Yesterday was a holiday thus the delay and I am writing this only today morning because I expected one from BC himself.

And when I read the new comments on BC’s last post, I was taken aback by the news about Ray Wilkins! I thought I was dreaming and wasn’t able to believe until I saw it on our official website.

Ray Wilkins

I am a post-Wilkins (as a Chelsea player) Chelsea fan (TV came to Bhutan only in 1999, I could watch it regularly only from 2002) but I have read a lot about Ray and I have seen him on Youtube. But I don’t need anything else to love this guy, afterall I have seen him frequently at the touch line breathing life into the players if not in to the Chelsea. He is a living Chelsea legend and he was living a Chelsea life and we all loved it and wanted to live his life like that for long. Ray had served many bosses but he is the one who sustained Chelsea and assured continuity. He was the bridge, yes, the succesful Bridge!

But now everything had come to an end and I just don’t understand what was the reason and I think I won’t be able to accept even if there is one! I just want to know that it is a bad dream. I am feeling the same feelings that I felt when Mourinho left us unexpectedly. Yes, things will have to change or come to an end but there are billion ways to do it properly. I just don’t like Chelsea’s ways.

We have done well without TSO and we will do well without Ray because we are the mighty Chelsea but I think sometimes a single person can mean a lot to the whole organisation. I am just hopeful that Ray is not one such person because Chelsea had thought it so.

Now, we will need to fill Ray’s space and the first person that comes to my mind is Gustavo Poyet, he is a Chelsea legend and he had proved his credentials well. I avhe heard of Maldini too but I think he is not experienced but on the other side he had captained under Carlo and the two had hand-in-hand won so many things. So I would be happy if it is either Poyet or Maldini. Oh yes I remember Zola and Steve Clarke too! Zola learning under Carlo and finally taking over him when the number retires or go to manage Italia!

Best wishes to Ray, you will always remain in our blue heart. And like you did in the past, you may again rejoin us, door is always open, the doors of our hearts! And best wishes to Chelsea FC, you might need it in loads!

Now talking about football.

Fulham on Wednesday

About our match on Wednesday, i think Kalou was very wasteful, he was misfiring a lot! But yes his assist was beautiful! Easily he could have scored a hat-trick, and i think even i could have converted one of his misses! And to support and boost his morale, Drogba was always behind him patting and saying something uplifting.

Similarly, Essien also misfired and his shots were taken at the wrong time. But I am sure he didn’t deserve to see red and I agree fully to Carlo: “He went for the ball and it was the last minute of the game, it was an important ball to win so it was not a silly foul. But Essien out for three games will be a problem.”

But good enough that two wasteful and misfiring players brought us 3 points!

For me Zhirkov is the MoTM, he is a great slide tackler!

One thing which i really liked was Mikel’s offensive nicety! His great shot on target was very much Lampsy and Alex like! It would really have been a great way to start his goals account had Schwarzer not been equally brilliant!

Anyway kudos to the defenders and Cech! It is 9 clean sheets at a stretch and it will be 10 this Sunday!

I am thankful to Duffer too, he even tried to waste time in last 2 minutes by going down and playing injured ;)

Draws at Monileux and Eastlands are so nice!

Sunderland on Sunday

About this match I am sure that we will bag 3 points again. But yes Sunderland had played a day earlier than us and they must be high on spirit after thew drew tots at White Hart Lane but they know how it is at the Bridge!

We will miss Essien but I think Josh will get a nod and even start to score. I also can foresee a beautiful goal coming soon from Mikel. Don’t be surprised if he score one this Sunday, a long-range goal!

We are at the top with 4 points’ safety and we will already be knowing the results at Villa Park, Eastlands and Goodison Park before we kickoff. So it would be a plus point to start a match knowing how our rivals have done. If they have won, it would drive us to win as well to maintain the lead, and if they have lost, it would drive us even harder to win because it would mean we can distance the gap. I am hoping that Heskey-less Villa can do us a favour and who knows the defensive Birmingham can do one too! I am sure it would be an Everton win. But let us not forget that as long as we keep our winning ways there is nothing else to be bothered by. 3:0 to us, one each by Malouda, Drogba and Josh/Mikel!

My strating 11:

Malouda…………Drogba…………Nico (if it, if not Sturridege)

Lampsy (if fit, if not Zhirkov)……………………………………..Josh

………………………………………..Mikel……………………………………..

Ashley….………….Terry……………Ivanovic……………Bosingwa

……………………………………….Cech……………………………………….
Notes:

Kalou to replace Nico/Sturridge;
Ramires on for Zhirkov or Josh whoever under-performs.

Really . . who predicted this result? I even heard EurosportNews calling this an ‘upset’. I didn’t mean to think they were there for the taking but surely that result means the bookmakers would have lost more than they would have won this match. Fairplay to them. They came out as deserved winners. They showed more desire and determination than we did.

Quite early in the first half you knew this match wasn’t going our way. We were a bit lethargic and bit too laid back on the ball while they were bubbling around. It wasn’t goof to be easy as we were missing Lampard and Essien in the midfield while Drogba came in at a stage where Pool were happy to sit back and deny us.

To not have Lampard and Essien in the midfield is an unfortunate situation. These two players are very key to Chelsea’s style of play. Both of them are extremely hard working box-to-box midfielders that cover every blade of grass on the pitch. Not just that, they are intelligent players who are quick to see and anticipate the moves and manoeuvres of the opponents and nip them in the bud. This did not happen with Ramires and Zhirkov yesterday. In crucial away matches such as this, this can be quite important.

Torres score two beautiful goals. I don’t want to take anything away from him or Liverpool. On the other hand, I have to say that we made it easy for them. The ball that was served to Torres on both occasions should not have been allowed in the first place. They should have been prevented by some regulation midfield efforts to put pressure and close in gaps. I see a lot of losing patience with Ramires. I’d go easy on him. I think he’s got good passing range. It’s in his reading of the game where he made some mistakes.

In the first half, we gave away the initiative and momentum. Our midfield were not and could not boss the game. Normally, it’s the midfield trio of Lampard, Essien and Mikel that controls and scripts the game for us. With they being absent, Pool could have come with a ploy to hassle our relatively weak midfield. In their defence, it’s not often this trio of Zhirkov, Mikel and Ramires has played together and such a combination against a resurgent Liverpool in front of their new owners at Anfield proved a bit too flimsy.

In the second half, things did change dramatically. Chelsea came back and played with a purpose and started to attack from the word go. In the second half, you could had easily mistaken this for a Stamford bridge match. In the whole match Chelsea had about 65% possession despite the first half where we were second best. That shows how much we dominated in the second half. I’m not the one to quote the figures of possession, shots because they mean nothing if you don’t use them to score goals. I’m just trying to draw positives from an otherwise disappointing match. In the second half we showed what are we capable of. It’s just that we failed to do that in the first half and paid a dear price for it.

It isn’t so bad. We’ve lost to Man City and Liverpool now but have beaten Arsenal. The good thing is we’ve got the two crucial away matches (Anfield and Eastlands) out of our way now. Last season we had to play at Anfield in the penultimate match in our run up to the title. Though we came out comfortable winners then, it was a nervy away match to play so late in the league. At least we don’t have to be playing these teams late in the league when they fighting to get a European slot. I know this us heights of ‘looking on the bright side’ but you can’t deny the fact that we’ve got a couple of tricky away fixtures out of our way and still lead the table.

Congrats to Liverpool; they had their day yesterday. Good luck to them as they swim through the shit with their legs tied. So dies this win bring them back into title race? Stop wasting my time.

I think this match should serve as a useful wake up call for Chelsea and probably mean we should see more of Josh who is a baller that we didn’t have in our midfield yesterday. That also shows Ramires doesn’t unfortunately have too much time to settle in. For the first time this season Chelsea are in catching distance from the chasing pack. Time for Carlo to tighten the screws and show the league who the boss is.

I’ll leave you here. I was wondering what to do in this 4-hour budget flight. I’ve managed to write the whole post in my iPhone 4. Pity there’s no internet connection at 30,000 feet. Wonder how the Gods survive :)

Carlo got his first 11 wrong! I have always been advertising and it has always been successful: that Kalou is a super-sub! Whenever Kalou starts, he seems to fade but on the contrary he does very well if he comes on for last 20-30 minutes. I thought Carlo knew this truth but yesterday he made a blatant mistake by keeping deadly Drogba on the bench and starting with his younger compatriot. Nico was isolated up front and he cannot do as much on his own as Drogba can and Nico does well at the right flank!

And with Essien unavailable, Carlo’s starting 11 got worse! Ramires was very wasteful and he lacks a quick thinking. After seeing him till now I conclude that he is good at running after the opponent and conceding a foul. He lacks dribbling skill and his passes are more often than not awry! He takes ages on the ball and eventually loses it. I was anxious whenever he got the ball. With Essien available it would have really been a different game and result!

Then at the back Carlo could have started with Bosingwa to create offensive move on the right flank. Bosingwa is lot better than Ivanovic in marauding forward and I am sure in 30-40 minutes the Portuguese would have created few decent crosses! And if we by then lead the game, then we can bring in the Serb to defend! But Ivanovic did a decent job and may be his lovely brace against them in CL might have helped Carlo in starting him.

I want to really thank those Trueblues who travelled and made themselves heard against the reds. I love these kindred spirits. And by their drive Chelsea played really well in the second half, especially after 55th minute. We played with aggression and hunger and deserved at least a goal.

Up until yesterday, I have a great respect for webb and I was cheering for him in the World Cup. But he proved to be same like other Chelsea-hating referees; I am sure he loves Liverpool and Gerrad more! The two shared a light-hearted banter and I am sure that webb said something like “I will give you endless freekicks until you say enough”. And he gave every Liverpool freekick with a smile and a tinge of excitement and his decisions were mostly against us. Few of the countless decisions he made against us:
• Zhirkov’s merely a foul, forget the yellow!
• Lucas fouls Ashley and we are given advantage but instantaneously Ashely is been robbed of the ball meaning that the advantage had been nullified and that referee must give Ashley the ball back but tuppence webb lets Liverpool to play;
• Carragher clearly fouls Drogba but webb seems to think that Drogba is wearing the red kit!
• When we were running short of time, webb lets gerrad to snail in taking a corner!
• And kuyt can push and dash Ashley as much and hard as he wants to!
I ain’t complaining but these decisions, big or small, steer the game and its result. And for sure webb was liverpool’s 12th man! But all kudos to torres for his brace, hope he reproduces such beauty against manure and citeh!

Talking about manure, they deserved to lose but lady luck always comes to their rescue. But Wolves played really well and I was thinking that they were playing against QPR in manure’s kit! Wolves will come out well this Wednesday! And manure is toothless without Rooney, nani and even berbatov! And yes my otherwise painful weekend was helped to a certain degree by Andy Carrol!

Now, I am being served all the kinky dishes by loserfool fans and yes I am taking it all with a pinch of salt. But I tell them that a single win doesn’t mean much and that a real champion will be known only on the final day of the season. And I am sure the best loserfool can do is get into Europa League!

Wednesday is near and my pain would be reduced greatly by then. As I have said some time earlier, only the two Manchester teams are our real rivals so this Wednesday a draw would be a desirable result but a citeh win would be equally sweet. I would love tevez to score and celebrate in front of the red nose!

We are still at the top and that says it all!

And once more and for the umpteenth time: KALOU DOES WELL COMING OFF THE BENCH! Hark Carlo!

Is this blog dying a slow death? The posts are becoming fewer and infrequent. Same story with the comments too. Do you think this blog is slowly going towards abandonment? Give me a break. This is not your typical blogging experiment because some kids got an internet access and thought blogging is ‘cool’. I’ve been around and so is this blog. In the web-world, if a blog run by an individual has been there for 4 years, it must be a serious effort. So it hurts me to see comments doubting the my interest in keeping the blog busy and lively. 

I’m going through an important period of transition in my career and thats impacting my normal life on all aspects which includes blogging too. I’m still trying my best to keep this up as much as possible. The comments and interactions are at a low when you compare it to the busiest days this blog has had. Also remember this blog had it’s most busy days when Chelsea weren’t doing well. This was the place you could vent out your frustration and share your grief. Whereas now, Chelsea are having a fantastic time since last season. There’s hardly anything to complain. In blogging parlance, the discussion drivers are very few. 

Irrespective of how many comments or interactions are there, I’d continue to blog because there are thousands that read this blog regularly but don’t post comments. Readership and participation are different things. I  would never want to disappoint the readers. So the blog will be very alive and would be here even when Didier Drogba’s son scores his debut goal for Chelsea. 

Let’s talk football then. We’re visiting Anfield for the Super Sunday encounter this weekend. Don’t know a match involving Liverpool can be advertised as Super Sunday. For Chelsea fans though the Saturdays and Sundays are super indeed – oh, add those Tuesdays and Wednesdays too. Liverpool though, had one of their worst starts to their premier league seasons ever and were humiliatingly low in the table that Pool fans had to click the ‘see full table’ and scroll down to see their club’s name. And if they had to check their points and goals they had to zoom in as well. 

There were some morale boosting wins for them in the couple of weeks and just when their momentum is building they see who’s visiting them this Sunday – the champions. 

I need to say this boring line here – this is an important match for Liverpool as well as Chelsea. Like with Real Madrid, some pundits do seem to attribute our flying start to our easier fixture list than anything else. We’re kind strengthening their argument by drawing at Villa Park and losing at Wastelands. We all want reassurance from Chelsea that we’re a class apart in this league and race is on only for the second, third and fourth place. Liverpool want to show that they have turned a corner. If they don’t lose on Sunday, they’d consider it a massive result and kick in from there. 

No Lampard yet. I’ve started missing him big time, not just because of his impact he creates but also because I just want to see him out there. I want to see him play. It feels odd to be watching a Chelsea team without Frank Lampard. In-form or out of form, I want him back. 

Essien seems to be doubtful but we do have a strong first team for Sunday. Malouda seems to be in and so is Kalou. I see Zhirkov dropping off to the bench and Kalou playing in the wings which means Malouda playing in the left side midfield. It’s a very strong starting lineup. All that we need to do is to go there and beat them. 

The last time we played Liverpool we saw an unforgettable match. With a slim lead with just two matches to go, we had to beat Liverpool in the penultimate game in the league. And we did that in some style, thanks to a man of the match performance from . . er . . Steven Gerrard, particularly for that lovely assist. Hope we see a similar result on Sunday. 

The best thing I’ve read in weeks is this:

To all Liverpool fans out there – “you’ll never walk alone; wolves and west ham will walk with you”. 

When this match kicks off I’d be inside an airplane. I will have to catch up with the news and highlights. At least I’ll get to watch Real Madrid tonight. As you know, any team that Jose Mourinho manages is my second team, except when they challenge Chelsea. Quick prediction: Chelsea to win 2-1. Malouda and Anelka to score. Have a great blue Sunday!