Do you get butterflies in your stomach before every home match nowadays, in the fear of losing the record? I do. That’s no reflection of how we play, how I rate Avram & co etc. It’s just that I get this jittery feeling about home matches as we don’t want this record to end. After a 135 minutes of bad football (second half vs Wigan plus the Schalke match), we get a chance to make amends in front of the home crowd.

Petr Cech is out for about 3 weeks and Terry can train only after 2 weeks. Everton has a longer injury list with Arteta, Baines, Vaughan, Stubbs – all doubtful to play and AJ being certainly out. That’s an undeniable advantage to us but Everton has also been in good form coming to the Bridge with a 5-match winning streak in all competitions.

We should play 4-4-2 allowing both Drogba and Sheva to play. If Sheva is not gonna play these days I wonder when we would start using him. Unless Roman has other ideas of buying another striker having Sheva, Pizarro and Kalou in the squad. All this rumours of getting Anelka and Huntelaar etc should remain rumours. If there is any truth, this not only undermines Sheva’s capabilities but also insults him.

Essien and Lampard should play in central midfield. Joe Cole and SWP should play in the right and left wing respectively. Even in the bench, I’d pick Kalou over Malouda. I wouldn’t disturb the back four. As much as I hate to see Cech injured, I’m happy for the chances that Cudicini gets. Cech has already managed about 7 clean sheets so far, the highest so far in this edition of the premier league. There it is, Cudicini has a very tough benchmark to emulate.

Before I forget, here is my report card on Avram Grant so far. I’ve tried to evaluate Avram’s stint so far in Chelsea. You can find this article titled ‘The Evolution of Avram Grant‘ under the category ‘Debates’ in the right-side bar.

I always enjoy the matches that involve Everton. They have very good team playing good football. We’ve had some interesting matches with them and Drogba would be their man to watch. 2-0 for me.