It’s gotta be John Terry right? Isn’t that why you love football! John Terry was the toast of every newspaper in the country for a couple of days. There are lot of articles and suggestions that he shouldn’t captain the England team. These are not easy times to play a football match. And to play an away match in a stadium like Turf Moor, especially you’e being booed for every touch, it’s definitely not easy. I must say I loved Terry’s response to bits. I was hoping that he scores and does that ‘finger on lips’ celebration. He did nothing of that sort. In fact, he didn’t do a proper celebration of the goal. He was visibly very angry, probably at the way things are going for him, off the pitch. He wasn’t even in the mood to smile. But he responded as emphatically as possible.

So Terry’s England captaincy is in doubt? Because he was allegedly going around with an ex-team mate’s girlfriend? No wonder England’s won zilch for 200 years. Why would his captaincy even become a point of discussion because of this? You have the whole media ganging up against him and you have people like these stupid Burnley fans booing him. Why would the media and people put so much pressure on England players and coaches and surprised to see them underperform. Probably when this section of media and general public stop being complete idiots, England would start doing better. When Tiger Woods was going through his, I had the same stance. That’s his personal life. Still he is one of the best golfers ever to play the game and let’s respect him for that. It’s not like Terry was the only man to have an extra-marital affairs in the whole of United Kingdom. There was a president who did @#$%^ in his office premises and stayed on to save the world. And John Terry can’t be the captain of England?

Now I don’t know it takes to be England captain. Does it have to be the Pope or Jesus Christ? See, he’s the best guy to captain England for this world cup. Anyone else is a compromise. I’m sure Capello knows that. John Terry is a huge personality and a superb captain and he just proved that today too. Today is the perfect day for John Terry to do what Alex did and let in a poor goal. Instead he comes in and bangs the winner in the closing stages in an away match. If Terry’s captaincy is taken away for this revelation, I’m going to be so upset that I’ll go around shooting innocent people on the road.

When Burnley equalised, I must say I had butterflies in my stomach. I started to evaluating the possible scenarios that could come up after the Arsenal vs Man Utd match. Chelsea’s response to Burnley’s goal was pretty strong. It was clear that the goal was coming. But until Terry scored the winner, I was a bit paranoid. Turf Moor was a place were both Man Utd and Arsenal had dropped points earlier this season. I thought Ancelotti made all the right moves in his substitutions. Except for the goal conceded, I don’t think Petr Cech was made to work too much. This was a tough away match and the significance of this result you’ll know tomorrow night.

I hope I’m not alone in this observation – our attacks are becoming quicker by the day. I’ve been observing this for some time but I wanted to confirm that there’s a clear trend in this direction. We seem to have a gained a yard of pace in all departments on the pitch. It is either because of the attacking intent or the tactics or even the fitness. It was more evident against Sunderland and Birmingham, it was in display even today. May be it is because we have Malouda and Joe Cole starting for us and both these players move quickly into positions and also constantly making runs. Our attacks being slow have cost us against lesser teams that pack their defence. Today we saw how a quick counterattack opened Burnley’s defence. It was a superb throw from Cech but I thought Joe Cole’s cross would be cleared. When Malouda clipped it in nicely, I knew Anelka wouldn’t miss those.

Also, since Ancelotti came in, I see a lot of both feet passing by the players. We are slowing improving our weak foot passing. Again, this is something that’s looks so obvious to me but you can confirm this for me. If you happen to see the replay of the match, just notice how many times and how well passes are being made with the weaker foot of the players. I think both the frequency and accuracy as increased. This has also contributed to the quickness and unpredictability of our attacks.

Overall, it was a great football weekend. It can certainly get better. I think I’d happily take a draw in the Arsenal vs Man Utd match tomorrow. But it’s clear that Man Utd is going to win especially when a straight-from-league-two defender faces in-form Wayne Rooney. On a serious not, I just want both Man Utd and Arsenal to lose while Rooney, Fletcher, Arshavin and Fabregas get sent off due to a classless brawl over the red cards for Vermaelen and Rio Ferdinand. I know you’re tired of me saying this, but I can’t help it. That’s truly what I want.

Another majestic win for Chelsea. No matter who you support, if you appreciate football, you would say that Chelsea are the best team in the league this season. Agreed, there was minor blip in December but that’s exactly what it was, a blip in an otherwise brilliant title challenge by Chelsea. The question of how well Chelsea can perform in the absence of the African contingent has been answered in a remarkable fashion. A good part of the credit for pulling this off must go to Nicolas Anelka. Ballack may not have anything in common with Essien except the first name but he has fitted in very nicely. Lampard has been box-to-box like he has always been. This trio has been very good for us which has made us feel the absence of Drogba-Essien.

Yesterday was another masterful performance where it was hard to find negatives. If I still have to, I’ll find a name for the negatives – Deco. Seriously, I thought he was bad last night. He must have been subbed off at half time. There were a few defensive quirks but nothing so dangerous to disturb a clean sheet. Joe Cole is still looking to find the net. He made a nice little run and a good flick for the opening goal. Apart from that, he was wasteful despite getting himself into good positions. Lampard’s back in scoring form, definitely. His second goal of the night was class.

Elsewhere, Aston Villa were held by Arsenal. A match that should have been wrapped up by Villa by the hour. So there was the first result of the season defining series of matches for Arsenal. Now they play Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool in the next three premier league matches. I truly hope and pray they are dumped out of all competitions by the end of February. In the league cup semi final, Man Utd beat Man City once again from a stoppage time goal. I was hoping for a Carlos Tevez winner in stoppage time. Probably he’s saved the drama for later – next season’s champions league anyone?

That’s it for now. I gotta run. I know I’ve not been updating the blog too often. As you can see, I need help to keep the blog going. It could be one of you who can help me out. Think about it. Cheers!

Heard of the phrase ‘exceedingly exceeded the expectations’? The expectation was something like a 2-0 win. A 4-0 would have been ‘exceeding the expectations’. Who’d have guessed that we’d score seven? This was the first premier league match since the Africans left. And we were supposed to be struggling in the absence of Drogba and Essien. But we chose this day to almost get Chelsea’s best ever top flight victory. Sunderland were depleted but let’s not take anything away from Chelsea. It was simply a scintillating performance that sent out a clear message that we’re back in form.

To be honest, when we were leading 2-0, I was reminded of the Everton match. Chelsea playing great football, completely outplaying the opponent, scoring a couple of goals inside 20 mins and looking to sweep the opposition away with a huge score. In the Everton match, we got complacent and unlucky which resulted in a very unfair 3-3 score at the end. In this match, there was nothing outisde the script like that. At no point in the match were we ready to take the foot off the gas. Beautiful, professional and ruthless – champions’ stuff.

Every now and then you have such Chelsea matches where it’s very hard to name the MOTM. Even in this match, you can come up with at least four players who fully deserved to be MOTM. Anelka scored a brace and more importantly scored the first goal of the match. That was a brilliant finish by Anelka set up by a beautiful touch by Ze German. All through the match, Anelka appeared to be very sharp and hungry. Didn’t look like he was playing after a month’s gap. Then there was Ashley Cole, who was the prime architect of our 4-0 lead by half time. And that goal by Ashley Cole!

Many have compared it already with the famous world cup goal by Dennis Bergkamp. It looks pretty similar but Bergkamp did it with more grace and ease. But come on, Bergkamp is a legendary footballer and we are talking about one of his best goals. Now, to compare an Ashley Cole goal with that goal says a lot about the quality of the goal. With Essien and Mikel not being there, I was thinking that the full backs might play a less attacking role but Ashley Cole was all over the left hand side yesterday.

Malouda was brilliant too. After the poorly-translated and mis-quoted interview in a French magazine, to start for Chelsea and produce such a performance must shut the stupid journos. His goal was also such a great goal. There were too many great goals in one match! I think Malouda’s goal must qualify as a nominee for the Chelsea goal of the season. He ran almost half the pitch dodging 3 to 4 Sunderland players and finally despite being marked and blocked, lashed a powerful right footer. For a left footed player to score such a goal shows the confidence the player has. Then there was Frank Lampard. A fine performance capped with a brace. I was waiting to see the kids, especially after we were 4-0 by half time, but Carlo didn’t bring them on, unfortunately.

The disappointment of the afternoon has to be Joe Cole. In fact, he played well but he missed two glorious chances, one of them was the first chance that fell for Chelsea. I felt sorry for him. This was a perfect match for him to get a goal or two. Again, he played well and did help his team a lot but a couple of goals would have done a lot of good for him. The other disappointment was the two goals that we conceded. All through the match, Jones was winning the ball in the air with ease and Bent was able to get through to the box fairly regularly. Both those goals were poorly conceded but the seven goals that we scored kind of swept them under the carpet.

Earlier, Stoke City spoilt the revival party for Rafa Benitez. I watched only the second half of this match and I thought Stoke deserved the result thoroughly. Rafa can cry about the penalties that weren’t awarded. How many times he was gifted with penalties that weren’t, at Anfield? When Maxi came in for Liverpool, I was thinking about the penalty that was given to Liverpool against Atletico at Anfield, thanks to a trademark stoppage-time stunt by Gerrard. What goes ’round comes ’round. I was hoping to see Man Utd draw but they came strongly in the second half. Let’s see if Bolton can do it to Arsenal today. All’s well for Chelsea.

Some football finally, for Chelsea. Last week’s rescheduling of our match against Hull was probably a blessing in disguise. In that weekend, our rivals dropped points while for once, we have a goddamn ‘game-on-hand’. Also, we did not have to play a Dronelka-less attack. Boys didn’t go partying as soon as the Hull match was postponed. They in fact played a 11 vs 11 match among themselves so that they can keep the rhythm. And now, Anelka is back. So is ‘this week’s darling of the tabloids’ Joe Cole.

Joe Cole is in his final six months of contract. Whenever a club leaves such things so late, it does indicate something. Joe Cole is on a 80k contract. Rumour has it that he wants a 50% hike. To be honest, I’d not pay him a hike. He is not a six-figure footballer. Take a list of all those footballers who are on a six-figure pay packet – John Terry, Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack, Michael Essien, Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney, Fernando Torres, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka etc. That’s quite an elite club. Joe Cole is not there yet. I don’t want him to believe that he’s there. Okay, let’s put one thing to rest. I love Joe Cole as a Chelsea player. He’s so embedded in my pleasant Chelsea memories. I’d love to keep him and I’d hate to see him play for any other premier league team. But still, he is not a six-figure material. What would make him one? He must play about 45 matches in a season of which 30-35 must be starts. He must be more consistent with his performances. He must come up with more man-of-the-match showings.

For a player in his last six months of the contract, there does not seem to be too much interest out there in the market for Joe Cole. Apart from the drama that the press wants to create, there is not even one manager or club that has said that they would fancy signing Joe Cole. If he has to join elsewhere, certainly he would look for a 100k plus weekly salary which is not affordable for most clubs. And for the clubs that could afford this sum, they would expect more in terms of return from the player. Sadly, Joe Cole is too injury prone for a 28-year old player expecting a six-figue weekly salary. What sets the matter straight is the fact that Joe Cole loves to be a Chelsea player. I’m always of the opinion that we should never let go the players that love to be with Chelsea. And the reverse is true as well. The way I see it, we should keep Joe Cole, but certainly not by paying him on par with Terry, Lampard and Essien.

Elsewhere Liverpool is going from worst to . . even worse than worst. They seem to have a problem with their owners and manager and players and injuries and transfers and finances. That’s how bad it is. If you have your rivals pitying you, you must be in a real bad mess. Rafa is confident that they can get a top four finish. Honestly, a top four finish has always been their objective under Rafa and that’s all they have managed in the premier league under him. It’s sad if a No.4 finish this season brings smiles to the Liverpool faces. If they do drop out, we might pick up some players from Anfield. Amidst all this commotion, Maxi has joined them. Maxi is a player that I respect a lot. I’m sure he will have a positive effect for them. If Liverpool miss out on champions league next season and need the cash, we can look at players like Maxi and Torres.

While this is happening at Anfield, Man Utd is not flying high. They too have their financial problems. And the other Red team, Arsenal, has re-signed 35-year old Sol Campbell from Notts County – that’s three lows in one sentence. Wenger has re-signed (which he had said that he’d never do) a 35-year old (against his so-called policy that protects his younger players) from Notts County (while even Stoke, Portsmouth etc didn’t want him). Meanwhile, Man City continues to register wins under Mancini. Is this the era of the Blue teams flourish while the Red teams struggle? I hope so.

Coming back to the match, we have most of our eligible players fit and available for selection tomorrow. I guess we would play the two-striker formation with Anelka and Sturridge. That reminds me of the 3.5m pounds that we need to pay Man City for Sturridge. I think this kid is worth all that money. In the midfield, we would have Lampard, Ballack and Zhirkov/Malouda for the midfield while Joe Cole can play in the hole. For Sunderland, Kenwyne Jones might just be available and could join the annoying and dangerous Darren Bent. See, we are in January and Darren Bent is in the running for the golden boot. You gotta take him seriously. He gets his foot/head magically in the right place and the right time which means even a momentary lapse of concentration could be punished severely.

The other advantage of this long break is that we almost start this league afresh. We had certain forgettable and scary defensive displays which I don’t want to remind you. Oops, sorry I just have. Never mind, this is the first premier league game for us this year. We’re gonna romp home. 2-0 for Chelsea.

Surprise for you lot! My interview is up on ESPNStar website. I have answered a bunch of questions surrounding Chelsea’s performance so far and our expectations for the rest of the season. You can read that interview here. You can comment on my responses right here in the comments section or provide your own responses to those questions.

I do see some new visitors arriving at BlueChampions from ESPNStar. If you’re one of them, warm welcome to this Chelsea community. Take your tour of this little blog. Let me help you there a bit. If you want to know who am I and how I became a Chelsea fan, read this page. If you want to read some of those 750+ posts on this blog, check out the archives. If you want to get in touch with me, it’s here. As you’ve made out by now, the menu bar would take you to various important links of the BlueChampions Community.

That’s it for now. Take care!