Chelsea's April Fool Manages To Put United Out of Another Cup

May As Well Have Been In Qatar for this One too

In true holiday spirit, Rafa Benitez tried to resurrect the possibility of anyone considering him a viable option at their club next season by putting all his eggs into one giant Budweiser sponsored FA Cup shaped basket. He made this abundantly clear in the lineup selected for Chelsea’s league match against Southampton. He wants a trophy to attempt to continue the mystique of his insightful tactics. But maybe even more than advancing further in the Cup, Benitez was trying to get one over on his favourite frenemy ‘the manager of Manchester United.’ Chelsea managed to put United out of one cup this season - will it be two? And is that more important to Benitez than winning any himself?

Chelsea v United: Almost Let a Good Game of Football Ruin Headlines

Does this look like the face of someone who would
say offensive things to players?

We were 90 minutes away from getting through the weekend where the papers on Monday would be littered with *gasp* discussion of actual football. Except of course from Norwich’s turgid affair with Aston Villa where there was 90 minutes of wishing something - anything - would happen. In fact - I could go so far as to say we were 45 minutes away from it. Even Rio Ferdinand helped the cause (and you know he loves a cause) ahead of kick off by doing the unthinkable - behaving like a grown up and shaking Ashley Cole’s hand.

Where did it all go wrong?

That Time of the Month

Cech: The One. The Only.
Have a happy period.

Who would have thought that having a lady physio would come in quite as handy as it did for Chelsea this weekend. As Cech's already reinforced head took another beating (the one on his shoulders you little sauce pots), Dr Eva came to the rescue. Lucky for all of us that it was *that* time for her and she managed to instantaneously procure some tampons. I'll pause here for you all to dry heave a little at the thought of lady time.

We good now? Another minute maybe (because it's only going to get worse from here)...

Eva may need a raise as she's clearly not sprung for sanitary products with extra leak protection. Cech's nose continued to bleed like ....oh, even I can't continue that one. Anyways, King of Tampax managed to keep a very rare clean sheet with some assistance from Ramires. Someone has needed to step up in defence, who knew it would be such an unlikely candidate. Either way, Petr Cech is MOTM* for me as it simply takes some serious bollocks to stand in front of 31000 men with tampons in your nose a broken nose and get on with your job as well as he did.

In honour of SAF's anniversary I hope that you all spent the weekend very much intoxicated and rarely making sense. Just me then? I thought not.. It was always a given that Steve Bruce would gift the geezer with another 3 points. But for Wes Brown to step up and score for United must have made it all the more special. To be fair, after the number of own goals Brown has already been at fault for against United, he does probably owe him one.

And with no one caring about the International Friendlies until it actually coming to team selection, it was nice of Capello to finally listen to my badgering about Danny Sturridge. Studge has finally got the big call up for England as Capello is testing out a Rooney free starting XI. If these are meant to prepare correctly for Euros, Don Fabio may have just got things right there. And to continue what is hovering on a compliment of Capello's selection, he's actually stood behind Terry and the innocent until proven guilty mantra. He could have saved a lot of time and trouble if he'd thought about that when it came to John's P in a V...but no matter. And to prove my sanity sobriety skepticism at Capello's acumen, Micah Richards has been pushed out by Glen Johnson. It is the only time that Johnson would be able to win a one on one with just about anyone even with the help of a bullish Italian.

Enjoy the break!

jb xx

* Ok, we all know it'd be Frank for knowing when to go get down and use his head.**

** That may or may not have been the gin strawberry ribena talking.