Good afternoon folks,
Well, my friends. Consistent inconsistency reigns supreme it seems. After the warm thrill of confusion, that space cadet glow, following the Everton game, we then faced the currently annoyingly in form Arsenal…….yes we did face City in the FA Cup semi, and acquitted ourselves reasonably OK with a narrow defeat, but lets be honest…did we really think we were ready to beat them? Our Wembley curse at least only got put on show in the semi, rather than another final. So, lets do the right thing and skip over that defeat. And let’s just say Arsenal roasting us was absolutely indicative of a team of kids lacking on field leadership in the face of defeat, itself then leading to humiliating defeat. Aston Villa away was much more in line with the stuff we’ve seen sparks of recently, the foundations of a good, potentially very good team. Yes, we conceded 2 stupid goals at Villa, but we showed fight, spirit and heart to draw the game…a game that we should have won because in my opinion, nowhere else on the pitch is Badiashile’s nudge regarded as a foul.
And so we went into last night’s game against the loathsome Spuds with a fair degree of reasonable trepidation on the back of further injury news with Disasi and Silva added to a seemingly unstoppable list of injuries. We had 14 players out through injury last night at a ‘market value’ of £526m. We announced a team so obvious, even Jonathan Kydd and Stamford Chidge of this parish could have guessed the team correctly. After all, the 11 we fielded were pretty much the bare bones of what remains of our ‘billion pound blue bottle job’ squad as Gary Neveille described us. There was literally no other 11 to choose. Then you looked at the bench, a bench so young, you felt most of them needed a letter from their parents to be out that time of night. The oldest was Cesare Casadei at 21….21! As some wag said, they probably needed introducing to the first team in the dressing room.
Spuds, as ever would come to us hell bent on winning despite a piss poor record of 1 win in 38 games at Stamford Bridge, and no doubt still wincing at the earlier 4-1 we did at their ground early in the season. Plus they were arguably unlucky to lose 3-2 to the annoying consistent Arsenal the previous Sunday. A bare bones, weakened Chelsea side with babies on the bench, smarting from losing the North London Derby …..surely this was the big chance to do us and improve that dismal record?
Relax, it’s Spuds ffs. Now far be it from me to say much that’s nice about them, but there is no denying they do bring an atmosphere…and they do provoke a more visceral response from our occasionally somnambulistic home crowd. it’s always a sparky night when Spuds come to town. There are other nice things I can say about them, mainly about players and their current manager…..but I keep them away from the public domain for obvious reasons. After the usual pre-match pub banter with some lovely people, and the added pleasure of an unscheduled walk into the ground with the gentleman, scholar and lovely Marco Worrall, also from this parish it augured for an entertaining night where almost everyone I spoke to would have settled for a draw with our decimated squad.
Now, there’s a surprise as we actually do come out of the blocks pretty decently. Mudryk causing their right back nightmares with clever by-passing, interplaying with the excellent Cucurella to cause all sorts of panic ….and yes…you did read that correctly. I have been a huge critic of Cucurella, who has been an omnishambles of a player under Tuchel, Potter and Sir Frank, but since his return from injury under Pochettino has been……transformed….back to the player we thought we’d bought from Brighton. And good luck and well done to him for his stickability and perseverance and not letting the moaners like me win. We pressed, we harried, we threaded, we shot. Madueke was sublime on the right…a million miles from the pub player some think he is. By the end of the game he was knackered, as were the rest of the team. We looked good at the back, young Alfie Gilchrist keeping Son and Romero comparatively quite with his snappy tackling and in your face marking. By half time we were a goal up, from a Conor Gallagher free kick beautifully looped into the goal by Trevoh Chalobah. What has he done that warrants being sold?
But of course, the now despicable VAR wanted it’s time on the spotlight of fame or infamy. Now, I am a FAN of VAR in principle. Used properly as seen abroad and in the Euro’s and World Cups, it is fine. It’s quick, it’s accurate for the huge majority of the time. However in England it has been handed over to morons and idiots. last night it first checked for offside on Chalobah’s goal. Satisfied with it not being offside after 2 minutes, it then decided it need to check for a foul. Another 2 minutes of fuckwittery ensued. Even the most ignorant watcher of football didn’t need lines to see there was no offside. Even the thickest of the whale omelette brigade could see there was no foul. So why did it take so long? They were RE-REFEREEING the game, that’s why. No clear and obvious error in any aspect of the goal and there they are, the automaton removed brain puppets in Stockley Park are ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR REASONS TO DISALLOW GOALS. Not just for us, Spuds suffered on Sunday vs the Gooners by having a good goal disallowed. It’s like the English disease of thinking we know better has further infested another aspect of life. We deploy things like others do and we BALLS it up. I think even Howard Webb must be wondering what sort of cabal of absolute throbbers he has taken over.
It seems churlish to not mention each player by name, but this first half was a proper team effort…no slackers, everyone putting in a shift, Caicedo was superb, Badiashile far more mindfully in the game and not drifting off into his own world, Petrovic (still not good enough for me…get Ramsdale!) looked more confident and solid. Cole Palmer was …more subdued and looked like a lad recovering from illness…which is…errr…exactly what he is. But he still contributed and played some lovely stuff. Conor Gallagher ran his proverbial nuts off and was masterful…yes masterful. He is a ‘senior’ player no matter what the naysayers think. Selling him would be lunacy, insanity, mad, incompetent and downright bloody stupid. And finally, a mention to the enigma of Nick Jackson. A striker some say……no say I ….a winger? No I say again…..then what is he? All I can say is I have no idea, but last night he hustled, bustled, fought, ran and scored. And scored well. After Cole Palmer had smashed a free kick onto the bar, the ball rebounded out…awkwardly…bouncing high and as a crowd we collectively sighed as it looked like another near miss…but Jackson jumping and craning his neck did a very Drogba like thing, and connected with the ball to produce a header that looked like it would loop sadly over the bar, but actually defied the laws of physics and my eyes by looping UNDER the bar past 2 despairing Spuds bodies. And in all honesty that goal had been against the run of play as Spuds had come out for the second half fighting to get back in the game, controlling possession as our bare bones babies started to look passive, nervous and worried the inevitable equaliser would come. By the way it has nothing to do with half time talks, no manager says to his team at 1-0 to hold on to that aside from Mourinho in his pomp…because his first Chelsea side rarely conceded a goal ever. This was down to a determined Spuds, they were always going to come at us after we’d dominated the first half.
The second goal properly deflated Spuds though, and even subbing Jacko , Mudryk and a knackered cramping Alfie to use 3 of the bench embryo’s didn’t disturb our doggedness and determination to see the game through. Honourable mentions for Acheampong, Casadei and Tauriainen for cool, calm and professional minutes on the field in a game with pressure riding high even at 2-0. 6 minutes of added time actually flew by as we frustrated any flowing football from Spuds and with it frustrated any hope of a way back into the game for them. Three lovely points, one defeat in 18 at home now, which is quite the sequence considering how this season has gone. ]
Let’s just hope we can continue this by beating West Ham, hopefully in turmoil over manager rumours, on Sunday. Am I confident? No, never these days, and I’m not arrogant enough to believe we will roll them over. However, maybe the tide has turned, at home at least as we spy a sneaky finish to play some European football next season, for the (now) only remaining trophy we haven’t won (because it’s new, and we’ve not been this low before). But you’ve got to be in it to win it. Add that to the new World Club championship and the money will seep in, relieving some financial pressure and signalling a brighter future for this squad.
Enjoy a few days of local bragging rights, the sweet taste of beating Spuds yet again, the feeling of ruining their hopes of the top 4 and safe in the knowledge that no matter how bad things may get, you still chose wisely my friends, you still chose wisely.
KTBFFH, GJ
