And then, we were led to the even more exciting part of the tour – the home dressing room. It was simply sensational. That’s where our blue warriors move around, I mean that space there, where I was walking around. Frank Lampard must have once stood on that very block of square foot I was standing.
I had seen the dressing room of the title celebration scenes in the season review DVD. It was not as big as I had imagined. At second thought, it need not be too big. It’s just a dressing room. What do you expect to see in the dressing room? The closets and the jerseys on the wall and lots of space to move around, that’s it.
We know that the dressing room is where the players change to the official kits. But I thought they would reach the stadium just in time and get to the dressing room and kick off. That’s because I thought all the tactics session and stuff would be over by that morning session on matchday. It was interesting to know that the players assemble at the dressing room a good 3 to 4 hours before kick off. They get their massages, spas and stuff like that before they charge in to the field.
The dressing room had all the relevant jerseys in the respective cupboards. The furniture made of fine wood contrasted so nicely with the blue jerseys. I told Dave that I almost forgot that Ivanovic existed until I saw the jersey hanging up there. You know why John Terry wanted his No.26? Earlier the cupboards used be in jersey number order. He wanted No.26 so he can sit next to No.25. You’ll remember who was our No.25 when JT got his No.26 jersey. Yup, it was Gianfranco Zola. Terry admired him so much he wanted to be as close to him as possible.
Nowadays, the cupboard arrangements are not as per the jersey number. Unfortunately what I saw was English players grouped together, and similarly the French, Portuguese and so on. Not sure if that was what the players wanted but anyway, it’s just the dressing room. David was conducting this little trivia session on Chelsea players. Don’t be surprised. I seemed to have the answer for every single question.
As an extension of the dressing room was the shower rooms. But there weren’t too many and is that why Mikel gets himself sent off so he can get an early shower? There was also an oval-shaped, about 4 feet long aluminium tub. Dave was checking us if we could figure out what that is. Looking at the horizontal shake of the heads, he joked that it is SWP’s bath tub. I’m sure it must be a regular joke that he ‘cracks’ in every stadium tour session.
Actually, that was the tub where the players’ boots are all scrubbed and cleaned by the volunteers (those kids that pay to do this). So at half time or at full time, you have players who throw their boots into the tub and have these kids ready those boots for them. I’d love to ask those kids, whose boots have the least dirt 
Dave also told us that the home dressing room at Stamford Bridge is lot better than the away dressing room. That’s good. Let the opponents rot in a dungeon. Dave also said that the closets are right up on the wall so that our players need not have to bend down and up to pick up their belongings. Inside the closet was safety locker where all the jewellery and rolex watches go in.
The closets were all air-conditioned with a nice perfume so that when our players go to the press conference, all can feel better. I wanted to ask if there were any stories of players stepping onto the pitch wearing each other’s jerseys by mistake, but we were moving on to the away dressing room.
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Good One.
Are you back in London again..???
Anil
far out looks like essiens injury is serious and is set to miss 6 months. Right now with ballack and obi injured we are in trouble, Scolari might change to 4-4-2 something like this:
——————-Cech—————–
–Bosingwa–Terry–Carvalho–A.Cole–
–J.Cole—Lampard—Deco–Malouda–
——–Anelka——Kalou————–
Nice article,
top news
1-Zola is gonna be West Ham manager.
2-Essien is out for 6 months is what reports are saying.
3- Mark hughes said Considering Mark Hughes said “People will inevitably look at the Chelsea situation and compare our model to theirs.But ours is a little bit different. Chelsea were winning trophies before Roman Abramovich bought the club. They had been in the Champions League semi-final.”
how i wish zola is the assistant for scolari too…scolari,zola steve clarke….perfect
Ballack , Drogba and Mikel trained on monday so they all have a very good chance to play on saturday but only essien is out. Bc, when will start uploading the tour pictures?
My probable lineup
—————-Cech———————-
Bosingwa—Cavalho—-Terry—Ashelycole
—————–Mikel———————
———–Deco———–Lampard——-
JoeCole—————————Malouda
—————-Anelka———————
Subs: Cudicini, Alex, Ivanovic, Ballack, Drogba(if fit)/Di santos, Kalou and Paim
I have noticed since the first match against Portsmouth that without mikel playing holding role, our midfield is not solid enough to fight counter attack and unable to sustain the kind of pressure we had at wigan. No chelsea player can play the holding better than Mikel. Till weekend. we’ll hear more on the injury update.
Bc, try and have section on injury update.
Up Blues
agree mikel is easily the better defensive midfielder we have, essien is too attackminded, great as a true CM though. Deco plays best in the hole, dont ask him to defend.
lampard-mikel–malouda
——deco—j.cole——–
——–anelka——–
or
lampard—mikel—-malouda
———–deco————
——-drogba–anelka———-
with anelka playing just inbetween deco and drogba, allowing him to get balls from deco and drogba. Malouda i think is best used to create width so although i have him as CM i expect more of an LM with a.cole providing defensive duties or allowing malouda to cut in while a.cole provides the width. Lampard plays more withdrawn helping start the attack as well as aim for drogba and provide defense when bosingwa goes up.
———–Cech———-
bosingwa-carvalho-terry-a.cole
lampard—mikel—-malouda
———–deco————
——-drogba–anelka———-
SUB: Di Santo,Kalou,J.Cole,Belleti,Alex..
Is Drogba already ready for action?Would be nice but dont think so.Let him get his fitness back, he will be most needed down the road.
i guess drogba will nt be risked….after the manc game is the game against bordeuex manchester united….
Your trip was superb, I live closer to London than you, but I don’t find England so interesting to go there (but i wish I was at SB)
What I wanted to tell, I heard, than JT took number 26 to be BETTER than Zola, not to sit next to him :> Dont know if it’s true.
Cheers!
Now that essien has been officially ruled out for several months because the cruciate ligament damaged at the qualifying series. none of our midfield players ( Mikel, Ballack , Lampard and Deco )must not be injured then we are doomed. i just hope all of them can stay fit till January at least.
It’s a shame that our new Engine (is Makelele gone for long enough for us to say that?) Essien, the Bison, will be sidelined for so long. We’ll miss him. But certainly, if the others stay healthy, we still have a brilliant midfield.
I like Belletti as a holding midfielder, we might try that again. Thanks to the terrible two finishes by Anelka and Kalou, we dropped points against Spurs, but we really should have one. Scolari outplayed Ramos; he should have emerged with three points.
So what we’re saying is, three matches, three Scolari symphonies of man management, tactical awareness, and footballing genius.
I hope to see Ivanovic and Di Santo play a part, not to mention our best non-playing member of the team, The Tank, Alex.
Awesome experience by the way, BC. I’m really enjoying these articles. Looking forwards to the pictures!!
…we really should have WON.
hey BC where are the pics mate?
@BC
i hope the next article for stamford bridge will be the last part
pls dont make us wait dat long for the pics
yea..hoping for ivanovic di santo and also Paim to play
not only is zola the new hammers boss. he wants to bring steve clark to the club. thats bull….!
Guys! Of course I’ve taken some pictures and I’m gonna publish them but don’t build up your expectations. How much ever I claim so, I’m not that good a photographer
And I’m sure you’re not going to see anything that you haven’t seen before!
team without essien or mikel, its perfect!
————————————-cech——————————————
bosingwa—————–carvalho———-terry—————————–cole
———————————alex/ivanovic———————————–
———————–deco———————–lampard————————-
——–cole—————————————————-kalou—————–
————————————–drogba—————————————–
Mikel is back! wow feels so good to say that again, a pity essien is out for that long. Well hope we can get some level of stability in d team finally.
sign Appiah, he has played alongside Essien, he is free, and can fill maka’s shoes.
Mikel clamping down the holding midfielder role in Essien’s prolonged absence is quite a poitive. Till now he’s been used sparingly by Big Phil, but I’m going to enjoy his masterful displays once again.
Continuing with the whole City transfer theories, hopefully now they won’t table a 60 million pound bid for an injured Essien, or something insane as that.
I think we can really limit our shopping this January to a winger and young striker (if the Essien injury doesn’t cause us to buy another central/holding midfielder.) Three players in my mind that everyone overlooks as major transfer targets: Diego Capell of Sevilla, Jesus Navas of Sevilla, and Kun Aguero of Atletico Madrid.
Those three, with a bit more maturity, can light up the Premier League. Don’t give me the “they’re too skinny/short/weak” for the PL talk. That’s bollocks. They might need a year to adjust or something, but in raw talent, they’re gems. And even Drogba took a season or two to get his bearings straight.
I’d love to see any of them at Chelsea.
I’m not saying that City bidding astronomically for one of our players will in any way threaten us, we can blow them off… I just don’t want the headaches.
well we will certainly miss essien…but he can do well without him too…hope that he has a speedy recovery…
in january transfer windows…i would like to see a striker and a creative and skilful winger…tts all chelsea need….no need a defensive mid or else our midfield will be very cramped….belleti,ivanovic and maybe alex can fill in that role if mikel and essien is injured…hopefully we can see scolari playing ivanovic soon or else he may leave…nw tt essien is injured…maybe ivanovic and alex could be tried out…
cech
bosingwa carvalho terry a cole
ivanovic/belleti
deco lampard
joecole kalou
drogba/di santo
subs:cudicini,alex,belleti,anelka,malouda
anelka need to be given some sort of pressure…he seems to be pretty relax and taking his role as a current first choice striker for granted…if drogba cant return…scolari ought to give di santo the start…..
anyway i think england will win croatia…..i predict 2-1
joecole and lampard to score….
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