As a key milestone before the start of the season, we have now settled down on a very solid and popular theme for the blog. While I will be tweaking this theme with a noble cause of giving you the best blogging experience, I have no idea of changing it. I have done tweaks beyond by technical capabilities to make this work in Internet explorer. Hope this looks fine in Internet Explorer too. I get no money from Mozilla for saying this but Mozilla Firefox is the best browser and you can read the reviews to confirm this. I know some of you guys check the blog from office in which case you have little control over the choice of browser. Anyway, I seriously hope this is fine in IE. Users can confirm. If you’re browsing from your mobile phone, this theme could be quite neat.

Two Chelsea related deals have supposedly failed yesterday. One was of Ivanovic and other was Robinho. I would not have been happier if both had gone through. I want to retain Ivanovic. He seems to be a good player, a versatile defender with a nose for goals. Some really big European clubs are after him and that’s a good indication of how he’s rated. He’s not even made his professional Chelsea debut but he wants to join Milan. To be plain, that’s like being a bitch. I don’t want players to stay at Chelsea against their wishes. We have a great club with great ambition and world class players and staff. Players like Ivanovic should know where they are and try to give their best to the club instead of trying to move even before making the professional debut. Now that Chelsea and Milan have failed to come to a conclusion, Ivanovic should get his tail behind his legs and start showing some respect for the club that he plays for.

On Robinho, Calderon has told Robinho exactly what I was telling Ivanovic above. He’s just said, ‘game over, get back to work’. We have heard this before. Both clubs might be claiming that a deal is not feasible and suprisingly, literally the 11th hour, you’ll see an image of smiling Robinho and shining Kenyon displaying the shirt no.24. I’ll wait on Robinho. But I won’t be too worried too. You know, sometime last season, the Daniel Alves deal was going on pretty much like this. Alves wanted to leave, he made some very damning statements on Sevilla, he was publicly pleading Sevilla to join Chelsea, and then finally the deal broke and now he is in Barcelona. It was a question of money then. It was a fallen out JM who was trying to buy an expensive player. Now it is the new manager and the new star arrival who are keen on signing Robinho. I guess we’ll go all the way to steal him from Madrid. Now the offer for Robinho can also be improved because Mutu has been ordered to pay Chelsea £14 million for his cocaine-shortened career at Chelsea. So we got more money to waste ;-)

Some Chelsea fans believed that we succumbed to the pressure from Lampard and offered him a bonanza deal. Firstly, all that we know officially is that it’s a 5-year contract. We don’t actually know the weekly wages. The press has been quoting various figures from the air. Anyway, I agree it’s a stretch for a 30-year old footballer. Let’s admit it. We’ve not been very prudent with money we have, thanks to Roman, we did not have to.

Consider these: we paid about £24 million to buy SWP and pay him in the region of £70k per week, we bought Sheva for about £30 million and pay him about £130k per week, for Ballack we were paying him around £130k per week for many months he couldn’t play. Now we have a Frank Lampard who keeps himself fit, stays out of injury, plays every single match for Chelsea, works tirelessly, scores 20 goals per season and numerous assists, has won titles with/for Chelsea – c’mon, I would stretch it for him. I had mentioned before that Chelsea FC should not be submissive to Lampard and his agent. Apparently, Lampard’s request has not been met. There have been compromises on either side. You might say Lampard should be quite happy with this compromise but see what Chelsea could also get out of this deal.

Our loooong wait is over. I’m excited that premier league football begins tomorrow. Tomorrow matches are Arsenal v West Brom, Bolton v Stoke, Everton v Blackburn, Hull v Fulham, Middlesbrough v Tottenham, Sunderland v Liverpool and West Ham v Wigan. If Liverpool loses points against Sunderland, we can safely say that they are out of the title race, this time as early as the first day of the premier league. Tottenham should start strongly for all the hype that’s been created by/around them. Let me say, I’ve bought the hype.

My prediction of the final standing of the premier league table is this:

1. Chelsea
2. Man Utd
3. Liverpool
4. Tottenham
5. Arsenal
6. Aston Villa
7. Portsmouth
8. Everton
9. Man City
10. Newcastle
11. West Ham
12. Blackburn
13. Sunderland
14. Middlesbrough
15. Wigan
16. Fulham
17. West Brom
18. Bolton
19. Hull
20. Stoke

Come up with your list. Let’s see how we differ and let’s see in May 2009 how accurate we were.

I’m almost done with the preview post for the Portsmouth match. I’ll publish it tomorrow. It’s going to be a challenge when it comes to what formation to play and whom to play. I’m almost confident that none of us are going to agree with the other as I’ve already seen setups that are distinctly unique.

Before I go, I’ll give this piece from Roy Keane:

This year for me it’s Chelsea. I always felt that United would do it last year, but I fancy Chelsea this time. There’s no African Nations Cup, they’ve got a new manager, they’ve bought one or two new players and for all the ups and downs last year at the club, they still nearly nicked it. If United get a top, top striker they’ve got a chance, but my gut feeling this year would be Chelsea.

I’m yet to see someone who with some conviction says that Man Utd will win the title this season. No one, really. I’m sure Man Utd are feeling the heat already. They’ve gotta be afraid, very afraid!