Carling Cup Winners 2005

The first trophy of the Centenary year celebrations was collected in Cardiff today in an engaging encounter against Liverpool.

We'd already done them twice this season, and sitting in the 'unlucky' end at Cardiff, looking at a 0-1 scoreline after 45 seconds, we thought they might have one back at us.

It took 80 minutes of patient football from us to get back into the game. The equalising goal, coming from a perhaps poetic and unlikely source...Stevie Gerrard!

A free kick lofted into the box, Stevie G seemed to rise unchallenged only to beat Hyppia to the ball and nod it into the net infront of us to send us into extra time. Liverpool had played negatively, trying to hold onto the fortunate opening goal for the rest of the game, and would now pay the price.

The second period of extra time saw us finish the game off, with strikes by Drogba, from an excellent long Glen Johnson throw, and Kezman at last! Liverpool got one back, but there was no doubt who the hero was. Stevie Gerrard got his well-deserved standing ovation from the Blues crowd. He'll enjoy playing here next season!

One down. Two to go.

Anders Frisk: Homosexual?

Well...that will look funny when it appears in Anders Frisk searches:-)

Well, nobody can be that much of a prima donna, take that much care of hair like his, and prance about like a ballerina on the pitch without taking tea with the vicar as it were...

We began well in Barcelona. The press and Barca themselves poured scorn on our defensive beginning at their place, but why shouldn't we defend when we go to the famous Camp Nou? Wakey wakey...We'll do what we have to do to win, people.

Half time, 1-0 up, should have been 2-0. Step forward Anders Frisk. Yes, we were Frisked. Drogba was dubiously sent off for a 50/50 challenge on the keeper, who seemed to hit the deck a bit late. Frisk must have previous with Drogba, because he showed no hesitation in showing the second yellow, and the first was a joke booking anyway.

This handed Barca the initiative and with the help of the officials, they scored 2 goals. Saying that, they attacked relentlessly for 35 minutes against our ten men, and only scored 2. Yes, its a win for them, and 2 losses on the bounce for us, but their fans were not, and will not be happy with only a 1 goal cushion, and our away goal. We're in the driving seat regardless of which way you wrap this up. We're going through to the last eight, assuming we don't get Back-Anders Frisk again at the Bridge....

Losses

As I anticipated we lost to Newcastle in the FA Cup. Not really a big deal, the Premiership is the one we really want, but it's never 'ok' to lose.

We lost Wayne Bridge too, a double fracture to the left leg above the ankle will rule him out for the rest of the season. Get well soon Bridger.

Off to Barcelona now...

Huge week

Tomorrow begins the biggest week so far of the football season for us so far.
We take the trip up to Newcastle for the FA Cup match.
Wednesday brings a trip to the Camp Nou in Barcelona in the first leg of the tie, and the following Sunday takes us to Cardiff for the final of the Carling Cup against Liverpool.

The Newcastle tie worries me most, simply because it is the competition with lowest priority at the moment. Rightly or wrongly, the Champions League is more important. The Carling Cup is a lesser competition when compared to the FA Cup, but we're already in the final and only need one game to win that, so it moves up the pecking order.

Beattie: Thick!

That's the only word to describe James Beattie. Thick. His 8th minute blatant head-butt on William Gallas saw him straight back down the tunnel. His defence? Right out of the Robbie Savage book of poor excuses: "I've never been banned before"

In an act of complete lunacy, Beattie left his team with a mountain to climb, and instead of backing up his striker, Moyes should have directed his anger at him, not Gallas, because Beattie took down the tunnel with him, any chance Everton had of getting anything out of that game.

It gets more amusing. The headbutt had obviously killed off the last brain cell the boy had left up top. His post-match comment revealed "Gallas tried to block me off, so I thought, right, I'll just go right over you". Very clever Beatts!

I see Moyes has come out this morning though and retracted his equally ridiculous comments after the game, and will indeed now punish his new £6 million jester. This does appear to be more for the benefit of the media than anything else though, or perhaps Moyes caught himself on Match of the Day and cringed like the rest of the viewing public!

Another 3 points on the road kept the lead up. We've now accumulated more points this season than the total achieved at the end of 5 of the last 7 seasons in the Premiership.

11 games to go, but we now have a break from the league until early March, with the attention turning to the pots.

Sticky Toffees?

Everton this weekend, and another early lunchtime kickoff.

Its a big one for us. Everton have been flying high and are still sitting above their neighbours in the race for 4th place and the Champions League spot. Interesting this one. For an Evertonian, there's a lot at stake. Finishing in the CL is huge. Finishing above Liverpool even bigger. Then, as a bonus, if they do beat the 'Pool to 4th, its most likely Stevie Gerrard will decamp to West London, so what better way of getting at your rivals than to remove their best player? By default of course!

It will be tough this weekend. It always is. We're expecting something similar to Blackburn, but probably with a (little) bit more class! The Chelsea boys will be right up for the battle though and will be out to prove that we can win, even without Robben, in a month that takes us to St James's Park in the cup, Camp Nou, Barcelona in the Champions league and Cardiff for the League Cup Final in the space of seven days.

Come on Chelsea!

Robbed of Robben

Aaron Mokoena...Yes, exactly. Who? This is the South African clogger who broke two bones in Arjen Robben's foot with a typically late challenge in the bruising encounter at Ewood Park.

We'll be without him now until the end of March, probably later. As it happens, we're lucky we didn't suffer more serious injuries in the 'game', but as Blackburn and the rest of football discovered, we're tougher than you think, and you won't beat us like that either.

Robben will be back, and the rest of the squad are rightly aggreieved by the incidents last week, so thanks Aaron - for galvanising the immense team spirit we've got. We'll win this for Robben...

Got a Spectre 170 to shift?

We've got a brand new (6 jumps) Sabre 150 here, either for sale or, preferably swap with a Spectre 170. Stock colours, let me know if you want to buy or swap and I'll send you pics.

From Sparky to Narky

I got back from Blackburn late last night (this morning) to see the post-match comments from Mark Hughes.
'Sparky' was a legend for us, after signing from the Scum, he was an unlikely hero, but one he bcame. Last night though, he didn't do himself any favours. Apparently, Jose Mourinho showed him no respect when he ran to us, the fans, to celebrate a victory that was obviously not in Sparky's plans.
The tactics employed by Blackburn were obvious from the start (to everyone except the hapless Uriah Rennie) and we proved our point without having to kick the proverbials out of their players.

Still, I'm sure adopting the same game-plan will work perfectly when they drop out of the Premiership again!