Here I am, back again. Blame it on the lack of proper football, lack of Chelsea transfer news and well . . my laziness and my gaming hours. The last few days I’ve been into retro gaming. Having got tired of football games on my PS3, I did the unthinkable of getting a PS2 along with the classic pro evos such as Winning Eleven 9. They don’t look so great on my 40″ HDTV so I did the one more unthinkable thing of going to 25″ SDTV. It wasn’t over. Since it’s PS2, I had to get wired controllers too. As I don’t have max drive or such stuff, I couldn’t patch my WE9 on PS2. So here I am. Playing an unpatched WE9 with wired controllers on a PS2 on a small SDTV – all this for a good game of football. I must tell you the outcome was priceless! If you couldn’t understand any of this, you’re perfectly normal, so let’s move on.

Since the last blog, Chelsea have been beaten twice (how often has this happened, I mean between two blogs). The first one was practically with a Chelsea youth team. Losing one pre-season friendly match with your youth team should not mean anything to you. The later one was a proper defeat but still in a pre-season friendly. Look, we don’t step on the pitch to get beaten but in a pre-season match, you can get on the pitch with a ‘let’s play and get ready for the season’ than ‘we need to win today’. There’s a world of difference between both these approaches. That extra effort in that tackle, that dribble, that shot and that save comes when you play with a determination to win. Apparently, we were more focussed to playing than winning. I think that was the right approach, given that the season has not started yet. While we were keen to getting a kick-about, our opponents were keen to win these matches. It’s not very often these teams get to play a top team like Chelsea at their back yard and they might want to give their all and beat Chelsea in front of their fans. Good for them. Good for us too.

I’m saying good for us too because I like losing in the pre-season matches. While playing pre-season friendlies can get the players back to good physical shape, losing these matches can also get them back to good mental shape. I think it would make them sharper and get them to focus more in the coming matches. I think we’re clear by now – let’s forget about the pre-season friendlies. So what if we’ve lost? Many other top teams have also lost their pre-season matches. When I tell you that Arsenal have won a pre-season trophy you would know how much to disregard the pre-season and how they are unreflective of the season ahead.

Finally some concrete transfer news involving Chelsea. Ramires is expected to have his medicals at Stamford Bridge tomorrow. Just when it looked that we only had to cross the t’s and dot the i’s, there was this news on the work permit and all that. Ramires is ‘owned’ by the famous Joorabchian and premier league is not happy with this. As per the premier league rules, the transfer fees is always paid to the selling club and never to an individual but in this case, Joorabchian ‘owns’ Ramires or part of him or whatever. I’m sure we’ll find a way out and I really hope for that. I think Ramires is a very good buy. I know he could challenge the growth of Mikel but if Carlo wants him he will have a plan for both of them. Let’s speak more about him after he’s seen smiling with Carlo, with a Chelsea shirt in the mix.

The scoop on Fernando Torres is all over now. Unless he was misquoted by astronomical proportions, it’s clear that he wants to stay at Liverpool. Good luck to him. Meanwhile, Man City could soon create a world record for the number of players in their squad. If Torres joins them, he will have to wear the No.74 jersey or something. Anyway, with the new premier league rules, they can register no more than 25 players for the premier league season. So, we can soon expect a yard sale at Manchester. There is also a rumour that Robinho may not make it to the 25-member squad. I’d take without blinking an eye, if you ask me. He is a top player and he is just what we need on the right flank and he is young.

Unsurprisingly, we have a goalkeeper crisis now. If you remember that blog where I talked about my wishful transfers, I did mention how precarious our goalkeeping situation is. We only need one injury to Cech to find ourselves in trouble. We need a good, young, understudy keeper – which I’m not sure if Turnbull is. He can step in for a match or two and that’s all he can. We need to still buy that good, young understudy and Carlo should have access to the youth and reserve teams in Milan, Turin and Rome. Let’s hope for something to happen there.

I did touch upon the new premier league rules. Let me as well take you through – not the rules but my opinion on them. Well, this is the rule in short – only 25-member registered squads (ala champions league), 8 of this squad should be homegrown. This is very interesting and would add some more tactics and strategy in football management. That’s a new challenge for the managers. Will it help the cause? I doubt. The definition of ‘homegrown players’ will not help the future of England national team. May be, we’re starting light. Let’s see.

Finally, we have a world champion at Chelsea this season. All hail Gael Kakuta. The boy has gone and won the U19 world cup. He has had quite a few scintillating performances throughout the tournament, including some very good goals. He has also won the golden player of the tournament award. Gael is crying out loud to Carlo: “I’m ready. Count me in!”. Enough’s enough. Let’s get the boy in. He’s really good.

That’s it for now. Catch you ahead of the weekend match. Bye!