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After a couple of utterly sick days, I’m back and I bring some Chelsea news including the shocker that Ballack indeed would be back, Kenyon visits India (no, he didn’t board the wrong flight), why you should be following Luka Modric and why Joe Cole is paying only for Ben Haim’s holiday.

Michael Ballack says he expects to return in December. He could not return at a better time than this. He will have enough match time by the time Essien and Mikel leave for ANC. More than anything, he should be back playing football. As a good footballer, he must be really gutted to be away from the pitch for so many months. And when he returns, I want him to stay injury-free (not sure if he has an option) until the end of this season. I hope he doesn’t go out with something to do with his hamstring or metatarsal.

When England takes on Croatia at Wembley on Wednesday, you should be looking for one Luka Modric. You must know by now that, by all probabilities, he’d join Chelsea in May. He is 22 and he is an attacking midfielder whom they call as a playmaker too. Luka is a nice first first name for a player in the team that you support. Luka, who is currently playing for Dinamo Zagreb, had a major role to play in Croatia’s qualification for Euro 2008 with two matches to spare.

When ‘Abramovich is ready to pay for every one of Modric’s kilos’, he must be special! Roman, in his initial couple of seasons, was ready to over-pay just to get the players on board, who would have otherwise opted for bigger clubs. Certainly, we could not go the Arsene Wenger way. We cannot get some youngster and keep grooming and maturing him for three seasons. We seem to be on a fast track for success. Though we put our foot down and said no when it came to Daniel Alves (unless there is some other story behind it!), we should wait to see if the situation has completely changed. Do we still have to pay hefty sums to get the right players. If Modric is going to cost us more than 5 million Euros, I’ll make up my mind.

A man of words, Joe Cole calls himself. Joe Cole really really wants to sponsor Ben Haim’s holiday because Ben Haim has been playing brilliantly for Chelsea of late. Well, that’s what I want to say but the fact is Joe Cole is hyper-joyed that Israel beat Russia. So he wants to treat Ben Haim. Very good. That shows how badly he wants England to be in Euro 2008.

Grant goes back to school. And the school we’re talking about is in Israel. Call it rigours of modern football that someone who won league titles still has to get a formal license from UEFA. This would mean Avram would flying back and forth, probably missing some of the training preparations and all. His two months of Monday schooling would start from end of Jan and go till end of March. He would be absent intermittently. I’m not too worried. Are you?

And finally, Peter Kenyon has made a visit to India. He was in New Delhi yesterday meeting the officials from All India Football Federation. The meeting was supposed to understand the scene of Indian football. Very nice. Hope there is much more in the future. A short tour to India with matches in each of the metros. I hope the hotels are fully booked and the players choose to stay at my place. That’s taking a dream a bit too far. It’s only a matter of time before Chelsea goes big in India. To start with, they can take a couple of teenagers of ‘football icon’ quality to Stamford Bridge. No, I wouldn’t qualify because of age.

After the meeting Kenyon said:

The purpose of the talks was to get a better understanding of Indian football. The talks were very informative and both sides have taken some ideas away and we will have further discussions in the future about how Chelsea can potentially work to help develop Indian football. There is a very long history and heritage in Indian football that many in England would not be aware of and the AIFF are very committed to building on this. Indians are also extremely knowledgeable about the Premier League and Chelsea in particular.

He could have gone ahead and said a word or two about BlueChampions. But that’s allright ;-)

Catch ya later!