Chelsea kick off their champions league campaign this season by playing Bordeaux tonight. I know nothing about Bordeaux except that they are a club from from the French league. And they are meant to be a problem for Roma, than for Chelsea. The objective today should be to get this match out of our calendar with as minimum fuss as possible. Playing at the Bridge, we should be able to beat them with considerable ease. If you think I’m being very arrogant, look at this:

1. Chelsea 124.996
2. Liverpool 118.996
3. Barcelona 117.837
4. Arsenal 110.996
5. Man Utd 107.996
6. Lyon 99.380
7. Inter 96.934
8. Real Madrid 93.837
9. Bayern Munich 92.078
10. PSV Eindhoven 91.610
11. Villarreal 90.837
12. Roma 81.934
13. Porto 81.176
14. Werder Bremen 74.078
15. Sporting 67.176
16. Juventus 66.934

These are the seedings and ranking points for the top 16 champions league contenders this season. These are based on the performance of the clubs in champions league in the last few seasons. Chelsea top the list and Bordeaux are not in this list at all. They are in fact the 21st seeded team in the champions league. So this match is No.1 vs No.21 at the record making home ground of No.1. Was it a fair hope that we would beat them with considerable ease? I hear you saying upsets are possible and have always happened. But the Chelsea I know, even in their worst form, are difficult to beat even for top oppositions.

Now we’re brimming with confidence after our performance against Man City. We have got some key personnel back. We have the best defence in Europe along with some world class midfelders. Even if we don’t play our first teamers, they’ll be on the bench to hop on in case of any untoward scenarios. One thing to note will be that we have to play Man Utd this Sunday. The team selection will have to take this into account. I wouldn’t mind if we change our back four. We can have Alex, Ivanovic, Bridge and Belletti take up the back four roles while Joe Cole and Lampard also being rested. They played the internationals and had to play another crucial match and if they play this one and the one against Man Utd, it would mean playing 4 key matches in 10 days. I don’t think we need to stretch them so much given our team strength.

Ballack is fit for this match and Felipao is not sure now if he can play 45 mins or more. We should get Ballack on the pitch in preparation for the Sunday cracker. Drogba is still unavailable, thanks to his Zidanesque stunt in the finals last season. So does that mean Anelka again? He scored a goal against Man City so he has renewed his first team stay? Okay fine but if we get to a comfortable situation, we should definitely bring on Franco. He is on the champions league squad while Fabio Paim is not. So we should use Franco as much as possible. I’ve seen glimpses of him and I’m very excited to see him. I’m sure even the fans at Stamford Bridge would be thrilled to see a genuinely young Chelsea striker on the pitch. If you have any doubts, Mikel is in the champions league squad and is fully eligible to play.

Also tonight, Roma plays Cluj. So we’ll know what Cluj is all about. Even otherwise, Felipao seems to know about every club in the world and has couple of friends in every club. Good for us. In Barcelona vs Sporting, a win for Sporting would be nice. I want to see Madrid and Barca dumped down this season. Also a thorough beating for the Pool at Marseille would be great.

I won’t be watching it, unless the streams are good enough. Let us know if you have any good streams to watch. I know this one - www.justin.tv - where you get the streams of all matches. If you have anything else or anything better, let us all know. Chelsea to beat Bordeaux 3-0. Franco to play and score!