West Ham v Chelsea: The One Where Everyone Was Booked

Mugged right off by Bubbles

When your day begins with a giant teddy bear snubbing your handshake, you know that day is not going to be the one. Not that brilliant days have been coming thick and fast for Jose Mourinho as of late, but this proved to be an overstuffed omen. Reports that Arsene Wenger actually donned the bear suit before heading off to the Emirates for the late game remain unsubstantiated.

That pesky little bastard, hope, reared his head in the buildup to Saturday. Chelsea have an outstanding record against West Ham and until Saturday, the Hammers home form had left little to be desired. Mourinho played his strongest XI in Chelsea's mid-week Champions League match and they looked much better than they had done in some time. So he only went and picked the same XI again. Something tells me he may not do that again. At the end of the day, it’s results that matter - but with the extraordinary circumstances of the day, this particular loss felt a lot worse than how the team performed.

The Morning After The Night Before

Balotelli's strenuous training regime was really
England's downfall.

Despite there being that terrifying moment of ‘logic’ that the expectations of a nation were so low that they had some how torn the space time continuum and actually turned into expectation again - we all know that at the end of the day, this was never going to be ‘the’ year for England. Comparing that rag-tag bunch of misfits to that of another team that happened to win the Champions League this year is too easy - and far too off the mark to be a viable comparison. There have been a number of questions about Chelsea’s season this past year - the answer was never to be found in Jordan Henderson.

Surely the ‘expectations were so low that England can succeed logic’ was the most ridiculous thing said about the England team? Right? RIGHT? No. Enter Mark Lawrenson. How this man gets paid to speak about anything, let alone football is beyond me. But telling a nation, unironically, that their best defender was a man who scored for Sweden after keeping everyone onside was really my Lawro-light of the tournament so far.

Yet, despite myself, I went into last night confident that England could and would in fact go out against Germany. How confident was I? Well, I was brimming with such confidence that I chose to be the other white meat in an Italian sandwich. It makes me slightly wistful for the first 15 minutes of last night’s match, when I smugly thought this may have been one of my best ideas to date. But as the clock ticked on I was reminded that I was still watching the same England that I always have done. Even one without promise, still came with promise.