Sofia so good

Regular readers of this site will know that I have always been a staunch advocate of Didier Drogba...Last night, his hat-trick in Sofia gave us the win, while Barca and Bremen drew in Germany.

He has started the season like a steam train, helped no doubt by the new found ability to stay on his feet, and because he is playing as part of a front two, with the unselfish Shevchenko.

The Ukranian goal-machine hasn't been scoring much yet, but he will, and his play has still been superb. Shevchenko is definitely a factor in Drogba's level of performance this season.

Craig Bellamy

In the news today, Craig Bellamy says certain people at Newcastle want him to fail, now that he is a filthy Scouser (still with no neck).

I'd like to set the record straight. Craig, it isn't certain people at Newcastle who want you to fail. It's the whole country.

Wanker.

There's only one team in Fulham

Saturday afternoon hosted the shortest away game of the season. The short walk to the bank of the Thames, to take on Fulham at Craven Cottage.

Fulham have been getting pitiful gates recently. Well, actually, they have always had pitiful gates, but more so recently. The thousands of women and kids who used to fill the stands have stopped coming, but they filled it again for the visit of their most hated rivals. We, on the other hand, don't hate them at all, and think of them more like a little brother, with slight affection. Perhaps a handicapped one though.

The Craving Cottagers sang the ironic "Where were you when you were shit?", like they always do, amazing considering the gates they have always had (or rather, not had), and the fact that the older of them spent the last 30 years hiding indoors every weekend when we played at home!

To the game. Michael Brown was irritating. Runs a lot, puts in the effort, but puts in disgusting leg breaking tackles. The third this season. It must have been bad, even Alan Shearer condemned him. Small man syndrome really, exactly like Robbie Savage. The similarities are endless. They could be boyfriends.

Other than that, we played ok. Reasonable chances, and Kalou came on and made a bit of a difference. The deadlock was broken when Bristol Boy Rosenior fell over in the area and handled the ball. Penalty, no Ballack...Back to Frank, who put it away with commitment. You could see the relief flood out of him, and within 8 minutes, he'd got a second from the edge of the area.

Business as usual. Man Utd only drew in the evening game at Reading, so back to the top of the table for the time being. Pompey are playing Bolton tonight, and would go back to the top with a win. More eyes on the two managers though after the BBC Panodrama last week...

For us, it's a trip to Sofia on Wednesday night, and doing the journey millions of Bulgarians will be doing next year on Thursday morning...

Oh, what a terrible bung scandal!

Tapping up, bungs, evil Chelsea, Evil Sam, Evil Harry. The BBC Panorama team created an elaborate sting which lasted a year to try to show how much of a problem the bung system is in Premiership football. I have to say, personally, I'm stunned by the revelations. I just can't believe football is that clean!

Everyone knows the problems are wide-spread. It is just the way business is conducted in football. All clubs do it, and if they really disliked it, they'd all put an end to it together.

As far as Panorama goes, what a joke. Based around Big Sam Allardyce at Bolton, and his agent son, they tried to show various bits of undercover footage of people taking backhanders to sign players. Harry Redknapp was also stung, as was Frank Arnesen at Chelsea. Or so they would like you to believe.

They made a big deal out of this part. "One of the World's biggest clubs making an illegal approach for a player on camera". Hmmm yeah. Ok then. So, the player in question was a Midlesbrough youth teamer. 15 years old, not 17, so not under a professional contract, and therefore, not "approached" while contracted professionally to another club, without the club knowing.

Secondly, his agent came to the club, offering the player. Thirdly, The "offer" of 150k over three years was what they would pay the player, NOT what they would bung the player. Completely standard negotiations. They then went to Liverpool with the same player offer!

So this will take about 15 seconds of a lawyer's time to deal with.

Ultimately, after a year undercover, this programme was incredibly weak. Nothing solid came out of it, and amazingly, football really is in good shape if the extent of their problems are two or three unknown reserves at Bolton.

The true scandal here is that the pathetic BBC is still stealing licence payers' money and throwing it into ridiculous "documentaries" like this.

Stick 1-0 in your history books...

If Scousers could read and write, they could stick 1-0 in their history books, that they bleat on about so frequently. In fact, they could stick 1-0, 2-0, 4-1, 1-0, 1-0. Those are the last 5 Premiership results between us. 5-0 to Jose then.

Liverpool started with Freak Crouch on the bench, "No-neck" Bellamy and "Colin Hendry" Kuyt up front, and star-man Mike Riley wearing their black away shirt.

Sissoko, a journeyman player in the mould of Traore, should have been sent off no less than 4 times. An amazing situation unfolded where he was booked for hacking both sets of studs down the back of Maka's legs, and then, within two minutes chopped Frank down in the most blatant, incompetent act of lunacy seen since someone described Rafa Beneathus as a decent manager.

Riley laughs, smiles, jokes around a bit, and then lets everyone else carry on after he realises he would have had to send off the Scouse man. Shameful.

It didn't stop in the second half, when he kicked Ballack, hacked down Robben, and then booted the ball away after a free kick. In the end, the Fat Dago subbed him off, realising even the cheating Mike Riley wouldn't be able to not send him off on the 5th time of asking!

Didier Drogba (always liked him!) scored a proper wonder goal in the end of the first half, which ultimately proved to be the winner. Ballack got sent off with 45 minutes remaining (for stamping on the tosser who shouldn't have even been on the pitch), and we thought Liverpool would be much more of a threat, but even with their 109 squad players, it is evident that they have one man in the team - Gerrard. He does everything, and without him they'd be in the bottom half. He masks the serious problems that these clowns have.

Even with a two man advantage, we outplayed them, winning the ball and making more chances.

After every defeat, Benitez always has an excuse. This time, it was because Gerrard didn't get a penalty when he took a swan dive in the box. Shame. You know what Beneathus? You want to have a look at yourself. Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that you couldn't score against 10 men for 45 minutes you fat fuck...

Nevermind Rafa, there's always next season. Another 53 new players in January should do it...

Chelsea Box Office

We've spoken about Eddie Barnett before on here. The complete fuckwit "in charge" of the Chelsea Box Office.

Tonight we play Werder Bremen in the first Champions League game of the season.

The Box Office has such a history of being totally incompetent, that those who wish to have no dealing with them at all, are able to order all of their tickets automatically. Or so you'd hope. Actually, it works like this. Before the end of the season in early May, you're sent the season ticket renewal form. Included in the envelope are forms which allow you to automatically receive all home European games, all home cup games, and all European away games. Due to problems in the past, I always fill in the forms and send them off. Before the end of last season, they had already taken the money for all home Champions League group games this season...

And to today. Still no sign of any tickets. The draw was made weeks ago, and these fuckers have cocked up monumentally. Some fans have already received 3 sets of the same tickets, while thousands of us have still got none. They are not answering the phones today, so there's no way of finding out what to do. Their official answer is to come to the box office during the day, queue up with the tourists buying on the day and get tickets issued then. What about those of us who work? Or those of us who frankly don't want to deal with you at all, which is why we filled the fucking form in in the first place???

Another complete cock-up by the box office. How much longer can they keep this useless northern fuckwit in charge? How many more cock-ups does it take? GET RID OF HIM....

Learn from Jimmy, Gallas

Gallas would do well to have a good look at the Charlton goal on Saturday. The 2-1 defeat of The Chavs was fairly uneventful, apart from their goal. We were left to hang on for the last 10 minutes, but it just felt like the old days, when results weren't so assured, and a bit of nerves made a refreshing change.

The highlight of the day was shortly after half time, when Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink equalised for the Chavs. Jimmy was the first true goalscorer we'd had at the club for years, since Kerry Dixon really. Flo scored his share, but Jimmy banged them away with far more certainty. His partnership with Eidur Gudjohnsen, turned them both into Chelsea heroes. Jimmy never wanted to leave, but his time was up, Jose wasn't interested, and we let him go to Boro. We've welcomed him back a couple of times before, but he'd never scored. This time he did, and it was down at our end, in front of the Matthew Harding stand.

He took it well, slotted it in, and then peeled away. He was on the edge of the 18 yard box, and refused to celebrate. Mobbed by his new team-mates, he still made a point of not leaping about kissing the new badge! He then turned to us, who had been chanting his name before the match, and gave an apologetic shrug....In this few seconds, (almost) everyone realised the mutual respect, and the whole end, followed by most of the ground, stood up and applauded him. A great gesture by both sides, in the week following all the shit with Gallas and Cole.

Of course, there were the inevitable thick bastards, which there always are, who were complaining that we shouldn't have been cheering an opposition goal. We weren't cheering the goal, you knobs. Can someone really be that thick, not to understand what happened there? Even half of the weekend newspapers got it totally wrong, The Independent even making note of the fact the Chelsea fans had applauded such a superb goal.....erm, it wasn't that good.

This was one of those defining moments in football, one of those times you'll always remember seeing, like the greatest goals, or the dodgy decisions...

So to anyone who thinks we shouldn't have done it, or more importantly is too stupid to understand what it was all about...it's simply respect between players and fans. Something that is incredibly rare these days...Cheers Jimmy, you're a legend!

Westenders

Forget Eastenders. If you want ridiculous story lines and bizarre happenings, West London is where you need to be.

The Club put out a statement last night that suggested that the relationship with Gallas had got so bad at the end, that when told of his possible selection for the squad against Man City, he would score an own goal or get himself sent off to damage the efforts of the club.

This sounds crazy. In fact, it sounds like it was made up on the spot to justify offloading one of the best centre backs in Europe to one of your possible rivals. Who knows if it is true? I doubt we ever will know.
If it is true though, then it shows the true extent of the man, and he fully deserves everything that comes to him. If it were true, it would sum up the attitude of football clubs, and now players, that the fans have been completely forgotten. It is all about TV, money and fame to them. The fans do nothing but support them fully in every game they play, but they could threaten to score an own goal? The amusing thing would have been if he had actually done it. It's fair to say, it would have been the last game of his career full stop! He'd never even have made the tunnel...

Of course, if it isn't true, then it is probably even more damaging to us. There is already a cancerous element within the club which is destroying it from the inside, and this sort of rubbish will not only stop players coming here in the future, but will alienate everyone involved, including the fans. The current squad of players must know the extent of the Gallas problem, and whether it could be true or not. If it is true, they will move on. If it has been fabricated, we're in for a rough ride.

Either way, it is a tragic and pathetic end to a relationship with one of the best players we've had.

Stepney Cole arrives

The longest, most tedious transfer in history finally concluded "Colegate" last night, right on the transfer window deadline.

After Arsenal banging on about him being worth £25m, we ended up paying £5m, with Gallas going in the other direction. Both clubs have been significantly strengthened, and both clubs have got rid of whinging players who didn't want to be there, so it isn't that bad. Doubly so, from our point of view, considering Gallas was in the last year of his contract and could have bought himself out of it for £4m.

Three years ago, in the Summer, before Roman arrived, Arsenal were convinced they were about to steal Gallas and JT from us. History changed that, but Gallas is 29 now, and his garlic-munching mates have obviously done a persuasion job on him. It was inevitable that Gallas had played his last game for us, and if you want one of the best defenders in Europe to leave, you don't really want him to go to your rivals, but in this case, I think both clubs have done alright.

Kenyon did ok with these negotiations, but he screwed them up last year when he should have paid Gallas what he was worth. The ridiculous irony of the situation is that if Gallas played for Milan, and we wanted to buy him, we'd be offering £30m plus about 150k a week, yet we were unwilling to pay him half that while he was already here.

We are now dangerously short at the back. Hopefully, Huth's proposed £6m move to Boro has been stopped, but if not, we'll be in the market for another centre-back in January!

The funniest bit of news yesterday was that Tevez, the young Argentine super-striker coveted by all the major clubs in Europe, arrived in London. West Ham! Owned by the faceless holding company (who many believe Roman is funding) who tried to buy West Ham last year, Mascherano and Tevez have suddenly landed in East London. It seems pretty evident that if they do ok, the club will be sold to the holding company, for a pre-agreed price, and everyone will have got what they wanted...