Community Shield: Arsenal 1 Chelsea 1 (Goons win on mad penalties)
Sunday 6th August 2017 14:00
No. As you can see we learned nothing at all from the FA Cup Final.
Us: It was a predictable Chelsea line up, with Michy replacing Costa. Obviously Matic and Chequebook Pulis have hooked up again like a couple of exes ignoring all the reasons they broke up in the first place, so Cesc started alongside Kante. Willian came in for Hazard, who is still recovering from injury.
Them: Presumably Sicknote Ozil had “flu” again. Or whatever this is code for when he can’t be arsed to go to work. No Ramsay or Sanchez either. Shame.
It was almost real football and f*ck it. It’ll do for now after a summer spent being conscripted for household chores and Saturday supermarket shopping. The highlight of the first five minutes was us starting a song about how much we hate Sp*rs, then the Goons joining in, with the result that 85,000 people all sang “Stand Up if You Hate T*ttenham” in what is currently their “home” ground.
Mrs Brown (Sitcom alias): How did Mertesacker get hit in the head? Nobody can get up that high?
Me: Probably elbowed himself in the face. Moron.
This lull rounded off a bit of a flat half hour, and it only got worse as we moved towards the break. We were nodding off in our seats. If anything the sloth like momentum was now with us. The ball was dug out on 34 minutes by Kante, run forward by Willy and resulted in a great long range shot from Pesto (Yawn autospell) but it was expertly saved by Cech. Not, Thibaut, because they play for the same team, BBC journalists. (Facepalm)
The reaction after half time was exactly what you’d expect after an ear-bashing from Conte at half time. And it worked. Within two minutes we had a corner. Trigger (Sitcom alias) pointed out that Cahill was completely unmarked on a corner. That’s f*cking stupid. We said. It was also stupid when nobody had picked him up after the corner was taken too. Not a man near him as the Captain headed it on for Moses to burst forward and put it past Big Pete. Michy could have had one shortly after, and we were looking much better. A naughty one from Pesto on Xhaka prompted no card, presumably because Xhaka has scythed down just about everyone in the league at some stage and it is just regarded as karma. As the half went on, the Goons settled into it more. There were some timely interventions form Cahill and Luiz, ubiquitous foul throws from Moses, the ghastly appearance of Giroud’s beard and a headed clearance from Cesc. On 73 minutes Morata made his competitive debut for Chelsea. Almost immediately he could have scored. The effort, four minutes after his introduction, was brilliantly worked, Willian curling it across the box to him with the outside of his foot, but the new boy connected with the shot all wrong and it blazed over the bar. Rudiger came on, and Musonda was getting ready just as Pesto went crashing in with another naughty challenge. This time he didn’t get away with it and he limped off after deservingly seeing red.
Which brings me to Refwatch. Bobby Madley. Bobby. F*cking. Madley. It took me ages to realise it was him because he appears to have been on a crash diet over the summer. It also looks like he might have embraced the fact that his hair has run away from his head in embarrassment and just shaved it off. So the PGMOL punishment for being one of the worst officials in the league last season? Command of the curtain raiser at Wembley. It beggars belief. What else could
The overly-excited chump on the tannoy announced that it would be in the new “A-B-B-A” format. Were they going to have a disco dance off? No, apparently this does still involve penalty kicks. Being English, panic set in. There was much drunken bafflement about how it all worked. Then there was drunken shock and quite a bit of horror as the order of our spot-kick takers was revealed. Maybe they did think it was a dance off and Cahill and Courtois are the players with the groovy moves? I know that Cahill initiation song was “Sexy and I know it.” Anyway. He was a Super Trouper. Courtois was most categorically not, then Morata scuffed his wide and we didn’t win. It was over quicker than a Sp*rs title charge. I like not this new shootout format. All the pressure ends up on one team very quickly. And it’s over in two minutes. W*nk.
So: We could have won the shiny dinner plate just as easy as we lost it in the end. That said, this just felt like another preseason fixture, as opposed to a competitive one; especially in the first half.
As for them they looked better than when we thumped them 3-0. Lacazette? Their money signing, I forgot he was even playing. He got outplayed by Welbeck. So he might as well go and drown himself in the dressing room jacuzzi. And let’s remember that according to their standard schedule, Arsenal will have face-planted by October. That’s the highlight of their season. On 6th August. Suckers.
We drew, it’s the not the end of the world. Do you know how you know that Conte doesn’t care? He was in his tracksuit. Just like at West Ham (sorry, the prized Olympic Stadium that West Ham are squatting in at the taxpayers’ expense) in the League Cup last season. This is the equivalent of you or I turning up in our PJs. Perhaps we had hoped for more progression over the summer and more new faces, especially when the two Manc clubs have spent a fortune. That said, they did that last season. Everyone said it was Pep vs Chequebook Pulis, and they weren’t anywhere near the title. Just a thought. Chelsea have not been sitting round with their thumbs up their a*ses all summer. The club has been unlucky in that some of their efforts have come to nothing through no fault of their own. United were willing to pay more than Lukaku was worth, we weren’t. They wanted 75m plus Willian or Fabregas. Quite rightly we told them to f*ck off. Sandro was, apparently, a done deal until Juve failed to sign a replacement and wouldn’t go through with it. Even the Bakayoko deal went around and around because of his current injury. Nothing has come easy.
Can I say with impunity that I believe Chelsea have done everything possible to boost our numbers, and got every deal right? No. Because I don’t have enough
He is the manager Roman has wanted for years, so he needs to be backed. The sad fact of modern football management is that the results come down on the boss’s shoulders when they aren’t 100% in control of their circumstances. Conte has a right to feel supported by the players, the board, the fans after what he has produced. As far as the board is concerned, they need to do their jobs so that he can continue do his and this is the discrepancy at the moment, or at least he feels it is. But let’s not start bulk buying nappies just yet. We haven’t actually failed at anything. We’ve got Hazard to come back to fitness, as well as Bakayoko. The window isn’t shut, so the club have time to turn it around, even if arrivals will now come in later than would be ideal. I’m happy with the three big signings we have made, and I don’t think we need marquee buys, we don’t need to do a Pep and spunk money on every bloke with a Spanish accent who bats his eyelids at him and owns a pair of shin pads. What we need is a deeper squad. Seventeen players is not enough.
In the meantime, Sean Dyche will probably have watched that and been encouraged that he can drag something out of the game next week. The players that we do have have now got six days to get their heads properly in the game ready for Burnley. When the work really begins.
AC
Don’t forget you can relive the joy of last season (and the sarcasm) in the book of the blog:
From the marvellous ‘Girl Who Likes Balls’ follow her on twitter @CFCgwlb
and buy her book recounting last season – ‘Veni Vidi Vici’ from Amazon now.