A brace from defender Nathaniel Chalobah and a second half effort from Bobby Devyne gave Chelsea’s youngsters a narrow one-goal lead after a fascinating first leg of their FA Youth Cup Semi Final against Manchester United. Having trailed at half time, the visitors responded superbly after the break and despite twice staring at a two-goal deficit, rallied to give themselves every chance of a turnaround at Old Trafford in ten…
The Harding Perspective: The United Blueprint
A little departure from the normal Harding Perspective today, taking a firm look at what went wrong in the first leg and how we can rectify these issues for the return leg on Tuesday. Firstly, we should not kid ourselves at the difficulty of the job at hand. Given the level of the performance required against United on Tuesday, the warm-up against Wigan hardly served as perfect preparation. An outing…
Hard Work On A Sunny Day
Chelsea prepared for their crunch match in Europe with a rather lacklustre win over Wigan Athletic. A second-half Florent Malouda goal proved to be enough to secure all three points and thereby maintaining hopes of overcoming Arsenal in the coming weeks. With a big match coming up in a few days, Carlo Ancelotti understandably rotated his side around and rested some of the key individuals. Frank Lampard, fresh from making his…
Loyalty Or Lunacy?
Generally speaking this ugly old beast doesn’t raise its head from beyond the old shed walls too often during a season, but when it does then boy do we know about it. Of course you guessed it, I’m talking “LOYALTY” points. So let’s look at the word loyalty first of all: Loyalty is faithfulness or a devotion to a person, country, group, or cause (Philosophers disagree as to what things…
Youth Cup Defence Reaches Semi Final Stage
Sandwiched in between this week’s marquee double-header against Manchester United in the Champions League is the first leg of another significant knockout tie against the Red Devils. On Sunday lunchtime, Stamford Bridge will host the first leg of this year’s FA Youth Cup Semi Final, as Chelsea seek to defend the crown they won eleven months ago. Standing in their way are as tough an opponent as the young Blues…
The Happiness Index
As a Chelsea fan, how happy are you? I ask this now because, after the hugely-awaited Champions League game against Manchester Utd, I’m not happy. The world’s most rubbish pre-match meal, combined with an extortionately priced vodka and lemonade, a log-jam at the turnstiles causing me not only to not get to the loo beforehand but to miss the first five minutes of the match and a hugely disappointing result…
Defeat Leaves Season In The Balance
As expected, no team came out of the game and say that they were the head and shoulders ahead of the other. Chelsea started in a slow, sluggish manner and were hit hard when Wayne Rooney gave United the lead in the first half, founding it hard to get that elusive equaliser for the rest of the game. Carlo Ancelotti earlier said in his press conference that he has decided…
Travels With The Chels – Porto
Chels have been dining consistently at the top table of European football for nearly eight years now. Those hideously short, turn of the century, UEFA Cup campaigns are largely forgotten by all but the most masochistic of our fans. And there are a couple of teams that we seem to keep bumping into on our travels. One of them is Porto. Therefore, when discussing European trips there with friends we…
The Loan Report: April 1-3
This issue of The Loan Report takes a quick look at the weekend action amongst Chelsea’s young loanees, as clubs returned to domestic action after a fortnight of international jaunts. It was a case of maintaining the status quo in the Premier League, with Daniel Sturridge impressing whilst Gael Kakuta and Michael Mancienne saw no playing time. Sturridge had an excellent first half against Birmingham City for Bolton Wanderers, and…
Title Hopes Fade After Stoke Draw
A spirited Stoke side brought to halt the Chelsea revival, as an impressive first half showing was followed by an abject second half performance which made us work hard to earn a point from the game. Jon Walters had given Stoke City the lead inside the first 10 minutes, but a Didier Drogba strike, his first in almost two months, levelled things up. Chelsea started with their standard 4-4-2 formation,…