A Jammy Pre-Season Win & a Big Signing

Considering his 'So You Think
You Can Dance Audition'

Morning All

For anyone who’s been reading these for any length of time, you know I’m a firm believer in the result being what counts – and it not mattering too much in how they get there. But friendlies are just a whole different species altogether. Aside from the confidence it instills going into a season, it really could not matter if you win or lose (despite what United supporters will tell you about their ‘win’ over an MLS team – colour me intimidated). Anyways, its really about how the players are linking up with one another, plays are shaping etc and so on.....

And although most of our players have now been through this many times before, they are auditioning for their positions. In the past, it was evident that everyone felt pretty secure as our head coaches weren’t given the freedom that AVB seems to have been graced with. So, as we sit back and watch our pre-season unfold, it’s kind of like watching the really bad X-factor auditions before it gets refined down to the top 10-20. And the players are certainly living up to that. Although we never really lost control of the match at any point but it was definitely pre-season levels of play. Nice to see just about everyone get a shot with AVB again opting for a full team switch at the half

Hands up if you get a little ill feeling in the bottom of your belly every time a ball comes within about 20 yards of Turnbull. Now hands up if you’d rather see Stamford the lion put on the gloves and give it a go if Cech doesn’t recover from this injury. I’d say hands up again, but I’m just going to assume no one has any hands to put up any more. Nice to see we’ve planned for the future with Courtois’ arrival, but he’ll be on loan for the next two seasons with Atletico. Let’s hope Hilario manages to stay fit. That’s right. Hilario. Shush.

There were some mild highlights. Being on Stamford the Lion faint watch was probably the biggest. Sure, I could say Kalou and Sturridge are clearly looking energetic and anxious to impress. We had a good look at Rajkovic (who would scare the bejesus out of me)... Bertrand, McEachran, Clifford, Chalobah, and Van Aanholt all got a run out.....

... But seriously, our London Marathon running, Gunnersaurus arse kicking mascot was possibly just a puddle by the end of the match. Keeping an eye on him (and the anitmated AVB) was possibly a lot more entertaining for the 84000 that turned up than the actual football. Hopefully Stamford’s had chance to air himself out before embarking on his off day with the Thai lady boys supporters. That’s right guys, not only Stamford, but Ashley Cole and John Terry have been given a free day – in Thailand. Thailand.

I was remiss in my last little blathering to not discuss an exciting new signing that AVB has snuck under the radar of all of us – including the press. By February of 2010, this player had scored a record TEN goals for Manchester United which was as many as Owen and Berbatov combined at that stage. Who is the magic goal scorer who has already netted in the past 2 out of 3 games? It’s Own Goal. Somehow, we’ve managed to scupper him out from under a large red nose to link up in our Asian tour. I see no reason for Own Goal to not make the team sheet when the season begins in August as he’s putting both Torres and Drogba to shame. Although, to be fair, Drogba definitely had the assist (along with the Lampard Linesmen) on the goal in yesterday’s match with the Malaysian XI. This is a player not to be underestimated in the coming months. If I were Anelka, I’d be seriously concerned about my future with the club now.

jb xx

http://twitter.com/cfc_jb

Misdirected Boots and Penalties

Better to boot than be booted. JT learned the hard way.
Let this be a lesson Mr. Varney.

It feels like its been ages since any of us have managed to watch a competitive football match. And its these crazy withdrawal symptoms that all make us not only crave pre-season friendlies, but think they are amazing matches to watch. Sure - the friendly you watched was basically the best thing ever. It's like that first drink you have after your January detox - it could be a blue wkd and it'll taste like champagne. Its not - nor was our opening match (televised) match against Pompey - but God did it feel good to sit there and watch it!

After our 3-0 behind closed doors match against Wycombe, it was off to the coast to face the mighty Pompey. AVB + Robbie opted for matching trackies in the casual atmosphere of the friendly as they masterminded our own-goaled victory. The fact that AVB managed to mastermind Tal Ben Haim's greatest every Chelsea performance speaks volumes for what we can anticipate for the season. We may be hard pressed to see a better header into the net. We managed to play two complete teams with some interesting players getting a run out. Its always good to see Josh with the senior team, and with Essien's injury, its a scene I'm sure all Chelsea supporters are looking forward to seeing more of. But more interesting was Chalobah and Clifford getting to show their value to the senior team.

And although I'm sure you'd rather me waffle on about the youth team and how I really feel about Turnbollock's peformance, you know that we'd be the only ones talking about it. But it's really the moment where Luke Varney's neck decided it wanted to meet John Terry's boot that has developed into a talking point. Of course the little matter of JT attempting to clear the ball with the offending boot doesn't really make for interesting reading, so its really about Big Bad John dropping a flying karate kick from across the box in a grand attempt a decapitation that grabs those saucy headlines. If only The Sun had been hacked a day sooner - we couldn't all enjoy these stories. But after that and a series of concurrent collisions, Hilario's box looked more like the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan as JT pushed himself to his war wounded knees and dragged himself over to check on Varney. 

Note: JT may have told Varney to man the eff up and remind him of his collision that resulted in him swallowing his tongue, being stretchered off, and then checking himself out of hospital to celebrate the victory over Arsenal!

Despite the actual season not starting for another month, is it too early to laugh at Sp*rs? Nope. They lost their opening match 1-0, while their besties Arsenal managed a draw on Saturday. Keep it up lads. And #freeLuka

Believe it or not, there's actually some 'real' football going on. I know if it's not in England, it's not really meant to count and that, but there are a few others who would tend to disagree. The American ladies lived up to said English expectations by building everyone's hopes up and then spectacularly going out on penalties... to Portugal Japan. In fact, their penalty taking actually made the English men look like penalty snipers! It was arguably one of the worst penalty shootouts ever - that was for about 20 mintues. Not even a half hour later, as Brazil played Paraguay to a spectacular nil-nil draw (sidebar: why has no one snapped up that goal scoring machine Neymar up for £££s yet?!?). Brazil managed to get one of their four penalties on target. I'm pretty sure that the rest are currently sailing somewhere over the south pacific and are due to meet up with the Chelsea squad about the same time as David Luiz and Ramires. 

For some spectacular insight into either match, feel free to check the twitter timeline of one Mr. Joseph Barton where you can read things like:

"Haha what a pen, go on the Japs.......", "How bad are women at penalties by the way", and "Haha [they're] worse than the birds these mob......" 

If that didn't make you want to follow him on twitter, I really don't know what will. 

KTBFFH

jb xx

http://twitter.com/cfc_jb