Slavia Prague 0 Chelsea 1
Thursday 11th April 2018 20:00
An abridged one tonight, because I’ve got a plane to catch and mountains to climb. Uncle Albert on Sarri: “If his ear’oles are that dirty you can imagine what his scrotum looks like.” He’s also willing to put money on the fact that he’s got toilet paper hanging out of his a*se.
In the News: United have now lost pretty much every game since Solskjaer got the job. Shame. Sp*rs are a goal ahead in their tie against City but everybody is broken. Shame. And Diego has got himself slapped with an eight match ban for essentially threatening to kill a referee in front of a multitude of TV cameras.
Them: I’ve never heard of any of them. Which doesn’t mean they cant wipe the floor with us. We can be pretty hapless after all. They have potentially the only manager scruffier than hours. Albert has got a real bee in his bonnet since he didn’t make any effort for the cup final. Apparently he only owned two pairs of pants as a kid in the sixties and had to rotate in and out of them, and he still managed to turn himself out better.
Us: Mercifully they’ve turned up at the right fucking ground despite the Twitter mishap. Jorginho, Dave, Rudi and Kepa are the only ones that stay put from Monday. In come The Beard, Willian, Pedro Pony, Barkley, Kovacic, Alonso and Christensen.
It took 40 seconds for Jorginho to give his detractors enough scant ammunition to whinge about him for another week. Free kick Prague. Not half bad from them, with Alonso failing to pick his man up on the far post. Lets hit the reset button and start again. Shall we? After five minutes things were looking up. Marcos had remembered who he plays for for a start, and in general we were far more settled and beginning to get into the game. Albert and I spent the next five minutes discussing who we’d be less sad about selling out of Willian and Pedro Pony. I went for the former, because PP is less likely to try and start a rebellion in the dressing room.
Aaron Ramsey had scored in the Goon game. – So presumably celebrities were flocking towards a bunker somewhere. Prague were targeting Alonso, who had taken to diving to cover his deficiencies, but luckily for us the referee was falling for it. Overall it had been a distinctly tame showing thus far. First proper shot went to them on 20 minutes, but happily straight at Kepa. God this was dragging. If I didn’t have Uncle Albert to play footsie with I would have fallen asleep by now. The Goons scored again. Disappointing sh*tshow from Napoli. Somehow Willian nearly magicked it in from range on 24, but hit the woodwork. Shame because the keeper was well beaten. Sarri was having a meltdown on the touchline. Still not a shot on target. Although Uncle Albert thinks hitting the crossbar counts. Discuss. We literally created nothing else of interest for the remainder of the half, and this led UA to begin a discourse on why he has a man crush on Mark Wahlberg.
Barkley had a penalty shout early in the second half. He was blocked off, but it would have been generous. Then The Beard was apoplectic about not getting a corner – and rightly so. We were making an absolute unnecessary f*cking drama out of this. One that was not going to rival Game of Thrones for action. Or even Call the F*cking Midwife. Sarri had had enough now. Eden was coming on. Daddy’s home, bitches. Pony Pedro went off. Awful night for him, but it is never for want of trying, at least. Another chance went begging and Albert declared that this was Wankball, not Sarriball – sometimes I’m not sure that they are mutually exclusive. On 57 we were really lucky not to let them in after a shoddy mistake. However, this was shortly followed by possibly our best corner in the last decade. It was helped by the fact that the keeper fell over, but still, not only did it clear the first man, but it landed on the head of someone in blue. Immediately afterwards a volley from Rudi constituted our first shot on target (unless you are Uncle Albert) and then moments later Willian yanked a shot just wide. There was a lot more pace to this game now, and it was really opening up with half an hour to go. Free header missed the target on 63. Rudi again. Not gleeful that he had been our most potent force in front of goal thus far. In the meantime, though, the home side were giving it an honourable go, but they didn’t have a clue what to do with Eden, and they were just taking it in turns to foul him. Enter Kante.
We absolutely deserved to be behind on 68. Completely outnumbered, and the shot was excellent – thank f*ck for Kepa. Not for the first time this week. They were on top now, whilst we looked distinctly ropey, and it was but for the grace of our goalkeeper we were not yet behind. Sarri’s last roll of the dice was to bring on Ruben. Off went Barkley, who had been one of our better contributors tonight. We hadn’t been terrible, but the final third was frustratingly inept. Disappointed by The Beard throughout. He had it in the net on 77 minutes, but he was nearly as offside as Dave against Cardiff. Willian had had a sh*t night too, and we required another first class save from Kepa to keep the score level.
Then out of nowhere Alonso made up for every f*ckwit, dozey mistake he’d made tonight by heading it home. 2 goals in 4 matches apparently. F*ck knows why he was the one in the box and frankly, who cares? Was it Willian that played it in? (Gin had happened) If so the two players we had slated the most. Such is football. Marcos appeared to have just given up on any defending, because Loftus-Cheek spent at least five minutes playing at left back and looking understandably baffled. Prague went frantically in search of an equaliser, but thankfully to not avail.
So: Away goal, advantage us. Somehow. Mostly the important people got a rest before the Scouse on Sunday. I’ll be on a plane bound for the Andes, so please don’t let them f*ck it up in my absence.
AC
