At these circumstances, playing at Stamford Bridge, this should be a walk in the park (no disrespect to Huddersfield Town). That said, upsets do happen in cup competitions. I have a feeling that this could be a 4-0. Even if it is a 1-0, I just want to see a commanding Chelsea performance by completely outplaying and outclassing our league one opponents.

So here comes the problem of plenty! Terry is back. He has surprised the manager and everyone else by recovering so quickly. That’s bad news for Alex. If grant played a injury-returned Lampard against Liverpool in a premier league game, he would certainly play Terry against Huddersfield in an FA Cup game. If Ivanovic is anywhere near match-fit, he should play as well.

In midfield, Essien is available. So is Mikel, Lampard, Ballack, Makelele and if at all you need, Sidwell too. And then you see Drogba, Kalou, Anelka, Joe Cole, Malouda, SWP plus Sinclair, Di Santo and Sahar in the attack. Ooh! Ok, this is a relatively easy match up in the FA Cup. So you can either play a strong team and say that you take it seriously or play some second string players and say that you’re giving chances to youth. The real selection struggle would come in for the champions league and premier league matches.

Here is Essien returning from African Cup, talking about Chelsea’s progress in his absence:

I think they’ve done a good job and didn’t lose a game. It didn’t surprise me because I know we have the players to do it. The team has done really well, and we have to keep going and continue to win our matches.

BBC’s Mark Lawrenson says that the Blues could enter two teams in the Premier League and they would probably both be good enough for a top-five finish. Quite rightly so. That’s the pressure that comes with the money spent and quality of players we have. Avram says that he will play a strong team against Huddersfield Town. Any eleven players from the Chelsea squad could prove to be very strong for our opponents.

I’m still waiting for Frankie Lampard’s 100th Chelsea goal. I wish he gets there as soon as possible. These are landmarks that make you feel uneasy and restless, which could show up on the pitch in crucial moments.

This is my team. The idea behind choosing this team is to see that certain players get some deserved rest, certain players get some playing time and certain players get some first team experience. Drogba and Kalou can make substitute appearances while this could be last first team match for Sinclair this season. Also we have an away fixture in champions league on Tuesday. Just like in FA Cup, we’ve got an easy draw in champions league but at champions league level, you can’t take an team lightly.

As I said before, I think this could be a healthy 4-0 and if we score 2 or 3 goals in the first half, we could even run riot.

P.S: I’m not sure how many have noticed this. In the main menu bar, you have the comments page and footie news page. They look much better this way, I think.

Entering a name is mandatory. So there can’t be any ‘Anonymous’ comments unless the commenter takes the pain to type ‘Anonymous’. If someone is making a comment s/he should stand up for it and hence it is only fair to expect him/her to have a name or a nick.

Entering an email address is also mandatory. Now, this must annoy people. The email address input is very essential for the detection of impersonation.

Now, do you see a geometric image under the ‘comment number’ on the left hand side? That image is generated based on the email address that you’ve given. The email address typed in by you while you input the comments, will not be visible to anyone else. So, no one can recreate the image that is unique for you as they wouldn’t know the email address that you typed in. These images are randomly generated and assigned to email addresses. The identicon you see above is mine.

One good thing is, once you’ve opened the blog and entered your name and email address for one comment, that info would remain in those fields until you close the blog. That’s what happens when you allow cache to be saved.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

I hope this idea works. Let’s see how this goes.

Ok, something related to football now, after all. When I wrote the match reaction for the Birmingham match, I had not checked what was the general mood and feeling about the performance. Even ‘The Offside’ website had a similar feeling as mine about the match. They titled their post ‘Well, that was undeserved‘ and called it one of the worst performances of the season. Vital football was no different.

The new kid Franco di Santo is still on cloud nine without realising that he could even make a debut if Anelka gets injured this week. 18 year old Franco, who is taller than the tallest of Chelsea strikers now at 6 ft 5 in, has not yet come to terms that he would training with Drogba, Lampard etc and sharing the locker room with them. I like his humility despite being called the next Maradona. I’m not sure about this but any Argentine teenager arriving in Europe should be next Maradona, right?

I am still checking myself because sometimes I feel like I am dreaming. I didn’t imagine this was going to happen so quickly. So much has happened to me over the last 18 months and this has made me very happy. I know nobody there knows who I am but I am calm and will try to win myself a place in the team and also some respect.

Always good to see a level headed youngster. Before we start celebrating him, let me remind you that his name is still not appearing in the official Chelsea website’s player list. In three to four years from now, I hope the average age of the Chelsea playing XI comes down to 22-24. That should be exciting!

It is getting very very clear that Drogba wants out. There were interview and rumours before and the club had to come out and clarify that he was misquoted. Now Yaya Toure claims that Drogba spoke to him about his moving to Milan, Madrid and most preferably to Barca. If there is any truth in this, we should simply forget Drogba and move on. I don’t we should give him an improved contract. See how Lampard reacts to rumours. He said he wanted to be Chelsea forever and contract talks would be concluded soon. That’s like a gentleman. With Drogba, it is getting very annoying and frustrating off the field (on the field he gives his 100% without doubt). If Drogba wants out, we should let him go, at the right price.

While Drogba dreams of pairing with Eto’o in Barca, Roman probably dreams of pairing these strikers in Chelsea! Tribal Football (ok Den, you broke the news here!) says that Chelsea is preparing for a massive 40 million bid for Samuel Eto’o. Maicon has penned a new contract with Inter. So let’s stop rumouring about him. Now that Belletti has settled in so well, some tweaking of Paulo Ferreira would do.

That’s it for now. We’re all still waiting for your stories about your Chelsea possessions! See ya!

To play a relegation battler at this juncture is what we exactly need. We have a couple of new players who are very eager to show their class. We are just 4 points off Man Utd and Arsenal who travel to Reading and Fulham.

We will play 4-3-3. Anelka should play 90 minutes I guess. SWP has been successful (for all of 2 matches) playing in a central role. So, I think he would pair with Ballack. By last match performance, Joe Cole and Malouda should start as well.

If there are discussions between Chelsea and Liverpool on Wayne Bridge, we would see less and less of him. If we are going to lose him, let’s play him against these lesser oppositions while Ashley Cole can prepare for bigger matches.

Dispatching Birmingham should not be too difficult for two reasons. (i) I just cannot see them scoring (ii) I just cannot see how they can stop us from scoring, but this is what I thought when we played them at home in the first leg. It was a great match. we should won by a bigger margin but came out with a very respectable (for Birmingham) margin of 3-2.

Last season we lost three matches in all, this season we have already lost three as of now. Last season we failed to score in 4 matches and this time already we haven’t scored in 5 matches. Same time last season we were No.2 trailing by 6 points and now we are at No.3 trailing by 4 points. All other things being equal, if our second half of the season is going to match our first half, we will fall short. I don’t think Arsenal can last the race despite their brilliant form. Man Utd are too strong to be toppled from where they are. Remember Man Utd had the worst start to the season, of all top four clubs, and they have slowly eclipsed their rivals to assert their superiority.

Here is a fantastic preview (which is much better than my post!) for the Birmingham vs Chelsea match. There is a nice build up for the match along with statistics of recent form, home/away form, league standings of both the teams. Very valuable information if you’re willing to bet.

Prediction: 2-0 to Chelsea.

As part of their monthly routine, Chelsea pick up another hefty fine for not controlling their players. Everytime I see such news I get badly annoyed at the double standards. I’m not trying to justify what the Chelsea players did when Essien was sent off. I strongly believe that only the captain should be allowed to talk to the referee and any other interference should be punished. But as long as this is not the case, all clubs should be treated alike. What Chelsea players did the other day is what players of most premier clubs including the top four would do every week.

QPR’s owners have vowed that their club will challenge in champions league in four years. Standing at No.20 in the championship, their target is to play in the premier league in 3 years. This is their ‘programme’ as they put it. Such things cannot be brushed aside anymore. I won’t be surprised if QPR makes it big in the European scene. I’m almost very sure that there are more billionaires in the world than quality managers who can help them achieve such stiff targets.

Franco di Santo hopes to be a Chelsea player this weekend and even hopes to take up the challenge if he is called to play. I doubt his participation anytime soon. Lassana Diarra has moved to Portsmouth after just 6 months with Arsenal. Looks like what was promised and what was being offered at Arsenal were different. In a way what he did was just right. Instead of crying and moaning at lack of first team chances, he discussed it openly with Wenger and got himself transferred to club where he would naturally be a first choice player.

London clubs are now interested in Kostas Katsouranis of Benfica. This guy is a defensive midfielder who can perform few other roles. I don’t see any logic in going in for a defensive midfielder now. He’s clarifted that he would stay where he is, but we should now look at which other defensive midfielder Chelsea would be looking to sign.

There is no G14 anymore. If you don’t know anything about G14, leave it, it’s gone now anyways. The dissolving of G14 could have an impact in the transfer market which leads us to the opening story of this article which happens to be closing one too.

And finally, looks like Chelsea is intent on a Drogba – Messi swap with Barcelona! Drogba has already opened his mouth about how much he will relish playing with Eto’o but Messi has not shown any explicit interest so far. Why Barca will not leave Messi? Young and incredibly talented, would being them loads of trophies in the next decade for them. Why Barca might leave Chelsea? They seem to unearth more Messis. My feeling is that this is all nonsense, Barca will not leave Messi in the near future. Same holds good for Kaka too. In this aging Milan team, to leave away a player like Kaka for whatever money would be crazy but hey wait, that’s what I said about Shevchenko 18 months back!

We might in fact move to a set up whereby only registered users would be able to comment. May be from the Feb 1, 2008. BC will confirm that later on. If you want to register or reset your password, send an email to admin@bluechampions.com.

There is now a separate category called ‘polls’ in the second menu bar, which has all sorts of opinion polls where you can vote as well as comment. He has also given some links to some external websites in the top menu and it opens in a new window! Bugger has done a lot of work!

My quick remarks on various running topics – Ivanovic would be a success, Bridge will move to Liverpool, long balls are not negative and Drogba will move to somewhere.

Will be around!

Lampard has once again categorically stated that he would not look beyond Chelsea. He says:

I’ve told the club I don’t really want to get involved in negotiations which aren’t going to end well while I’m playing football. That’s because this is a big season for me and for the club. My intention is to stay. I’ve got two years left on my contract. I want to stay for the rest of my career. It’s as simple as that.

I hope it gets sorted and that it gets sorted soon, at the end of the season, or the next time we talk – and the club know that. The club know my intentions, and it’s certainly not a money issue. Some figures get banded about, inflated figures, maybe that’s done on purpose – but a lot of that’s not true. Certainly the issues I’ve got with the club aren’t to do with money. This is going to be my last contract, which will finish my career, so I want to get it right.

Did you notice that? Issues are not to do with money! I wonder what could that be then? Length of contract? Possible. Some websites report this as “Lampard postpones contract out of frustation” which is strange as he postpones the new contract discussions, he stays with the club and wants to concentrate on the season which is very important for Chelsea. I don’t how you can understand this as frustration.

Ricardo Carvalho has not surprised anyone with these words:

We have to start well, play well and start winning our games. Starting the Premiership is important, we have our objectives to get and for that we have to play well and win our games. Even in friendly games it is important to win to get condition to play seriously and play well, and now I think we have a lot of injuries but we have a good team and the players are ready.

We must be strong because the injuries have come and you have to be prepared to play. All the players here want to play and we have our chance to help the team and become stronger. Everyone is a big player here so we have to show our strength.

In other news, Drenthe signs for Real Madrid. Though he is a great prospect, he would have been an excess for the moment. We are sufficiently protected on the left side and for the right, we should be waiting for Sevilla to release Alves. Sky Sports also reports (based on the scandalous Spanish press) that Robben has already signed for Madrid.

Sidwell’s admiration of Jose continues. Here he says:

The gaffer himself, his knowledge of the game is second to none and I have enjoyed every session so far. They are not just things that are made up and thrown together, they’re really well thought out and that is why he is the best in the business at the moment.

Arsene Wenger names William Galloss as the captain of the Arsenal team. It is real shock considering people like Gilberto and Toure would be better suited for this role. I’m even more surprised as this has come after all the loud mouthing by this centre back, who loves play left back only at Arsenal.

Okay, I’ll leave you with these videos of Daniel Alves. Keep drooling until the news is published on Chelsea website.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkvNhx0_DUg[/video]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAPXfMlojRw[/video]

[tags]Chelsea, Lampard, Daniel Alves, Drenthe, videos[/tags]