Pre-season is SERIOUS Business....

Bring Back the Stocks lads - this man had the audacity
to try and have fun playing football

Personally, there's not much in life I take seriously besides the beautiful game. And to those few United supporters that have somehow managed to push their way in you know just how seriously I take it. I will take a moment during this pre-season to apologise to everyone but the United supporters those who have been at the end of a proper strop - or rant - or just general tossing the toys out of my pram. It's football. It's serious...

....but only to a degree. Let's be honest, not everything is nor should be serious with the game and the men that play it. In fact, it's the general silliness of it all that I enjoy best. More on that in a bit...

Back to SERIOUS pre-season action as Chelsea took on the Thai Xi. Fortunately for any of us that struggled past the whole matter of waking up to see these not quite competitive level of football with basically everyone getting a shot on the pitch - there was actually a noticeable improvement in the team that our heroic Own Goal won for us against the Malaysian XI. The passing was exceedingly better and by the second half, you would almost have mistaken this for a proper football match. AVB ensured that the reserves got another chance to shine and pushed Josh up far enough that he was able to shine. With Mikel behind him, he was able to remind us all why the Chelsea TV cameraman from the previous match seemed to have an uncomfortable man crush on him. And although the goal from Lamps was back to his classic best, Malouda's was like shooting practice, and Ivanovic did his best impression of an attacking midfielder once again - again it was our new signing Own Goal that had the most interesting of goals on the day. Well played Own Goal, well played.

And for those of you who didn't see the match (shame on you....ok...that's what you have me for). No Nando did not score as right before the match the Thai manager held a picture of him up, pointed to the ball and then shouted "Swarm! Swarm! Swarm" You would have thought the man was being drafted into the lady boy ring had candy in his pockets. Impossible to score, he impressively was able to create some movement. A shame the rest of the team didn't use the opportunity at being open to go ahead and score.

Back to Chelsea TV cameramen... in a bid to continue line their pockets save some money, the board has decided just playing is not enough for the amount we are paying these players. So to get better value, they should take on some other work around the Bridge. For Kalou, that meant getting to take over as Chelsea TV cameraman. For those of you who haven't seen it, it is arguably the greatest thing to have ever been on CTV as Kalou takes charge of the camera and opts to try his hand at some SERIOUS journalism. You can imagine what this descended into. The highlights: trying to convince Nando that he is David Cameron - but says Cameroon instead, Drogba and Mikel laughing themselves to near injury at Kalou, and bffs Frank and John having a kip together. Gripping stuff. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that the adventures of David Cameroon / David Nigeria / David Ivory Coast / Kalou should be a CTV regular feature.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDKN3ohKZCU

I don't want to say it's the greatest thing I've ever seen...but you know....  ;)

Now....back to the serious talk of the serious game that is taking place in the serious time of the pre-season. Chelsea was not the only team in action on Sunday. Manchester City took on Golden Balls and ten other less attractive important men in a match that will not soon to be forgotten. 

I will preface this with saying that I do think the players should be taking their training seriously to get ready for the games that actually do mean something. But they should still be fun for the supporters who pay to see these players show off their tekkers. And what could be more fun than a prolific striker go clear through on goal to backheel his shot in? How about a prolific striker who backheels his shot unsuccessfully? How about a prolific striker that epically fails in his attempt to backheel his shot in and have his own manager essentially lose his mind at seeing such behaviour - substituting him off like a parent giving a time out? Oh what? That's not fun enough for you? How about said striker blanking his angry parent  manager only to engage in a sweary confrontation in full view of ...well....everyone? That's right. For those of you that missed it I give you an addition to the Wonderful World of Super Mario. He's allergic to grass, throws darts at the reserves and can't put on a bib to save his life. If nothing else, he brings some serious entertainment value to our lives since the reemergence of one Mr. Joey Barton as Joseph. 

I'm not supporting the very public confontation although I may or may not have had it on a loop while I sat gleefully watching it with a large cocktail a bag of popcorn.* But Roberto, seriously mate, you need a little less espresso before games. It was a pre-season meaningless friendly. Wins are good for confidence and I get that the players need to be ready in a few short weeks - but people paid good money to watch for what the most part is pretty sub-standard football. You were playing in the MLS. The MLS!! Mario brought a little liveliness and was worth the price of admission. The post-mortem on this mis-placed shot has been nothing short of shocking. To be fair, I'm pretty sure it's actually in the  MLS rules for American Soccerball football to have no fun or entertainment value for the full 90 minutes.

So for today I give you a second fun link to watch Balotelli in all his glory:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9VwVeCgcRs&feature=youtu.be

Now ask yourselves, if it had went in would we all be talking about how great the shot was?

Happy Tuesday!

jb xx

http://twitter.com/cfc_jb

*I didn't really do that....  

**ok...I did.