The charm of the television set diminishes drastically whenever it is a no-Chelsea weekend but often we are made to digest the hard and long weekends. And yes over the time my digestive system had improved, it has evolved! One such weekend is at the threshold and I can sense a wave of a void feeling in Chelsea fans; even BC column seems dormant. So, I am trying to bring in something to talk and debate on. I am trying to live up to the rare privilege of the Blue Champion.

I have stressed that I really hate international breaks and it always seem to arrive at a time when we are having a good flow in the EPL. I get a feeling if it was done to harm us because we are flying high and reds are not. The annoying fact is that there is not a single international match during the weekend. However, this season I have embraced both the international breaks. The first one fetched Terry from injury and similarly this one is going to bring Lampsy, Kalou and Bozzy back. We have indeed missed Lampsy and in addition it would always be a good sight to see Bosingwa back ruling the right flank. Anyway, let us hope that our blue army who would be serving their countries on Tuesday would come back unscathed, I pray. Luckily there are no De Jongs and Alexs in Liechtenstein, FYR Macedonia, Italy, Montenegro, Luxembourg and Iceland meaning that the likes of Cech, Zhirkov, Ivanovic, Ashley, Terry, Nico, Flo and Ferreira have the higher probability to come back injury-free.

That is for this weekend.

It may be too early to talk about Villa but it is good to prepare way ahead of time. When I think of Villa, I am reminded of Albrighton, the lad is terrific and I admire him. He tops my shopping list and I feel that it would be better if we get him fast because his price is going to sky-rocket soon! Woo Villa this January! Having said that we must not forget that he hasn’t yet faced Ashley Cole, it will be the real test for the boy. We must all be ready for a clash of the two lovely footballers in their respective positions! I can foresee Ashley making the big-appearing boy what he really is: a kid!

Other Villa players that we might have to respect and prepare to nullify are:

Friedal: the front 3 must throw everything at him; in addition the midfield must take shots and tire him;
Dunne: our front men must try to stretch and pull him to the side; Drogba can torture him and our midfield must catch him unaware with a through pass. Heard that he had a knee problem, wow!
Young: Ferreira/Bosingwa must match to his pace; Essien should bulldoze him;

I don’t think we must worry much about Agbonlahor, Heskey and Carew. We already know how to deal with them.

To look at ourself, we would obviously miss Alex but I think Ferreira will do a decent job by allowing Ivanovic to partner Terry in the middle. It would be nice if we get Bosingwa back in, may be 10 to 15 minutes for him. I like Ivaonovic’s dynamism, thanks to Serbia for playing him at centre back! Often, our back four have been shuffled but we need not worry much because we have the reliable Mikel. He is at the centre of our success in keeping clean sheets and displaying defensive superiority. So long as we have Mikel sitting in front of the back four, we really don’t deserve to worry. I feel so confident to go to the Villa Park. 7:1 must still be fresh in their head to haunt than inspire them!

Rumours:

1. Kakuta might leave for Germany. I know this is not going to happen, but if it should then I would really love to get hold of Albrighton, he is English!
2. Neymar praised us openly and made known his desire to join us, this is awesome news. And it would be a dream team to have both Neymar and Kaku playing side-by-side!
3. Tevez is said to be unhappy and wanting to quit citeh, I wanted him right after manure and I still want him despite what he has done to us and Terry.

Anyway back to the reality it is said that the EPL table never lies and we have since the start of the season been sitting at the top of the table. But we would have been 6/7 points ahead of citeh had Martin Atkinson not forgotten to bring his footballing head to the Eastlands: easy-peasy penalty for tevez, the Dutch kung fu and Lescott slashing Ameobi! Anyway as long as we do our best and keep bagging points, there is not a single reason to get our tiniest hair budging. The EPL table indeed never lies, for Chelsea!

Good health wishes to Benny and Alex! We need Alex to send shivers down the spine of those players in the wall!

Ah! It’s that time of the year! We play Arsenal at Stamford Bridge this Sunday. Last week I spoke about how badly I want Chelsea to claim a revenge against Man City for the defeats last season. If I feel like this for a couple of defeats, I don’t know what the Arsenal fans would think about playing Chelsea. I think, the maximum number of defeats they’ve had in the last 5-6 years must have been against Chelsea. You can probably check the records. I’m saying this based on my recollections – they generally play okay when they meet Man Utd or Liverpool, who are the other probable team to claim the tag ‘most inflicting team’ for Arsenal. It’s only when they play Chelsea, their wheels come off while we run rings around them.

Here is the official Chelsea website taking the piss:

I think they’ve been publishing this table by ‘Wenger points’ ever since he said that. Being a master-hypocrite, Wenger said this when his team used to score more than 2 goals. We need to ask him for his latest views. He might say that the league table should be based on alphabetical order instead of points won.

Managers tend to be hypocritical. I think it’s part of their job. If you have a scale for the degree of hypocrisy, I don’t need to tell you at which end will you find Arsene. Never accepts that his team is weaker and inferior. His references to how ‘strong’ Chelsea are invariably infuriates me. Apart from our experience, that’s because that’s the only thing he would give to Chelsea. The hidden message is we are big boys who bully their (26-year old) young guns by physicality rather than football on the pitch. Time and again, season after season, we’re proving home and away, why we are superior and what the bloody gap is, between us and them. If Wenger wasn’t on the wrong of the hypocrisy scale, he would try to see the truth and learn something from Chelsea and the repeated maulings at our hands.

Thankfully though, Ancelotti is different. At first I thought Carlo could be a very stubborn old-fashioned guy with his own methods, presumptions and preconceptions. He is not. He is more willing to adapt and change. He keeps the big objective in mind – Chelsea’s success. His experimentation is of no value if it can’t see a Chelsea success. And he knows that. After recording his first losing streak of two matches – Newcastle and Man City – he is back to winning ways with Marseille. I’m sure he’d have been very disappointed with the Man City defeat. I don’t think he is the type who’d hide behind excuses that concerns the opponent. He looks to be someone who would try to improve his team to match and beat the opponent, instead of saying ‘they were taller’, ‘they were stronger’ etc.

It’s a pity that Lampard won’t play tomorrow but that gives Ramires another chance to redeem himself. If he has been seeing his videos, he should know how he’s the easy prey for midfielders. He is a good player and I hope these do develop him and shape him in the premier league context. I feel like sending a text message to Wenger – ‘Lampard is not playing, but Drogba is’. I don’t know about the odds but Drogba scoring against Arsenal is as certain as an Arsenal mid-season collapse. The most-talked trivia ahead of the Chelsea vs Arsenal game is always around the damage that Drogba has done to Arsenal in all these years with a incredible consistency.

Our condolences to Carlo Ancelotti and his family on his father’s demise last week. Carlo, has visited his home town for the funeral and would be back at the Bridge for the match on Sunday. It could be a tough moment to be back to work under these circumstances but these are true and thorough professionals that can be admired for their resolve and composure. Frank Lampard comes to mind for how he played after his mother passed away. Same with Drogba, after his grandmother, with whom he was most attached, passed away. Keep up the good show guys. You make us proud all the time.

Back to the team news, this Arsenal team could be the weakest to visit the Bridge in recent times. Look at the players they are missing due to injuries – Fabregas, Vermaelen, Walcott, Almunia, Bendtner and van Persie (how come there’s no Rosicky in this list?). It’s sad for us that Almunia is not playing but we have Fabianski who has proved that he can do a better job for the opponent team. It’s not me, it’s the Arsenal fans that call him Flappy Handski.

We won’t have Kalou and Benayoun which weakens our bench but Kakuta is capable of causing havoc in the Arsenal defence. Has Kalou come of age? Why do I feel we are handicapped by his absence? I haven’t had this feeling before. We need his little trickery and I also think that we don’t have a player similar to Kalou in our squad. Kalou can play as a striker or as a winger, he is neither a speed merchant nor a super-dribbler but he can beat his man, he can score with either feet or his head. He can be a penalty or foul inducer by the nature of his quick-footed tricks etc. He doesn’t use his body as much as a Benayoun but he has his own way of beating his man. I think he definitely adds something to the playing eleven, in his own way. Hope he is back soon.

I want a win, nothing but a win. That’s all I want but it’ll be nicer if we score loads. Even better if we keep a clean sheet. Much better if Drogba scores a hattrick. Ramires can score one so he can get last weekend’s match out of his system. Josh can score his debut goal if he gets to play. Will be funnier if one or two comes from Fabianski Howlers®. Well, if you add it all up, it looks like a 8-0 win for us, which is not bad. You only need to check the Arsenal blogs to know how much they dread this game. Honestly,  by the relative strengths and forms of these two teams, Chelsea should have a comfortable win. BBC Football predicts a 2-0 win for Chelsea. I tend to agree with them.