Liverpool's fifth European Cup

Well done to the Scousers. The best European Cup final I've seen in ages. It's not often you get six goals in a cup final, and even less common that the team who are 3-0 down at half-time go on to win the game.

Milan seemed to capitulate in the second half. Probably having spent the 15 minute break celebrating a European Cup win.

There's no way Liverpool are the best team in Europe, but on the night they did what they had to do. They did get a bit of luck, which you need. Harry Kewell got injured in the first half, without which they would not have won the game. Shevchenko missed the opportunity to finish off the game at 3-3 with only 2 minutes of extra time remaining, but Dudek pulled off a miracle double save from 2 yards out!

A lot was said about the various coincidences this year, relating to 1981, the last time Liverpool won the cup; Prince Charles getting married, the Pope died, Ken and Deidre marry(?!)! All tosh, but they must have believed.

Liverpool get to keep the trophy now too. They become only the third team to have won the prize 5 times.

Gerrard awkwardly hinted after the match that he would sign a new contract with the club, but if anything, winning the European Cup with that team should be the ideal time to move on, unless he thinks they can better that?

The much talked about situation between neighbours Everton now exists, with Liverpool not yet qualifying for next season's competition. It remains to be seen what Uefa will do about this, if anything. Letting them in would put 25% of the Premiership into the Champions League next season, which is a joke in anyone's book.

Cup Final Blues

The highlight of the football calendar takes place tomorrow, sadly in Wales, but you can't have everything. Arsenal take on Man USA to see which of the two teams will end up with nothing for the season.

Make sure you're watching between 2pm and 2:30pm, and look up into the sky above Cardiff; You might see something that will tell you who the real winners are this season!



Chelsea are playing an exhibition match this morning in Seoul, against Suwon Bluewings, as part of the new sponsorship deal with Samsung. Once this is over, it's time for everyone to leave on their holiday and relax in time for the pre-season training, which will probably start in about 2 weeks time!

The silly season has already begun, and it would take hours to acknowledge every player we get linked with. Amusingly, Eto'o is the latest name being thrown around again. Not a chance. He's the original Barcelona "Monkey of shit" who threatened to quit football if we won the Champions League. He's the sort of player we could do without thanks. Adriano is the one for us! The Eto'o thing is just a smoke screen, to keep the real targets secret.

Rumour does have it that we have almost completed the signing of Athletico Bilbao's Del Horno! The World's best namd left-back. A good young player, which gives an insight into the whole Colegate saga, which concluded yesterday - verdict to be returned within the month!

2004/05 Premiership Champions

The season ended yesterday with a superb finale at the bottom of the table, when any one from 4 could have avoided the drop. In the end, the most unlikely of all survived, West Brom, having started the day bottom, and breaking the old hoodoo that says the team bottom at Christmas never stays up. Congratulations Baggies!

On the subject of breaking records, we managed to set a few ourselves, including:

Most points ever (95)
Most consecutive wins
Most away wins
Least goals conceded (15)
Most clean sheets
Most consecutive away wins
Most wins

We also managed to get our scoring midfielder to finish as the 3rd highest English scorer, above Rooney, Fowler and Heskey! He also won one Player of the Year award, while the Chelsea captain John Terry collected the other.

We finished the season at St James' Park, (Newcastle, not Exeter) in what appeared to be more of a pre-season friendly than an end of season match. A very poor 1-1 with not a lot of effort from either side. The locals were unanimous in their view that Souness should be packing his bags after a 14th place finish, 11 points from relegation, and 51 points from Chelsea!

The Newcastle players gave a guard of honour, but looked a lot more like they meant it than Man U-SA did. The fans also gave a huge standing ovation.

Even Everton who finished in 4th place ended the season closer to the bottom of the table than the bottom, so Arsenal surrender the trophy to the team who finished 12 points in front.

Friday 13th - Glazer Day

Yesterday, the Irish racing duo sold out their stake in Manchester United to Malcolm Glazer, taking his holding by the end of the day to over 70% - a controlling interest. He'll pass the 75% threshold today when he will make the official bid for the club and take over.

This is the situation we were in 2 years ago. The difference is that Roman Abramovich has money, and Glazer doesn't. Plus, I'd rather be a Russian than a Yank, frankly!

Few can argue that Roman has been good for the game, and not just at Chelsea. Glazer is unlikely to be the same. This is a guy who has never been to Old Trafford, and who wants to take the world's best run "soccer" (its football, you septic twat) team, and borrow against it to pay for his takeover! He'll saddle them with debt, and likely run it into the ground.

The worry for everyone else is that he will pull out of the TV rights deal, which could potentially net him a lot of money by selling his own rights to broadcasters. This will cause huge problems for the rest of the Premiership clubs. We'll survive obviously, but most are in a different situation.

Not only that, but he looks like a cross between Michael Moore and John McCririck.



I have sympathy with the Mancs. Its all well and good to laugh about their situation, which *might* turn nasty for them, but we know what it is like to almost lose your football club, and that would be a lot worse with a septic at the helm.

Many will argue that nothing has changed. They are a business, and having been a PLC for years, have been owned by outsiders, and still are. The difference this time is that they had a good management team before who were running the business debt free, answering to shareholders. Now, one man pulls the strings and his plan to take the club straight into a £300m debt makes this a very different proposition.

The interesting thing now is what will happen to the club. Many fans have said they will walk away. Some will, most won't. Glazer won't give a toss - there are ten more to take each place. Some playing staff may even leave, and Fergie could lead an exodus. Prices in the stands are likely to rise immediately. Interesting times ahead.

Salute the Champions

Last night saw us visit Old Trafford in the re-arranged fixture, where the Blues inserted the dreams into the theatre. It was a game that didn't matter anymore, but which could have made a significant difference had it been played when it was supposed to. Lucky us!

We arrived to a sunny evening in Manchester, and after the warm-up, the Man Utd players came out of the tunnel first, to form a guard of honour for us to come out to. A hilarious act, in response to our version, a few years ago instigated by Vialli. It was obviously a bitter pill to swallow this time though, and no doubt something Fergie would use to wind up his own players.

It might have worked. Sherpa van Nistelrooy scored early on and the Manure fans made a bit of noise for about 30 seconds, having been silenced by us in the opening minutes. They sang "You're not Chelsea anymore" to us, but one response of "You're not Champions anymore" shut them up - for the rest of the evening. They were silent for the rest of the game, with thousands of them pouring out of the stands with 10 minutes to go, choosing not to stay around for their players' lap of honour at the end of the season.

Tiago scored a rare and wonderful curler from 35 yards just after the quarter hour to level the score, and two goals in the second half from Eidur and Joey Cole sealed the 3-1 victory.

One quick note about the cash, as it has been suggested on more than one occasion that it is only the money that has put us where we are...Last night, we fielded the less expensive team. Just Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Cristiano Ronaldo cost more than the entire Chelsea starting line-up combined.

It was a classy win, played by two teams who know how to play football. An excellent spectacle which both teams should be proud of, although, it did draw parallels with the whole season. One team, outclassing the rest.

That's a huge pot

We entertained Charlton at the Bridge on Saturday, the day we were presented with the prize we've been waiting so long for.

I never thought I'd see the day, and it hasn't been disappointing now that it has finally happened.

A late, and very rare Makelele goal sealed the home season with 3 points, to take the tally to 91 - one short of the Premiership record, with two to play.

The penalty was a dodgy decision, outside the box, but no doubt looked upon favourably by Riley since he missed the blatant penalty by the demi-thug Konchesky on Tiago earlier in the half.

After the game, the 13 remaining available members of the 1955 Championship squad, who never received a trophy, were presented with one by John Terry. One legend to another, Roy Bentley looked emotional.

Then the wait was over. After 50 years, the big shiny pot that is the Premiership trophy was presented.

Goal saga

Still people are talking about the 'goal' at Liverpool that apparently never was.
Now, Sky and a couple of boffins have recreated the situation exactly using computer models, and they say the ball needed to travel a further 4.3cm across the line for the goal to have counted.

It still doesn't matter. It still didn't change the fact we needed to score anyway. It certainly can't change anything after the game. Perhaps the game would have gone differently if the goal hadn't been scored so early, but that's also debateable. The longer it went on at 1-0, the more chance there was for a late equaliser to send us to the final.



It wasn't meant to be. There are a lot of what ifs. What if Drogba could control a ball? What if Eidur had stuck it into the back of the net in the last minute of extra time? What if Frank had scored the sitter he missed in the first leg?

Having subsequently seen the prices of the trips to Istanbul, you could argue that we've been done a favour anyway! It's looking like an average £700 for flights and accommodation, plus whatever rip-off Uefa want to charge for the tickets. Plus all the extra costs associated with an away game. That is a lot of giro cheques for the Scallies to spend...

Still Champions!

Liverpool, the team 33 points behind us, are in the final of the European Cup again, and we failed at the semis again. The feelings watching the Kop celebrate last night were not even close to the ones experienced when we lost to Monaco last season. How can they be? We won the Premiership this weekend, and collect the trophy on Saturday!

The match was as entertaining as it could be when you have a team that plays such a narrow game, and when you're without both wingers and both full backs. That said, Liverpool deserved to go through because we didn't score past them in two consecutive games. Mind you, its debateable whether they scored past us, but whether the ball was over the line or not didn't, and doesn't really matter.

The Scallies were good hosts yet again. There are always the occasional cretins, as at every club, but on the whole, the visit to Anfield was as friendly as it normally is.

Drogba again showed that he was never worth the price tag. But we knew that before we signed him. The more worrying thing is that he really seems to be going backwards with each game.

It's not the lack of skill especially, but the apparent lack of effort which he puts in. He strays offside much too often, and goes down very softly, where he invariably lies waiting for treatment when it's not necessary. Then, when he feels like getting involved again, he strolls around like he was browsing in his local MFI store. More effort required Didier if you want to stay around here.

And so to the final. Istanbul wasn't a destination I was looking forward to visiting. Asia Minor and a bit of a dump at that. All season they have waxed lyrical about how wonderful Turkey, and Istanbul are, and now it appears that fans travelling to the final on match day packages will not even be allowed into Istanbul, but transported from the airport to special football areas close to the ground, where Turkish entertainment, and no alcohol will be provided!

We weren't ready to win the Champions League. Now that we have been crowned Champions, it is something we can legitimately aim for.

Champions!

That's it. At last, after hundreds of games. Coming close, and coming not so close, finally, for the first time in most of our lives, we're Champions of the English Football League.

We all travelled to Bolton in hope, knowing a draw would make us wait for the Arse result again on Monday night, and at half time, it didn't look good. 0-0 and not a lot of hope. Bolton had the better of the chances. The second half was a different story though and we played very well, Lampard scoring a superb goal to send us wild.

We were lucky to be standing at the front, where the players celebrated, and the atmosphere was amazing. We believed we could hold it when we were 1-0 up, and friends were remembered in the chants....Dennis Wise, Gianfranco Zola, Matthew Harding. It was coming, and then with 15 minutes to go, Frank was put clear by the magnificent Makelele, and the agonising slow motion that is one-on-one ensued. He took it round the keeper, and then calmly won the title for us! 2-0 game over, and everyone knew it this time.

The Bolton fans were really great. Most stayed at the end to watch the celebrations and applaud, and outside after they were congratulatory and seemed pleased that it was us.

Have you ever seen Chelsea win the league? That's the usual song sung by the Arsewipes, Manures and Scousers. Well, now you have. And you better get used to it.

The feeling can't be described. The first title will always be the best, so we'll enjoy it at Anfield tonight. It's the second leg, and we will score. Come on Chelsea!