Good afternoon, you lovely people who spend some of your precious time listening to, watching and now occasionally reading some of the wittering’s of the crew of the good ship Chelsea Fancast. This is another article for those who sometimes prefer the beauty, the depth and the biting wit that the written word can occasionally bring. This time it’s the FA Cup quarter final contest between the erratic and gloriously unpredictable entity that is the team we love, Chelsea FC and the former Premier League Champions (thanks to us) and FA Cup winners (again…thanks to us!), Leicester City. Currently looking good at the pinnacle of The Championship, Leicester are fighting their way back to the big time. This was never likely to be a walk over game. There are sadly too many ‘fans’ who are cursed with the ailment of being hard of thinking, who sit at their keyboards hovering over the ‘hide porn’ shortcut key, or fresh from an evening’s PlayStation/X-Box capers on FIFA 2120 vol 94, believing that a Premiership team is bequeathed with some sort of divine right to smash any opposition lower than them aside.
But many of us are…adults….grown ups who understand that ultimately it’s always 11 vs 11, and that the beautiful game often has the habit of turning into an ugly debacle where David slays Goliath. Yes…look..I know David did slay Goliath, but it was a one off, a lucky sling shot, Goliath may have had manflu that day, maybe last nights encounter with his better half hadn’t gone so well…or he had a huge dose of performance anxiety that day. It happens to the best of us you know…..
Onto the game, a chance to put another pot on the sideboard.
Our only remaining chance this season.
Now, being the contrarian that comes with the intransigence of male advancing years, I wouldn’t care if we were away from Wembley for 5 years…. the recent sequence of 6 defeated finals on the spin has stung me to the point whereby I have almost forgotten the joy that comes with winning this grand old trophy. The club as a whole, board, players, staff, fans need to get the Cup mojo back instead of turning up at Wembley expecting to win. This game was important and given that Tuchel’s Chelsea choked in the 2021 final against The Foxes, maybe a chance to exact belated revenge on them.
I liked the team selection. The idea of ‘Billy Whizz’ Mudryk starting at the back of the forward diamond is growing on me. Hold on! Have I been infected by some sort of ‘tactical bores’ virus? Matron…screens …
Anyway we chose 11 players to play their 11, which is my preferred default tactical analysis. Along with the words ‘have it’ when a player goes long. Sometimes we had the ball and sometimes they did. As Fergie would say…football huh? Bloody hell.
I was OK with Sanchez getting a start, it’s a good idea to have a fresh B keeper. Sterling though is a more mystifying choice…a bit like Henderson always starting for England. Do they know something about the manager? Anyway, more on him later maybe. I’m no fan as you well know but I’m also not a fan of pile ons, or booing a player wearing our shirt. It does no good. With Enzo out suspended you could quite easily have predicted a close starting XI to the one announced. No alarms and no surprises as Radiohead once sang. The game kicked off and let’s be fair 12 minutes did not fly by as the game looked pretty even, if a bit scrappy. But then Jacko, yes the very Nicholas Jackson I had dissed earlier this season goes on a lovely mazy run down the right , ghosting past players and plays a lovely pass across goal for Cucurella! Yes Cucurella, another player to have incurred a mixture of my wrath, apathy and disdain previously. I mean you have to ask why he was in a position so high up the field that he must have had a map given to him, as I barely recall him going past the centre line last season. Fair play to him this season he’s kept trying and I do like a trier. There is hope that he is the player we thought we bought. Back to the game. We looked fine. Almost in cruise control. Lovely passing, no panicking aside from near disaster goalkeeping from Sanchez dithering on the ball in our box. He looked offended at nearly giving the ball away and I do wonder why players look to deflect their own culpable brain farts onto other players? Just own the fuck up, we understand they happen. At this point I was thinking this might be a pre- season friendly type game such was the confidence we showed. Apart from the increasingly erratic Sanchez. 24 minutes in we get a penalty after Sterling is fouled in the box.
This is where the first tit went up shall we say. In a bizarre display of petulance it looks like Sterling pulls the ‘senior player’ card on Palmer our nominated penalty taker. We’ll never know for certain but it did look from my sofa that Gillette had decided he was taking it. It looked like it was forced petulance and therefore comes over as arrogant, and highly unprofessional. I remember Noni did similar earlier in the season, but he scored so it’s overlooked and forgiven. You’ll know by now that Gillette did a Wee Pat Nevin penalty impression (youngsters…Google it) and rolled it to the keeper’s diving body and it was deflected back and subsequently missed by everyone. It was poor. Rotten. Arse gravy. I shit you not, but I’m better at penalties than that and I play in defence at walking football! Now in his defence, and I’ll try being objective despite my subjective dislike of him, he is patently struggling for form.
And confidence. And ability. And passion.
Gillette currently looks the archetypal highly rated employee who just hates where he works. Employed for his special skills, but not fitting in. Wrong person, wrong job, wrong employer. This is not easy for any employee or employer. In the world of business these unhappy types are often eventually given ‘special projects’ which is a euphemism for the departure lounge, itself usually preceding a ‘leaving by mutual consent or looking for new challenges ‘ announcement. He did get an assist for the 2nd goal. But it’s all he did. He drifted around the pitch generally getting in the way or hiding away. He is, to coin a phrase, shot to pieces. You can see it in every bit of his body language. It’s like he’s in a trance. But when things are going against you it’s hard to break that cycle and in Sterlings case right now it never rains. It’s just pouring down incessantly. I truly wish him no ill but I do think his time with us is over. Come the summer I think the big bucks of Saudi and comparative anonymity might well appeal to him. I can but hope.
I’d have hooked Gillette at half time. Aside from the rotten penalty, his glaring one on one miss was awful, and as for that later free kick, also seemingly taken from Palmers grasp, the word dismal is underplaying it. It was a shocker. I get Pochettino leaving him on to try and play through this crisis of confidence, but at times I wish he was more Mourinho like. Notoriously JM was very Clough like in hooking people and working on them outside of the public gaze. Compassion from Pochettino is nice I’m sure, but it needs ruthlessness. That is not the Pochettino way. I will also mention that in my view the Captain steps in here, at the penalty and gives the ball to Palmer, who by the way was very good again. This boy does have ice in his veins and his later assist for Carney was a thing of beauty to add to his own tap in. So we went in at 2-0…seemingly strolling. But to steal @gate17marco trademark phrase ‘glorious unpredictability’ is our unofficial strapline, our USP if you like, which of course means if anybody can blow a comfortable lead then it’s us. Of course we can also add that only we would also find a bizarre way to let the rot set in. As own goals go, Disasi won’t score any odder ones.He played a mundane long pass back to our box, seemingly not noticing that Sanchez was not on his line but had decided to go out for a walk to get some milk or something, so he was on the edge of his box, maybe even outside of it. I’m calling it ridiculous positioning for Sanchez, but Disasi shouldn’t assume his keeper would be….errr…in his own box. It’s easy to say 6 of one, half a dozen of the other but in this case it’s 9 of Sanchez and 3 of Disasi. The boo boys have Disasi in their sights but they’re wrong. Just like they were about Rudiger, Mikel, Luiz, Courtois et al. Some on X were even calling Gusto useless.
I mean JFC. Stick to your Singha beer and burgers and your games consoles. Oh…and get some contact lenses or a better guide dog. Looking at my X timeline amongst the fans there seems to be a growing disaster tourist cohort. You know, the sort of people who go to air shows or motor racing in the hope of seeing a crash. They’re not there to enjoy themselves. They’re there to get footage if the worst happens, to pick faults, they constantly look for negatives and ignore positives. Yes Gusto was jinxed by the Mavididi footwork for their equalising goal, but that just detracts from great skill and a pearler of a finish. At 2-2 it was nroper game on time.
Glorious unpredictability in its full pomp.
On 78 minutes, we eventually saw Carney replace Gillette….nah…..just kidding. Fuck knows why Mudryk went off. He’d been playing well. Gillette, even to my now ‘sympathetic’ fan gaze, should have gone. A possible penalty was denied when Jackson broke free (from a Gillette pass it has to be said), but a DOGSO red was given to young Doyle, and it became the moment Sterling’s fate was decided as he took a free kick that was worse than the penalty. I hope NASA didn’t have a launch scheduled because the ball might still be in orbit now. Amateur? No it was far worse than that. If you ever play golf and acquire a certain decent standard, you will know that you are always one shot away from humiliation and derision. This free kick was that moment for Gillette. Fate sealed for this game, and despite the sympathetic post match comments from Pochettino I suspect he’s bench bound until the riches of Arabia call him. I think (hope) those comments were merely an attempt at good PR rather than publicly pouring humiliation salt into his wounds. In which case thats good management. I’m really trying to be kind to Gillette because I really won’t kick a man who’s down and out. Anyway Carney for Mudryk. In the end it’s a nice problem. Good to see Carney back. And to be fair we were camped in their half after he came on. 86 minutes and finally, Noni comes on for Sterling, much to ours and I suspect his relief. Noni is another player I like. I hope he gets a proper chance to shine. Extra time was looking a good bet even though we were hugely on top. Hugely.
At 9o minutes in with Chilly on for a few minutes (good) and 8 minutes extra time flagged before…..errr….extra time. The pressure finally paid off with some slick inter-passing football from us leading to a cool, arrogant back heel from Palmer reaching Carney perfectly for a lovely finish for the winning goal… …..well not quite. Because with a minute left on the clock Noni ran at the defence and finished with some aplomb. So maybe that was the winning goal….I don’t know, debate it amongst yourselves…if you win 4-2 from 2-2…is the 3rd the winner..or the 4th? You have to love game that goes from imminent extra time to a 4-2 home win.
In the hat for the draw. We all knew we were heading for another final vs Liverpool.
Oh….well Manchester United saw that idea off, as they put a huge stick into Klopps Farewell Quadricycle, reducing it to a tricycle at best now. But now of course it’s Manchester City for us. We might be worried as fans, but I doubt those players growing in front of our eyes are that worried, having met and matched them a few short weeks ago. I no longer think they’ll be totally overawed by that prospect in a one off game. After all, our chief weapon is glorious unpredictability. I’m holding out for a Chelsea vs City final….Coventry City!
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I get a proper kick from games like this QF. Last minute winners are almost orgasmic in their emotional release. Now for the Pochettino conundrum. He persevered too long with Sterling. We need a better plan B keeper. But it’s hard to pick fault in any other players. Jackson now looks a proper pest. Conor (we riot if they sell) buzzed everywhere as usual and Cucurella even looked OK. Under the circumstances, this season could have been far more disastrous, but he looks like he still has a great player relationship model. I like him. We now have a break of sorts although a few players will be at risk through international appearances, but hopefully we will come back to a rousing home win against struggling Burnley.
Yeah, we all know how that might go with our glorious unpredictability ethos.
A quick shout to the BBC. Gary Lineker is a great host, but what a joy JFH is as a pundit. Absolutely top class from him today. And in fairness Dion Dublin came out with some good common sense stuff today. I just love the lack of adverts you get with BBC coverage, after the game the cameras capturing the joys of some and the deflation of others, both players and fans instead of going to adverts and competitions and other shit. I’d happily pay an extra subscription to a BBC Sports channel showing all the football. When I’m President maybe…
In summary: A tricky win today, helped by a red card and good substitutions. Pochettino, despite the growing discontent is showing he’s lucky as well. The players are working their collective bollocks off. Now let’s hope the injury curse is over. Mudryk looks better central than on the wing. Carney looks like a big talent as does Noni. Sanchez looks second rate to Petrovic. Gusto continues to shine and Caicedo is doing his job…quietly but effectively. The squad is starting to grow on me. Seriously, from not caring much for any of them, to having feelings for them….To quote Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters from The Trial, on the ever excellent, timeless The Wall album
Good morning, Worm your honourThe crown will plainly showThe prisoner who now stands before youWas caught red-handed showing feelingsShowing feelings of an almost human natureThis will not do……
But there we are there , another Wembley appearance. I leapt from my chair at the end, only to have to re-glue myself to it for the fabulous follow up game between them reds and them other reds. It had been a nice day, a good day, now enjoy the little break folks. As an addendum, my MotM award went to the mercurial Cole Palmer today. Another excellent team and self display, but it could have been Gusto though…who continues to pose the question of where Reece James plays when (if) he comes back if Gusto remains in this form. We’re not dead yet. These are frustrating times. We should all be grey or bald by now, but here we are in another FA Cup semi final.
Glorious. Unpredictable. #KTBBFH
