BlueChampions - The Blog of the Champions of England!

Club website reminds that Stoke have failed to win any of their last 31 away top flight league games, losing 23 and drawing eight with 12 goals scored and 72 conceded. And, we are on a winning run aren’t we? We have have not draw or lost since our 4-1 win against Southend at Roots Hall. Stoke is the perfect opponent for these times. This is a match you can win, you can rake up the goals and basically get back the ‘feel good’ factor. This match is not a problem as long as we don’t allow Rory Delap to throw straight into the net.

By the time we play Stoke, Kaka could be a Man City player. This is the biggest story in world football now. As of now the cost of the transfer works out to £243m including the transfer fees, wages and agent payouts. Is Kaka worth £100m? Yes, he is. Man city wants to buy Alexandre Song Billabong for £200m, then he is worth £200m. As long as there is a buyer, you cannot cry about any price. No price is obscene as long as someone’s ready to spend. Roman bought a painting for £80m pounds. It might sounded ridiculous for you if you don’t appreciate the painting or afford the price.

There have loud cries that ‘this is obscene’, ‘this kills football’ and ‘this should be somehow stopped’. I don’t think this is a bad thing for football, after all. With these types of transfers, the Sheikh’s money would get distributed across the clubs in Europe and Latin America. This would mean an infusion of about £240m into football. How can that be bad? It is good for the economy. Money being distributed and circulated. Think of the tax money Kaka would be paying to the exchequer. Think of how Milan would be using their transfer fee of £100m. Now, think of what the Sheikh would have done with this £240m pounds otherwise. These revolutions are good for football. My only disappointment is that the smaller clubs may not be the beneficiary for these truckloads of money. Anyway, top three became top four and now it is top five and it would be top six next season and so on. It is an evolution and directly or indirectly they should all benefit over a period of time. The money would reach clubs at all levels. If UEFA can control people like Wenger from stealing youngsters from smaller clubs using the loopholes in UEFA regulations, it would help them sooner and better.

Man City cannot have 100 players in their squad. They need to have a squad size and they need to have second choice players who are willing to wait for their chances. You can’t have top quality players meant to be confined only to the bench. They need to have a certain balance in their team. It’s obvious that Kaka is not being bought for footballing reasons because they don’t need Kaka. I have no problem in Man City signing all the big players. I’m not even jealous of their situation. I also think one wealthy team will not change football. Man City might create a temporary distortion in the football world but that’s not sustainable anyway. No excess is sustainable.

As a Chelsea fan, I’m loving the fact that Chelsea is no longer the money bags and that there is a club that can spend more than £200m in January while we are not spending even £1. Man City should spend hundreds of millions and fail. That would go to prove that money is not everything. Chelsea spent money but it was not the money that won us the trophies. Now the theory of money is not everything would be proved by Man City. As the saying goes ‘eleven great players may not make a great team’. Call me when Man City wins the premier league. Wouldn’t it be sad if Man City gets relegated right in front of Kaka?

Let’s get back to the topic of maintaining our winning run. We’ve got all except Deco and Joe Cole. Scolari says Deco is still not fit to start tomorrow. So Deco’s omission in the last match is only because of fitness after all. Most of us thought he was dropped but looks like not. Joe Cole’s injury is still a mystery, reports ranging from two weeks to two months. Scolari sums up the situation here.

Carvalho is in good condition today, and Didier is an option for me and trained today. Deco is out for tomorrow for fitness. My choice is this or that tomorrow but only Deco misses the game. The other two are ready, Carvalho and Didier. I have Malouda for tomorrow and I don’t know how long he will play, 45, 60, because he starts again. I have Kalou and young players, and this is the time I put young players in the squad, Miroslav Stoch and [Gael] Kakuta. If I have the opportunity to put them on the pitch I will. This is one thing the people don’t see until now, I put many Academy players in the group – it is a time for the young players to show me they need more opportunities.

Malouda could play tomorrow. So we’ve got back our left footed player. Will it be a 4-4-2 then? I’m don’t think so. Phil has squashed all those rumours on a tiff between him and Carvalho. As always the tabloids just wait for a poor run of results so they can publish all these baseless, outrageous rumours. Scolari also says that he might involve Stoch and Kakuta. I wonder what role Stoch play in the match? We have most probably Anelka starting and Drogba in the bench. We also have Franco in the bench. Why would we need to involve Stoch? What would interest me is involving Mancienne, Michael Woods and Kakuta. I’d look at the bench before I look at the first eleven tomorrow.

Scolari is wary of the Stoke challenege:

This team is more dangerous than all the teams in England, I think the world. If you look at the statistics until December, they scored 17 goals, and 11 by corners, free-kicks or throw-ins. Tomorrow is a very good test for us, change or still mistakes. We trained yesterday and today, thinking about our problems. We have some solutions we tried and are training better than the game against Southend, sure, but we need to look tomorrow.

Put away man marking and zonal marking. Let’s do some Stoke-marking. I have only two requests to Chelsea and Scolari:

• Let’s get a clean sheet

• Let’s defend the set pieces like a top team should

That’s it from me. I think it could be 2-0 for Chelsea with Lampard scoring on his 400th Chelsea appearance!