money into a piggybank marked “David Villa” or “Kaka”. Then there’s the thinking which states that you’re not going to find a more effective out-and-out striker with Premiership nous anywhere in the world, including the Premiership.

So how do you feel about Didier Drogba? Chelsea fans, does his athleticism and unerring eye for goal stir your blood enough to make you forget that he hankers after a higher salary and condominium in Milano? Opposition fans: do you relish seeing your centrebacks play the most unplayable forward in the world, or are you just tired of the theatrics?

Over to you.

Thank you Frank, thank you Avram

CFC Net — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:50:13 +0100

Seldom have I taken such pleasure in being wrong. And , in all honesty, that is the last time I will doubt the commitment, quality and character of Frank Lampard.

Comfortably Chelsea’s most creative player on the night, with Ballack acting as foil but playing second fiddle, Lampard’s range of passing and nerveless penalty showed his England colleague, Steven Gerrard, in the worst possible light. With Gerrard virtually anonymous and Alonso showing little of the flair he produced in the first leg, this was the Chelsea midfield’s hard-won reward for the previous disappointments. On no other European occasion between these two sides has one team been markedly superior. Make no mistake: the better side won, and won well.

No time for a full report at the moment, although I will spare a mention for the small army of Liverpool fans who’ve wandered onto CFCnet to offer their congratulations and best wishes. After the opprobrium of previous encounters, it’s magnificent to see a little sportsmanship and magnanimity. I salute you.
Mentions in dispatches go to every player in the team, but stand-out performers for this humble commentator were:

Michael Essien, who somehow got away with playing large swathes of the game deep in the opposition half despite being fielded as a right back. Yet another brilliant performance from the Man We’d Be Most Insane To Sell this summer.

Florent Malouda, who came on the pitch and surprised me by not making a complete hash of every forward foray.

Ricardo Carvalho and John Terry, who look to be heading back to their unshakeable best just in time for the Champions League final.

Claude Makelele, who is and remains a bona fide modern Chelsea legend.

Ash Cole, who may have been slightly at fault for Benayoun’s run that led to the equaliser, but who was unflappable in defence for the rest of the game.

Michael Ballack. Calm, contained, and genuinely gelled with Frank.

Salomon Kalou for perseverance and a moment of inspiration that led to the first goal.

Joe Cole, who was quiet by his standards but coped well with a mudbath of a pitch.

Nicolas Anelka, with a smart contribution as the game neared its climax.

Andriy Shevchenko, for doing what was needed as the clock ticked and the coronaries gathered.

And, of course, the outstanding Didier Drogba, who would have been perfectly within his rights to have rubbed a little mud in Rafael Benitez’ face.

Thanks to all of them. And thanks and respect to a man who, despite this momentous win, is still being denied credit from many of my fellow Blue fans. There comes a point at which you have to hold up your hands and admit that your manager has done a top job. I've reached it. Thank you Avram.

In the interests of a quiet life

CFC Net — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:21:17 +0100

I see that, as always, the Anfield contingent has been out in force in the build-up to this game.

"Gerrard backs Torres". "Carragher backs Gerrard". "Rafa backs the referee". There's more backing at Anfield than you'd get at a Carribbean hotel jolly for drunken venture capitalists.

So the Chelsea column is going to remain studiously quiet. No lengthy preamble from US, no sir. Although we will state, quite clearly, that if Essien is relegated to right-back by Lampard's return to the squad / team today, then Grant deserves to lose both this game and his job.

That's it. No shouting. No tub-thumping. We at CFCnet are not of this breed of Scouser. Enough talk. Let's play football, please.

Grant can ease nervous disorder

Times Online — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:44:25 +0100

After the fireworks of the previous manager’s departure, Chelsea’s season has been characterised by a succession of nervous disorders. There was the borderline hysteria of the sacking, resignation, mutual hate-in; the mind-numbing catatonia of some of the more leaden games; the occasional bout of paranoia as key players like Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard edged ever closer to the exit; and finally the resentment — shaded with psychotic loathing — that surrounds an impending two-legged cup-tie with Liverpool. You could have blinked and missed the moments of ecstasy and yet, here we are, still in contention for as many trophies as this season’s outstanding team, Manchester United.

Resentment because these Chelsea and Liverpool teams — so expensively assembled and, however much some would deny it, so similar in terms of playing ethos — have consistently failed to produce anything worth watching since Chelsea sprayed four past their opponents at Anfield in 2005. A representative title from the forum threads on CFCnet, best of the Chelsea supporters’ forums, reads: “This time, Liverpool must die.” A narrow victory defined by a did-it-didn’t-it goal would not be enough. If Avram Grant can conjure a fightback to effectively end Arsenal’s title challenge and jockey Chelsea back into unlikely contention, surely he’s capable of putting this Liverpool side out of a competition that, more than any other, has enabled Rafael Benítez to continue drawing his handsome salary whilst dazzling his supporters with pronouncements about competing in the League.

This time around, the mind games - if you can dignify ham-fisted sniping with the name - might be a little more one-sided. At least in Grant Chelsea have a manager able to take a step back from the posturing. He might have been driven to monosyllables by a late Emile Heskey header last week, but we can’t envisage him pressing the button marked “snarky” to point out the tasteless fare his opposite number serves up on matchdays. Not that he’d need to: I’m sure the Chelsea fans at Anfield will take great pleasure in reminding their counterparts just how far they’ve come in terms of Premier League success.

The decisions Grant needs to make will be dictated, of course, by the availability of players like Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard and Michael Ballack, all of whom have spent time on the sidelines in recent weeks. Lampard has not played since the return leg against Fenerbahce and Drogba has seemed muted and distracted ever since his return from Ghana, with the occasional goal or powerful run belying his general air of listlessness. It’s not a tie that you should need to gee yourself up for, but Drogba, in particular, needs to be reminded that — summer move to Milan or not — when you have an opportunity to shine on a stage like this, it should be grasped. As for Lampard and Ballack, they have a Michael Essien-sized gap to fill in midfield. The Ghanaian's matchless physique has produced two vital goals in our last two League fixtures. With Michael Essien suspended for the away tie, Lampard and Ballack need to hit the ground running.

Rob Hobson, cfcnet.co.uk

Recycling Garbage?

CFC Net — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:38:20 +0100

Joe Lovejoy, of The Sunday Times, ran an article today that you can read here. In it, He takes the Avram Grant comments from a recent press conference and runs with them. Boy, does he run with them.

But that’s not all. It seems that bandwagons have ice-cream van sirens on them these days, because bless the Liverpool Echo if they haven’t found their way to this non-story too. Their writer David Prentice, clearly tasked to knock out a 400-word opinion piece in the run-up to tomorrow’s game, has seized on a 10-word throwaway line from Chelsea’s manager and based all of his homework around it. For those without the faintest inkling of what I’m talking about, take a deep breath and stand back. Here it is.

In reference to a question regarding Liverpool’s most important – and, bar Torres, their only decent – player, Avram Grant leaned back in his chair, scratched the hairy bit of his stomach immediately beneath his cavernous navel, and spoke thusly:

“If you can bring him to me, I’ll be happy”.

What Joe and David have extrapolated from this, once all the carefully-calibrated scientific data is in, is a daemonic – some might say, a quintessentially Chelsea – attempt to unsettle the Liverpool captain. It’s also, in case any of you missed it, clearly a tapping-up. In my experience, if you’re going to tap someone up, a press conference is probably the place to do it, if only because it’s the one place that you’d never get caught. Think of it along the same lines as stabbing someone in the eyeball at a Salvation Army monthly meeting. It’s so ridiculous, so ludicrously unlikely, that the assembled Derbys and Joans would instantly relegate it to the subconscious, ignoring the evidence of their eyes in favour of another comforting slice of Battenburg and an extra splash of milk for their brew. Impossible. Fantastic. Un-blimming-believable.

Now Joe does his level best to round out what seems a fairly one-sided brief. He does, after all, make it clear that Avram’s comments were a response to an observation from a journalist that Mourinho had tried, and failed, to sign Gerrard on two occasions, although he skips over the whole death threat and shirt-burning live on television thing. But young Prentice seems determined to mine the whole seam of bile. He starts with a stab at Grant’s monosyllabic interview last week post-Wigan, because there’s nothing more exhilarating than kicking a reasonably quiet chap when he’s down. He takes a moment to spit a little acid at Avram’s ability to spot talent, in response to the comment “Stevie's a great player and a great person”. And he ends with the accusation that it’s all about “unsettling” poor Steven. As if the local burglars don’t do enough of a job already.

What I’d like to know, Liverpool fans, is if you all genuinely agree with this? Does the persecution complex cut so deep that you buy it? Does it actually ring a bell with you? Do you not feel your intelligence is being, y'know, insulted? Just a little bit? Or is there a part of the Echo’s – and the Times’ – remit which states that, in the absence of any fiery loud-mouthed Portuguese managers in the build up to what will doubtless be described as Judgment Night Part 3, the press – national and local – will be obliged to provide their own vitriol and opprobrium to get the supporters good and wound up?

I’m sure many men out there imagine the world of the sporting journalist to be a never-ending land of milk and honey, in which freebies and football are tossed around like Dolly Mixtures and good clean manly fun is only ever a matchday away.

From what I can see, it’s 90% recycling this sort of garbage. Mum must be proud.

Episode 3 - The Search For A Watchable Game

CFC Net — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:57:27 +0100

I wonder… do Liverpool fans view the upcoming pair of fixtures against Chelsea with the same sense of impending tedium as I do? Probably not. Victory, as any modern Chelsea fan will tell you, goes a long way to relieving the spirit-crushing boredom of a soulless game.

Before the high-pitching whining begins, I’d like to make it clear that this isn’t a stab at Liverpool Football Club. Chelsea are equally culpable when it comes to the dire Champions League games that the clubs have shared in recent memory. To call them cagey would be to sully the good name of iron bars. Puskas and Cruyff it ain’t.

On the strength of last night’s showing against a game but mediocre Fenerbahce, Chelsea have plenty to worry about. Dominant in possession but wasteful in the final third, our profligacy inspired the Turkish champions to ever-greater efforts. Thank goodness for a decent third-choice keeper. Hilario’s scramble and stop - from Boral and Kazim respectively – could well have been the ultimate difference in this match.

What is it that Chelsea lack at the moment? I won’t waste my or Fenerbahce fans’ time with false modesty: Chelsea were the better team over the two legs, and deserved to go through, but they also should have done it with rather more aplomb. Kazim and Deivid aside, Fenerbahce huffed and puffed, spending much of the tie pinned inside their own half. That the scoreline was not more convincing was due in large part to a misfiring Didier Drogba. He shot when he should have passed and passed when he could have shot. And when it didn’t work out, as sometimes happens for the big fella, he started sulking. Thank heavens, then, for Michael Essien, for whom the words “give up” are written in unbreakable code in a teeny tiny book in a locked room in a remote country on a faraway planet.

In the aftermath of both this and the Arsenal – Liverpool game, there has been plenty of the usual windbag nonsense from both sides. It’s not about revenge, say Chelsea. League form means nothing, says Benitez. Most intriguingly of all, though, it gives Chelsea’s dead man walking Avram Grant the chance to get one over on his predecessor. If any of you have read David Peace’s excellent “The Damned United”, you’ll remember the echoes of Revie that haunted every step Clough took in his journey around Elland Road. Grant may not have the fiery Clough’s effortless charisma and knack for grabbing attention, but – through no fault of his own – he can’t seem to make a decision without being compared to José. With the second leg scheduled for our home turf, it’s as good a chance as he’s going to get to prove that he should be in the hot seat next season.

Would I trade the result for the spectacle? No. But I do still wonder why these teams bring out the worst in each other. Liverpool – Arsenal was a good game. The Chelsea – Arsenal League match was a decent game. There’s no reason why two teams well-stocked with good players can’t produce 180 minutes (or more) of entertaining footie.

As long as it doesn’t end with penalties this time.

It Was Better Back Then

CFC Net — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:36:41 +0000

I’m 32. I have to remind myself of this quite often, because I carry around an image of myself in my head, and in it I have the pristine body that someone lent me for a few weeks around my 19th birthday, healthily coloured skin and eyes unfaded by years of cynical underachievement. It’s not that I think things used to be better. I know it like I know that I could have done a job for Leyton Orient if that knee twang hadn’t done for my fledgling career. It’s not up for debate.

Thing is, because I know it to be true, the introspective part of my soul knows that it’s balls.

I mean, wasn’t everything better back then? And by “back then”, of course, I mean that indefinable time when things were just, well, better. Footballers never dived. The word “simulation” was exclusively used with reference to jumbo jet training devices that were probably programmed in BASIC. People had respect for one another. When Mister Whatever His Name Is, him with the black shirt and the whistle, made a decision… well, everyone did as they were told. And jumped to it. No codding. No nonsense. No haranguing of referees. Football was the sole occupant of a spotlight in which the light never faltered. Clean. Unsullied. Untainted by the shades of virulent red that bespatter its twitching corpse in the 21st century. And other mixed metaphors, ad nauseam.

With the passing of this innocent, better time, the supporters’ respect for the beautiful game has been lessened. As club has grown, country has diminished. As England were skipping their way out of the 2006 World Cup on penalties, I received a phone call from an acquaintance. “It hurts more when Chelsea lose,” he said. Then he hung up. No one cares about England any more, except possibly David Beckham and, if you believe a succession of letters and comments on various websites yesterday and today, the fans of Arsenal FC.

It’s moving to see the Arsenal supporters’ concern for that wounded animal, England FC. Among the many constructive suggestions aimed at Fabio Capello over this weekend was a firm belief that Chelsea’s centreback hoofed the ball upfield rather too often for their liking on Sunday. A real captain, if you read between the impassioned lines, would have slalomed the ball lazily out of defence before running to the opposing area and chipping a cross for Drogba to head into an empty net.

Then there’s Terry’s demeanour. Far too often, we’re told, did JT26 thrust his oar into proceedings, A real captain, we’re told, should have stood 50 yards away from his teammates staring icily into the middle distance before sitting down in the centre circle and having a bit of a cry. That would have been, y’know, classier.

People carry club grievances into the international arena. This is, of course, perfectly normal: blinkered-ness is one of the game’s most trusted henchmen. How else can you explain the howls of fury directed at Cristiano Ronaldo after the 06 World Cup when any cretin could have looked at Wayne Rooney and said “hang on a second, didn’t the fat idiot on our team get himself sent off, thus at one stroke depriving us of our key attacking player AND reducing us to ten men?”. How else can you account for the quite astonishing bile directed at the thoughtful and articulate Frank Lampard, England Supporters’ Association Player of the Year for 04-05 and 05-06?

This sort of thinking manifests itself as boos during home England games directed at England players: both Lampard and Ashley Cole have had their share, as has Peter Crouch, although the latter might be offending everyone from a purely aesthetic point of view. It’s almost as if the crowd were broadcasting their desire to see a player fail and vindicate their hatred of him in the process. It’s the same sort of “thinking” that drew Mourinho chants from a (thankfully) reasonably small minority of the crowd in SW6 on Sunday. What the ideal outcome is, I’m not quite sure. Perhaps if these guys chant loud and long enough, José will be teleported back into the dugout through an effort of sheer will. And, presumably, that same willpower will buy out Roman’s investment and allocate it fairly between all those brave enough to really want the best for Chelsea Football Club. Admirable. Click those Reebok Classics together three times and believe – really BELIEVE – in José, and it shall all be granted.

And then there’s the glorious spite-a-thon that brings the sentence of the game to its full stop. On Sunday, an Arsenal fan told me that Chelsea had only won because we “used the long ball”. He has a point, to a certain extent: teams had previously looked at Arsenal’s stained-glass window of a passing game and then taken a sledgehammer to it, savaging Flamini and Fabregas alike to throw them off their game. Turns out that all they needed was the diamond-cutter of Didier Drogba, even if the supporting cast of Cole, Lampard and Ballack had offered up so much promise for a decent scoring revival as we approach May.

Elsewhere on this site, my Tottenham-supporting colleague chose to commemorate Chelsea’s 4-4 draw at the Lane (one of the best games I’ve seen this season) by whinging at Chelsea’s supposed strong-arm tactics. He singles out Claude Makelele for late challenges, the Chelsea defence in general for intimidating attackers by getting all up close and personal with them, and John Terry in particular for kneeing Pascale Chimbonda in the head. He sounds, in this, rather like an Arsenal fan.

So what, throughout all of this, have I learned this weekend? Well, I’ve learned that Arsenal fans don’t like John Terry. I’ve learned that it’s somehow unfair to beat Arsenal, even if you don’t resort to kicking them. I’ve learned that Didier Drogba will be allowed to get away with saying whatever the hell he likes about his club because, damn him, he goes and does things like win games. I’ve learned that there are at least a thousand Chelsea fans convinced that the team will perform better if they vilify the manager. And I’ve confirmed that it really was all better back then. People may not have had dishwashers, or baby Bentleys, or Rolexes the size of a house. They may have had to survive without the DVD box set of The Wire – and I don’t really see how that’s possible – but they had respect. Unless it’s all just a fairy tale.

Game theory

CFC Net — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:46:18 +0000

When you wake up to discover that the boiler is out and the hot shower you were expecting has turned into an Arctic trickle, then arrive in the office to find that your workload has got together with someone else’s overnight to produce lots and lots of bouncing baby workloads, all sat smiling and gurgling in your in-tray, then the coffee machine stops working and your new pair of Oliver Sweeney loafers get splashed with something unmentionable by a passing tramp… perhaps you start to get an inkling that it isn’t going to be your day.

Avram Grant has had an awful lot of these since his managerial takeover at Chelsea, and it speaks volumes about the casual contempt with which press and fandom hold him that his enviable League record counts for so little. His tired comments after the game – if we win it’s normal, if we lose then it’s a big game – invite a certain amount of sympathy. A certain amount.

Tottenham must wish they could play Chelsea every week. For some reason the Blues, for years such a bugbear to the north London side, are now bringing out the very best in them. Only a true churl would deny that last night’s game was one of the matches of the season, mingling Chelsea’s fluidity and poise on the ball – exemplified by the peerless Joe Cole – with Spurs’ second-half heroics earning them a well-deserved point. That the point means nothing to them and everything to Chelsea can only have increased their satisfaction. A win against Arsenal on Sunday will still thrust us into second place, but the chance to make up another couple of points on United was passed up in a game where Chelsea conceded three goals from set pieces.

Sadly for Grant, it’s yet another opportunity for his myriad critics to twist the knife. And I can’t really defend the indefensible, if you’ll pardon the pun, because I just can’t see how we would have thrown away a 2-goal cushion under his predecessor. For Chelsea to concede 4 is astonishing in itself. To concede 3 of those from dead ball situations is almost blasphemy. To allow yourself to be pegged back to a draw from a 2-goal lead… that’s nothing short of setting fire to the altar and micturating on the tacky gold statue of the baby Jesus.

So what went wrong? Well, it couldn’t really have looked any worse for the manager. To make his tactical sub – Alex for Kalou – and then concede within minutes, prompting a surge of hope for Tottenham. To take off Chelsea’s best and most influential player in Joe Cole. And then to invite Tottenham onto the visitors for a final 15 minutes. It was almost enough for Berbatov to win it.

Well, the manager had his reasons. Theoretically, there seems to be an element of sense in going 5 at the back. Theoretically, Joe Cole had been working his little legs off for 80-off minutes and was, perhaps, fading a little. Theoretically, Ballack could have helped retain possession in the middle of the park and taken some of the pressure off the defence.

Well, theoretically bollocks, or so it would seem, and Grant’s haunted expression was even more hangdog than usual in the post-match autopsy. It’s still theoretically possible for Chelsea to win the League, we’re told. Well yes, this is theoretically true. But for this Chelsea fan, Avram Grant has a loser’s look stitched onto that craggy mug, and it will take a supreme effort to bring the title back to SW6.

In Continent

CFC Net — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:44:18 +0000

To manage “on the continent” is to be beset by uncertainty, one eye ever to windward, awaiting the moment when the mute with the bowstring calls time on your career. So much are we told by the columnists. We icy Albion islanders are not of this breed. We have learned the true lesson of our race, as a wise man once said: to put away all emotion and entrap the alien at the proper time. And then, presumably, give him a kicking for looking a bit different.

Not that you’ll find many Englishmen perched atop the towers of power at Stamford Bridge. American lawyers and Russian businessmen are more our colour. So is it any wonder that the un-English way of doing things seems to have insinuated its way into the corridors of our beloved club?

At the other members of the Big Three, no such uncertainty exists. Sir Ferg has held court for so long – and threatened retirement so many times, the little tease – that only the drinks cabinet dares to stand up to him. Only Arsene’s telescope could testify to what he Knows, but the fans cling to his strategic vision because without it 80% of the first-team squad would be off before you could say “Marseille turn”. But Avram Grant, who seems to be in his position entirely on merit (the merit of mingling well with the mighty), is never more than 90 minutes away from a P45.

Neither, for that matter, are his players. If you believe the hype - and don’t say that Public Enemy didn’t warn you – the mighty Blues are in line for a major overhaul this summer. Out with Grant, of course, although his twin cup humblings this season will buy him a shunt back to the director of football position. But it’s the squad that will feel the bite of Roman’s knout as they’re variously shipped off, bundled out, edged into retirement or, in one specific case, allowed to go home after presenting a note from their dad. That the dad in question is Silvio Berlusconi and the player our record signing makes no odds. The humbling by Barnsley (who I’m backing all the way to final this year) has sullied many a reputation, coming as it did right on top of a defeat by Spurs in the Carling Cup final. United’s defeat in the Cup to inferior opposition raised fewer eyebrows – Southend United, anyone? - but Chelsea’s defeat at the hands of Barnsley has, we’re told, “incensed” the owner.

If you believe the hearsay and conjecture, the club will dispense with the services of Juliano Belletti, Carlo Cudicini, Tal Ben Haim, Claudio Pizarro, Steve Sidwell, Florent Malouda and Andriy Shevchenko. In addition, there are rumours that the club is more or less resigned to having to sell Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard, with the latter’s refusal to sign a new contract meaning that he may well be able to leave for a relatively small sum of money. Relatively small, in this case, being some several million pounds but hey, this is the Premiership.

Let’s assume for a moment that the rumours are substantially true (if we don’t, this becomes a rather short article). Hypothetically speaking, I have no problem with losing the services of any of those in the first grouping, Cudicini and Belletti aside. But, again hypothetically speaking, I have something of a problem with losing all seven of them in a single summer. Does no one understand the meaning of the term “squad player” any more? On losing a top class midfielder in the mould of Essien to, say, an international tournament, is it reasonable to expect a player of equal quality to step eagerly into his shoes? Of course not, because a player of Essien’s quality is unlikely to sit on the bench awaiting an injury or national call-up before he plays. Sadly, my argument falls down when we consider that Essien’s replacement this year was the hapless Steve Sidwell, who provided Chelsea with plenty of perspiration but not a whole lot of scintillation.

Whether true or not, Chelsea’s owner is once again being painted as a sort of casual dictator: the sort of chap who casually sends players to the bargain bin whilst enjoying a late tea of crumpets and Devonshire butter. Which begs the question: if he’s such a savage, what’s he going to do to the fellow leaking all this private information when he finally catches up with him? Needles under the fingernails? Piano wire round the unmentionables? The mind boggles.

Moving on, there is certainly a feeling amongst some Chelsea fans – a minority, as far as I can tell – that the club should take the financial opportunity that a Drogba sale represents, and build anew. By the same token, should there be a chance to make some cash off of a quick sale of Frank Lampard to, say, Juventus, we should go for it. I don’t necessarily agree with the latter – I think Frank has a lot still to give, and the contractual problems that have followed him around for the last year would mean a much lower return should the club find a buyer – but I can certainly see the logic behind Drogba’s departure. This is due, in large part, to the player’s intermittent comments about the club and his own desire to leave. The club is in a position to demand a hefty fee for a player of such intimidating presence and prolific goalscoring output. Despite his age, he shows no sign of losing the athleticism which is the bedrock of his game, and his technique – while not always consistent – remains effective. Anelka is more than able to lead the line, and the Drogba fee would offer a chance to invest in our own Torres: David Villa springs to mind.

I was going to finish it here, but last night’s biopsy on Derby County adds yet more significance to the continued influence that Frank Lampard has at Stamford Bridge. I don’t doubt that the number 8 has considered leaving England – clubs like Juventus and Barca, his rumoured suitors, are legendary names that attract interest from great players – and I wonder if the more frequent suggestions about his future this and last year have been born, in part, by the opprobrium that he attracts from sections of the England support and some opposition fans in the League. To which Chelsea supporters can and should respond with gusto. There is no more effective goalscoring midfielder in Europe. We are privileged to have him. When I spoke to him on behalf of CFCnet around 3 years ago, I was told that he wanted to end his career in West London. I hope he still feels the same way.

Who's Untouchable now?

CFC Net — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:23:59 +0000

They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They send off Lampard, you pull a Ballack. That’s the Premier League way.

If there is an award for most ham-fisted segue into the concept of “Untouchable”, I'd like to claim my prize. But the point is an extremely important one. Just who is irreplaceable at Chelsea right now? Because it's sure as eggs is ova not the list José offered us back in December of 2006. If anyone needs a refresher course, here they are: Makelele, Essien, Lampard, Ballack, Terry, Carvalho, Drogba, Cech and Ashley Cole.

The team that mauled West Ham in the wake of the Carling Cup defeat still contains 7 out of those 9, in case you’re interested (and if you’re not, you’ve probably stopped reading now). Now, if I’d had to pick 2 of those 9 to be left out at the beginning of the season, I’d probably suggest that the great Claude Makelele could be doing with a little more time to stick plasters on his corns and Michael Ballack or Frank Lampard would have to play scissors/paper/stone on a weekly basis for that attacking midfield position. I’d have been wronger than a photo of your father posing provocatively in your mother’s pants.

It seemed to me that the only 2 players last season who never, at any stage, really lost their form were Essien and Drogba. Whether you can put this down to simple physique – both guys are, after all, pretty close to Olympian – or whether it’s simply desire and a serendipitous freedom from injury that the rest of the squad, for whatever reason, lacked… well, whatever your opinion, I defy you to find 2 Chelsea fans out of 10 that disagree with me. Following the Wembley fiasco, it was essential that the squad offered an emphatic response. Consider yourselves emphasised, Irons. And yet neither bastion of the team started the game, with Essien making a 20-minute cameo after Ashley Cole had stretched the team’s lead to 4 goals. By the way, chin up Ash. She’ll get over it son. And if she doesn’t, hey… you’re still a millionaire footballer.

That Drogba has come back from Ghana jaded and out of form is not really up for debate. That he should have genuine competition for the lone striker berth looks to be something of a problem for him. After all, if he’s facing off against Pizarro and Shevchenko, sheer necessity is going to drag him out of the slough of despond sooner or later. But Anelka revels in the position, setting up 2 goals on Saturday and having a perfectly decent one wrongly disallowed: a performance that reminded me of Chelsea’s 4-0 mauling of Liverpool at Anfield a couple of years ago. Much like Anelka’s virtuoso performance on Saturday, Drogba failed to score but had a decisive hand in every attack as Duff, Lampard, Cole and even Geremi handed Liverpool’s backsides to them on a silver platter. Anelka was played wide at Wembley and looked lost. On Saturday, he often pushed out wide but did so with absolute clarity of purpose. When he took a centreback with him, he left acres of space for Ballack and Lampard to stroll into. When he didn’t, he was allowed room to set Joe Cole up for a marvellous half-volley.

All this begs the question… what of Drogba? Is the much-discussed move to Milan on the cards? Is his heart already elsewhere? It’s no secret that Milan, with the ageing Inzaghi and hapless Gilardino, require a serious target man to offset the frightening talent of Pato. Or am I reading too much into it… could it be a perfectly natural reaction to what turned out to be another disappointing cup showing from the Elephants? If so, we need the big man back and in the mood sharpish. The season’s business end is winking coyly at us all. United are on fire. Arsenal are falling apart. But both have to visit the Bridge, and Chelsea have a game in hand. There’s a lot of footie still to play.

Which brings us back to yet another Untouchable: Claude Makelele.

At the beginning of this season, the man looked to be hitting that era of glorious senescence - and I mean that in the most positive way that the word permits – that only true greats can achieve. No, he’s no spring chicken; in fact, he wasn’t when he arrived at the Bridge in 2003. But his bite and controlled aggression, topped off with that sunny grin – are fully intact. If you don’t believe me, ask Julian Faubert, who can testify that there’s an occasional dark side to the smiling Frenchman’s game. But, that tackle aside, he remains one of the quintessential you-can’t-quite-book-me-for-that players: a man who marshals the buffer in front of defence like few others in the game. And he’s had a lot of work to do this season, what with his natural successors – Mikel and Essien – being otherwise engaged for a good 8 weeks. His presence has been a large factor in Chelsea’s ability to stay in touch at the top during the African Cup of Nations. Whether he can continue to produce at that level as the season nears a climax… well, we’ll see. But should Chelsea’s European run continue, it will be interesting to see who Grant favours in defensive midfield against more stalwart opposition than Olympiacos.

Finally, we come to Alex, whose blossoming as a Chelsea player continues apace. His arrival was marred by the natural conundrum of adapting to a new team, but his integration and efficiency has completely won me round. If it wasn’t for Terry’s commanding - and at times scintillating – performance against West Ham, it would be easier to wonder if his absence at Wembley hadn’t been a serious reason why we looked so confused at the back. Immaculate in the air and instinctive in terms of positioning, the two are very similar players… not least because they both lack the yard of pace that distinguishes Carvalho – despite his relative slightness of frame – as one of the world’s premier central defenders. Terry’s always needed a quicker man to play alongside. Alex doesn’t fit the bill, so with his captain’s return to fitness, he’s going to find starting places harder to come by. As a Chelsea fan, here’s hoping Grant can keep him happy. He’s a player we need to keep hold of.

Thoroughly second-best

CFC Net — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:27:01 +0000

You’d think that a good 24-hour period of reflection would be needed after losing to Spurs in a competitive final but, in truth, no Chelsea fan with even an iota of self-respect can do other than hold their hands up today and acknowledge that the better team won on the day.

Second in nearly every department across the park – with the notable exception of goalkeeper, and then only because Robinson was hardly called upon to hold a shot – Chelsea were harried, outpassed, and deservedly the losers on an afternoon I chose to spend next to the least gracious winner in the northern hemisphere, with the possible exception of Andy Murray. Still, it’s been a long time coming for him, so it’s hard to begrudge a bit of badinage.

Mentions in despatches for Woodgate - who was immense all afternoon – and Jenas, who dictated the pace of the midfield with far more precision than his Chelsea counterparts. The less said about the tactical decision that placed Nicolas Anelka in a wide left position the better, but it failed spectacularly, both relegating Anelka to onlooker and exposing Wayne Bridge time and time again. Gruesome to watch.

I see that the ever-churlish Daily Mail has run a piece with the warm-hearted headline “José would not have blown it”, but perhaps they’re right. What is almost certain now is a chorus of scepticism about the role of Chelsea’s manager. Another couple of results like this and it’ll be interesting to see whether Grant’s much-vaunted 4-year contract is worth the paper it’s printed on. His side was, more or less, fully fit. He chose what looks to be Chelsea’s strongest eleven, arguments about the midfield something of a matter of personal taste. But we were left with a shapeless, careless Chelsea that surrendered possession and failed to press up front until the last 20 minutes or so. With Woodgate in fine form, it was actually one of Tottenham’s more comfortable wins of the season.

There are bigger trophies to be won this season. But this observer wonders if the manner of the defeat, rather than the fact itself, might come back to haunt the team’s custodian when we reach the summer break. Because, in truth, Chelsea offered very little of note at Wembley on Sunday.

2008: a footballing democracy

CFC Net — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:35:31 +0000

High on the seas of the interactive bunfight that we call the Internet, you’ll find a project called A Swarm of Angels. In as small a nutshell as I can fit it, it’s an attempt to wrest control of the film-making process from the traditional fiefdoms of studio and marketing man.

You’ve heard of open-source software, perhaps, where a programmer writes their code then opens it up to the world to modify, play with, and use as their own. This is open-source film-making. Scripts, marketing materials… the whole caboodle: it’s all voted on. Admirable stuff.

Then there are the fans trying to run their own club. MyFootballClub.co.uk is a fan-funded project which is trying to buy, run and manage Ebbsfleet United FC as a democratic entity. The website is a little cagey as to exactly how the club will be run day-to-day: it talks about a manager implementing the wishes of the owners, but how things are put to a vote is not really mentioned. Still, in principle, a clever idea that plays on the belief in the heart of every football fan. Management? I could do that.

The reason I lust after these models of intelligent, good-natured democracy? I want to be in a position to ask Didier Drogba one simple question: what the **** is your problem?

You see, the giant from the Côte d’Ivoire has bared his soul again, and thusly has he spake: “I am not in conflict with Chelsea, which everyone thinks.” He goes on to pledge his support to Chelsea’s challenge for the title and Champions League, etc etc, blah blah. Contrary to the Mirror’s headline, there’s nothing in there specifically about staying for another season, but the paper takes these words as a profession of fidelity.

Just imagine. Imagine a world in which democratically-run clubs ordered their players to talk to the fans. Imagine if the players were forced to understand the fans’ emotional investment. Imagine if – horror of horrors – the players had to keep daily blogs. I don’t doubt that a man like Drogba – or, for that matter, a Desailly or di Canio – would welcome the chance to share their erudition with the world, although the political sentiments of the latter might require a little massaging from the fan-staffed press office. But the thought of a Rooney or a Carragher wrestling with the twin conundrums of keyboard and English language… well, we’d have to make a call on whether the entertainment value outweighed the leaden tedium of reading the thing through afterwards.

Will Avram have the last laugh?

CFC Net — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:22:05 +0000

It’s official. Avram Grant is now as good as José Mourinho.

This has come as something of a surprise to many of us, who expected Avram to be the very definition of the stopgap manager; the interim measure before a bright young star appeared on the horizon in a sharp suit. Deschamps, Klinsmann, even the expectorating Rijkaard… as fans accustomed to the brightest and most abrasive star in the management firmament, we couldn’t see beyond Avram as the next “dead man walking”. Or perhaps that should be undead, to steal a soubriquet from the merciless tabloids.

Well may we hang our heads in shame, as Avram’s Chelsea – could this be the first time the Blues have been referred to as such and, if so, does this merit some sort of financial recognition from our munificent owner? – have dispatched Reading to equal Mourinho’s run of nine consecutive wins and further extend the longest home unbeaten run in top-level English football. It will surprise nobody that the free-flowing football of legend has been, if not conspicuously absent, more of an occasional visitor than a fixture. Last night, however, it was regularly in evidence, with both Cole (the winger, not the maritally-challenged fullback) and Shaun Wright-Phillips showing flicks and flashes that lit up a grey Wednesday evening. When Michael Ballack’s towering, precisely-placed header eluded Marcus Hannemahn’s despairing dive, it looked as though the breakthrough would spark a rout. It didn’t, and 1-0 to Chelsea has been as familiar a scoreline under Grant as it has under his predecessor, but this was a worthy 1-0 against a good side and an excellent keeper.

The mythology of the Premier League as a competition which requires a certain familiarity and insider knowledge seems to have passed Grant by. The same is true of his counterpart over at Anfield, but with rather different results. While Grant seems to revel in the anonymity that his unprepossessing demeanour lends him, Rafa is growing increasingly shrill in the face of mediocre results, supporter disquiet and the opprobrium of the owners. I entirely agree with him when he says that the Champions League is probably the priority of Chelsea Football Club over the next couple of years, but two League championships in 3 years allows you the luxury of aiming your sights elsewhere. It must be particularly galling to recognise that your rivals (assuming we are still seriously considering Liverpool as pretenders to the last of the “Big Four” places) may have their minds elsewhere, but are still trouncing your League results. 7th at the end of January and well and truly bogged down in the chase for the UEFA Cup… the Kop must be delighted.

A quick nod – in fact, a little more than that, because his flickers of form have begun to string themselves to form something of a strobe – to the excellent Shaun Wright-Phillips. I can admit it: I’ve had doubts. Many, many doubts. From top billing to the wilderness… well, it’s a decline that would test anyone’s confidence, but the boy has effervesced and pushed and worked his little socks off, and damn me if he didn’t turn in another excellent showing last night. He may still hit crosses down the Fulham Road, and he may still be concentrating on his feet when he should have his head up, but his flurry of influential performances in the last month or so should have catapulted him into the plans of Fabio Capello, who announces his first England squad today. All the best, young SWP… your work ethic’s been exemplary, and you deserve every reward that comes your way.