What a story it’s been for Blackpool, no-one expected they’d ever reach the Premier League, yet here they are. Blackpool have their own tycoon in the Latvian Valery Belokon. In five years Belokon has been at the club, they have risen from League One into the Premier League. Everyone expected them to be rooted firmly to the bottom of the table already, yet they sit proudly in seventh place, a…
Another glut of goals from Carlo’s champions saw the blue machine role into Zilina, leave with all three points, without even breaking a sweat. Showing the confidence in his side, the Italian again named his team early, something Capello could do well to learn from, and left both fans, pundits and Zilina coaches alike with no question as to who we’d play. As it is with the intelligence of our…
Two games, two six nil victories. This has not been the start to the season many of us foresaw after our poor pre-season, yet here we sit just over two weeks into the new campaign with a 100% record, and a goal difference of +12 already. Ok so our opponents haven’t provided the sternest of testa so far but as the old adage goes, you can only beat what’s in front…
So put your hands up if you were concerned before last weekends match against West Brom? Us too, however with that potential banana skin successfully traversed, today’s match seems much more of a formality, and that is why we must be careful. Complacency can be this teams greatest threat as we make the trip North to face Martinez’s Lactics, fresh from our 6-0 win over West Brom and with their…
The return of The Premiership this weekend saw Chelsea pick up where’d they’d left off last season, scoring for fun at Stamford Bridge. A hat-trick from Didier Drogba, two goals from Florent Malouda and one from Frank Lampard sealed Chelsea’s biggest opening day win, to send them top of the league, and put Drogba ahead of Jimmy Greaves in our all time top scorers list. With Ancelotti admitting our players…
It’s only a friendly, we keep hearing. This is true, but it is more than that. It’s a marker as to where we are in preparation for the new season, and it didn’t look good. With the upcoming internationals only serving to deprive Ancelotti of his players again, the physical and indeed mental condition of the players after four defeats in pre-season doesn’t bode well, with little opportunity to rectify…
Chelsea’s pre-season tour concluded on a sour note with yet another defeat due to defensive errors. The match started well enough, with almost a full strength line-up missing only Drogba and Cech from the starting XI, although the former was on the bench. Chelsea kicked off the first half and within a few minutes Lampard had a shot on goal that the Hamburg keeper, Rost, managed to clear to safety….
The goalkeeping situation at Chelsea warrants further scrutiny after a string of mistakes by Hilario against Frankfurst, followed a weak display by Turnbull against Ajax. With many of the bigger name players returning from the World Cup, it was nice to see such luminary players as Lampard, Terry, Anelka and Malouda return to the starting line-up. Many players were still clearly rusty, but it was Hilario who took centre stage…
Brazilian defender Alex has been ruled out for up to a month after a thigh injury suffered in training this week. He joins Petr Cech on the sidelines with both likely to miss the rest of the pre-season campaign. Hilario is expected to step up in his absence in the match against Ajax on Friday, with Turnbull getting the second half, but other than the loss of Alex, the squad…
Michael Essien made his first appearance in a Chelsea shirt for over six months and scored what turned out to be the winner, in the seasons first pre-season match, against Crystal Palace. The afternoon didn’t get off to the best of starts for Essien who accidentally injured a child with an off target shot during the warm up. Putting the incident aside, Essien, one of only four recognised first team…