Scolari talks about his desire to make Chelsea loved all around the world. It’s a very noble thought from Scolari. It’s interesting he wants to make Chelsea loved. It’s not about Chelsea being respected or feared or anything, it is about being loved. He’s gonna find it hard. There are two important reasons why people don’t like Chelsea (i) A Russian billionaire poured in astronomical sums of money (ii) Chelsea broke the triopoly of Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool. There are no other reasons, as far as I see. It is not about the way Chelsea play or anything else. When Chelsea plays brilliantly for 80% of the matches and scrapes through the rest 20%, you know which part is going to be zoomed in by the ManUtd-loving, Arsenal-loving, Liverpool-loving press. When Roman bought Chelsea, he was a pioneer then. It was a fairly new idea. People could not stand the fact that someone has barged into the party of G14 teams with his millions.

Now that more and more clubs are being bought over, the ‘billionaire reason’ for the hate should slowly come down. Now the discussion is all about how lawful these owners are. You now hear people saying ‘at least the owner of my club pays taxes properly’. Funny! One thing I believe is, every billionaire belongs to the same league who more or less have the same values and beliefs. No one is more noble than the other in that league.

I want to make Chelsea loved around the world, like Barcelona and Manchester United. It’s a surprise for me that people say Chelsea are unpopular, because when we went to China, they love Chelsea. There were many people there. It’s a big surprise people don’t like us in England. Here in Russia, in Malaysia, it’s even better, but maybe not yet in Brazil or South America.  Chelsea is a club that is a growing name. Before, it was Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Milan. If we win one or two big competitions, I’m sure we’ll have fans all over the world. Maybe it won’t be the same as Madrid, Manchester or [AC] Milan because our history is not the same and you don’t make a history in two, three or ten years. Maybe in 20 or 50 years, Chelsea will be on that level.

Scolari is quite clear. If we win few more trophies, we are going to get more fans. That’s the way it is. That’s how teams across Europe have got massive fan bases. He is also quite practical that even by winning a few trophies, we won’t be there yet in the league of Madrid, Barca  Milan and Man Utd. He may not quite align with the club ambition put forth by Peter Kenyon that Chelsea will be the best club by 2014. I don’t know what Kenyon actually means by that. What would be the parameter to measure that? If he is also making public the actual parameter – the revenues, the trophies, the fan base – we can even track the progress until 2014 to see if Kenyon would have a job.

Read this piece from TimesOnline. Looks like the months of August and September are going to be very difficult for Man Utd.They would be missing some key players, which might also include Ronaldo in whites.

Manchester United and England were dealt a severe blow last night when Wayne Rooney was ruled out of the start of the season and possibly much longer after being struck down by a tropical virus during his club’s controversial trip to Nigeria late last monthIn addition to Rooney, United will be missing Louis Saha, Park Ji Sung and Owen Hargreaves, all of whom have knee problems, and Cristiano Ronaldo, who has been ruled out until October with an ankle injury. Nani is suspended for the first two matches of the campaign after his red card against West Ham United last season, while Anderson is away with Brazil at the Olympic Games in Beijing and is therefore unavailable until the end of the month. Michael Carrick has also been laid low with a virus contracted in Abuja, although Ferguson is hopeful that the midfield player will be available to play in the FA Community Shield against Portsmouth at Wembley on Sunday.

Scolari has all the platform to start on a winning note and develop a lead before we go into October. Liverpool have signed Keane who the scousers consider as a God-send. They believe that their strike force of Keane and Torres can bring them the glory. I doubt. When they fail, they fail as a team. Their lack of consistency is not about them not having a striker or a defender or something. That’s what Torres proved last season. He was simply phenomenal but still could not get Liverpool anything above fourth, which in fact was a fight towards the end of the season. Arsenal have lost key players and they are also going to take some time before they get their passes right and when they get their passes right, they’ll realise they can’t shoot and when they shoot, some players will leave and they start all over again.

I would consider Tottenham as a force this season. They have lost Keane but still I think Ramos can inspire them to a better finish this season. They are talking to Arshavin and might even sign them. They should keep Berbatov and remember, Darren Bent has now scored 10 goals in 5 pre-season matches. I have this feeling that Ramos is on a secret mission to land David Villa. If he does that, Arsenal and Liverpool must be shaking. On the whole, I think Chelsea is the best prepared team this season and I would expect us to lead (a faily decent gap, I mean) the table by October.

On Chelsea transfer news, Robinho wants to join Chelsea. This has been now jeopardised by yet another stupid tackle by Diaby on Wesley Sneijder. Diaby has been particulalry a malicious and stupid footballer. If Diaby were to be on a different team doing this tackle to an Arsenal player, Wenger would have gone mad. Anyway, Madrid have signed van der Vaart but he is not a wide player. If Madrid don’t sign Ronaldo, they might still need Robinho. I’ll now start offering prayers for Ronaldo signing for Madrid. The important factor in the Robinho signing is that Deco is pushing Scolari to buy Robinho. If Deco wants to so badly, I too would support Robinho’s signing. Deco is a very intelligent footballer. He has shown that some players need no time to adapt to a new league or a new team. If Deco feels that Robinho would be very useful for Chelsea, most probably he must be right.

Staying with the topic of adaption to a new league and team, Shevchenko has spoken to the Chelsea fans through a web chat via the official website. While I seriously doubted if he really wants to stay with Chelsea, I can understand his passion from his interview, if and only if he is a man of his words.

During these two years at Chelsea I had two operations and a serious back injury. If I will have the opportunity to train and play without injuries, I would like to leave my mark on the history of Chelsea. Injuries constantly kept me out of action. I have trained with the team only a week. The process of recovery is taking place normally and the injury doesn’t bother me. It is gratifying that the coach gave me an opportunity to get back into the rhythm of playing. We [Scolari & him] had a good conversation. I’m only now getting into shape and recovering from injury, so preference is given to those players who are in better form. The coach always chooses the best players in order to choose the best scheme. I very much respect Scolari as a man and a great coach. I think the challenge for the coach now is to find the optimum team and help the players achieve their best form. Scolari has enough players to change the scheme of the game. He will be able to judge the best strategy.

Now, I want these two players to get back in form and stay in decent form throughout this season – Sheva and Malouda. We are almost perfect on goal and in defence. We are absolutely world class in midfield. In attack and in the wings, we can be better. That’s where the form of Sheva and Malaouda can make a big difference.

Finally, the FA has woken up to he issue of lack of respect to referees in the premier league. I can’t deny that the Chelsea players have been very disgraceful many times to the referee, including our dear captain John Terry and our ex, Jose Mourinho. Sometimes these things happen in the heat of the moment when you don’t want to think anything except winning. I support the new move by the FA. Referees certainly deserve more respect that they are being given and they should get tough on the players who cross the line. On the other hand, it would be better if FA also looks at the quality of refereeing, which is the other side of the coin. The fact that the best referees get respect is no coincidence.

That’s it for now. Catch you later then.