Three North West days

Sunday evening was Manchester United, Wednesday evening was Bolton. Two northern away games in three days.

The press still tried to build the Man Utd match as a title decider, just one third of the way into the season. Nobody in either team, or either set of fans believed that, and of course, with a draw, it remained unchanged at the top.

Man Utd will be more disappointed with the result. They went into half time, the better side, and a goal to the good. If you're at home against the Champions, a goal up, and 3 points ahead, with 45 minutes to play to extend the gap to six, you need to take the chances. The Mancs didn't, and we did. Lord Percy heading home in the second half to earn the draw.

The Reebok Stadium has been a happy place for us over the past few seasons. It's where we first won the league. Bolton stuffed Arsenal this weekend, 3-1, and have been playing very well this season, so after a top of the table clash on Sunday night, this was an awkward fixture. No-one likes to go to Bolton at the best of times.

Ballack and Shevchenko have been subjected to harsh criticism over the last few weeks. Unfairly in my opinion. Anyone criticising Ballack hasn't been coming to games. And to doubt Shevchenko is plain lunacy. He may not have been bagging 4 goals a game yet, but he has been playing well, and without him, Drogba would not have been banging them in constantly, so his contribution is not in doubt.

He was injured at the beginning of the year, and spent months out - returning only for the World Cup, and even that was too early. He moves the ball in ways unimaginable, and manages to perform manoeuvres without blinking on the pitch, which take unfathomable combinations of 7 buttons on a Playstation to master. This guy is class.
Everyones favourite garlic-muncher in North London isn't setting the world alight either, but the talk isn't of his or his teams lack of performance this season, it is of the scandal that he isn't World player of the year!

Ballack scored from a Lampard corner last night, to take all three points, as the Mancs won, Liverpool drew, and Arsenal lost again, this time to Fulham.

Werder great trip...

Pleasantly surprised by the trip to Bremen. A very friendly city, with a nice atmosphere, and great fans.

Any result would have put us top of the group, and we could still guarantee progress into the last 16 with a 1-0 loss, on account of the 2-0 win against them at home.

The bonus of losing 1-0 was also that Barca would be in a more difficult position in trying to qualify. They would have to beat Bremen in the final game to progress, whereas a draw would be enough for Bremen.

As luck would have it, after a dismal performance, we did lose 1-0, and are through to the next round. A result against Levski will ensure top spot.

The wheels on your house go round and round...

Saturday was Pikey Day, when the inbreds from the shit-hole of London venture across in their caravans, to sample the leafier side of the city.

Geremi won the game for us 1-0, with a blinder of a free-kick into the top right corner. We should have added a few more, but with Jeremy Beadle dressed as a linesman for the day, there wasn't much more to add.

To be fair to them, they started very well, and moved the ball around superbly for the first 20 minutes. The referee got involved at that point, and turned an excellent passing game into a tetchy encounter, when there was no need to do anything.

We're off to Werder Bremen this week. Win or lose, the trip will be good. Win or lose, the result will be good, which is why we're looking forward to it, and Barca are bricking themselves!

Chelsea 4-0 Watford

"What for" came to the Bridge this weekend, and took a good 4 goal battering.

Danny Shittu was mouthing off in the press during the week about how he wasn't scared of playing against us, and that he could keep the Chelsea strikers in check. Well, if he wasn't scared before, he's properly shitting himself now.

Drogba scored his second hat-trick of the season, and could have had 2 more, and Shevchenko scored the obligitory goal immediately after the birth of a new baby.

I'm still astounded that Drogba is looking like the best striker in Europe at the moment, if not the World. Something has happened to him, because this isn't the same Drogba we derided in the past!

90 coaches, 100 miles, 1 battering

7,000 Villa fans turned up at The Bridge last night for the Carling Cup tie, courtesy of Randy Lerner, the new owner. He organised free travel so as many of his fans as possible could witness their humiliation at the hands of a better team!

4-0 was the final score, with Lampard, Shevchenko, Essien and Drogba all netting.

Drogba finally signed a new contract this week, to keep him here until 2010. It wasn't long ago that this would have been received as disastrous news, but in his current role of "best striker on Europe", even I'm willing to admit this is excellent business!

Dictator of the moment, Mr Graham Pol Pot, sent off James McFadden for Everton against Arsenal after only 18 minutes. For swearing! Swearing? On the football pitch? A disgusting crime of the highest order, I'm sure you'll agree...

Poll, the glorified traffic warden refuses to "get involved in tittle-tattle", commenting on allegations that he told Lampard he was going to teach us a lesson before the Tottenham game. His superiors maintain he was "miked up" at the time, so he can't have said it.
Fine, if he was miked up, lets have a listen to the tape.
If we don't get to hear what he did actually say, we can safely assume the allegations are true. If they did have evidence that it wasn't said, you can be sure they'd have the tapes in the hands of the reporters before you could say "FA directive".

Graham Poll: Impregnated Anus

You know there's something seriously wrong when the entire Match of the Day panel think Chelsea have been treated harshly in a match.

It has been decades since Totnum beat us. Almost 20 years at "Three Point Lane". It had to end sometime, and that was yesterday. After a super-strike from Makelele put us ahead, Graham Poll got involved. Now this is the Grade-A Fuckwit who issued three yellow cards to someone in a World Cup match. That alone should have ensured he never refereed again, but alas, Uefa appear to think he is good enough to exist in the Premiership.

The two major decisions were the one to rule out a perfectly good goal by Drogba. When the Arsenal panel on MotD agree that there was nothing wrong with it, we know it was a good goal. Secondly, he sent off John Terry for a second bookable offence. What the bookable offence was, no-one knows. After countless TV replays, nobody was any the wiser. But of course, the referee won't have to explain, or even give a reason. If he wakes up one day and feels the need to send off 3 players for tying their laces up incorrectly he could, and no explanation would be required.

The other encounter of the day saw Arsenal beaten away by West Ham, in the 89th minute. Alan Pardew, after a seriously poor start to the season was understandably over the moon. While celebrating, he got a bit too close to Wenger, and the Paedo took exception, and started a punch-up! He also refused to shake hands after the match. So obviously, Wenger will now be the new "enemy of football" right? I doubt it.

It is lunacy though, that a certain amount of criticism has been levelled at Pardew for celebrating too vigorously. Come off it. He beats the Gooners, in the 89th minute, at home, and he isn't allowed to celebrate? It has become apparent in recent months that players aren't allowed to celebrate goals anymore. Neither now it seems are the coaching staff. Next stop, it's us, the fans. We'll be threatened with ejection if we celebrate a goal.

Instead, we'll need to commiserate with the opposition, and then politely congratulate the person next to us with nothing more than a hand-shake, so as not to cause offence, or drag passion and emotion, the true new enemy of football into the game.

Camp Nou...Again

The third visit to Camp Nou in three seasons, didn't have the same build-up as previous outings with the fans. This was a group game, and we were leading the group by 5 points. The press however, tried their hardest to whip it up again as the two major enemies of European football meet to battle...

There's a huge amount of bollocks that surrounds this fixture. Unfortunately, it does spread onto the pitch, and you never get a decent game. The whistle blows every 15 seconds, and the referee has to sort out the pantomime and spend time issuing ratings for various thespian acts on show.

Last night was no exception. The day of the game focused on Jose's comments that Eidur dived to win a penalty at the weekend. This of course was an outrageous statement, a direct attack on a former Chelsea legend akin to murdering his children while they slept, and Jose should definitely hang for the heinous crime. The fact that every paper in Europe, and every TV channel had spent the last 48 hours saying the exact same thing was of no relevance.

Deco, the dirty looking, pick-pocket from the shanty town type, opened the scoring after only 3 minutes. A blow to us, but a decent goal. Going behind at a capacity Camp Nou isn't a situation you want to be in often, but we fought back well. Hilario made an awesome save within 10 minutes, and The Goofy Fucker sent one high over the bar, after his teeth hit a divot.

To be fair, the game was rubbish, until they actually settled down and started to play. Every game which Barcelona play in always has every Barca player at some point, surrounding the ref, demanding that opposition players are booked, and sent off. This was no exception, in fact, it was an extremely common occurrence, but we already know about that. The final booking tally from the very poor Italian referee was 7-4.

As the second half began, Frank Lampard looked like he mis-controlled a ball in the box, went away from goal, hugging the byline, turned unsighted and shipped an amazing ball over Valdes into the far post. A truly awesome goal, and if Ronaldinhio had scored it, surely, the planet would be fawning.

We were only ahead for 6 minutes, until Boris slotted home the second for Barca. A heart-wrenching moment, to see a proper Chelsea legend score against you in an important game. It was disappointing to see him get injured with 10 minutes to go, and leave on a stretcher.

John Terry picked up a superb booking, after Deco was writhing in agony on the floor. He booted the loose ball at him, and instantly, Deco was up - no longer in pain, but in JT's face. The classic look of intense fear when the 4-foot greasy midget realised who it was that did it was comedy gold!

Usual Barca tactics were implemented, but when the fourth official signalled 6 minutes of injury time, we had one last stab at it, and John Terry put a perfect header into Drogba, who chested the ball down, past Marqeuz (who kicked out at the player, not the ball) and slotted it under Valdes to give us the point we needed to put Barca back up the creek.

When the final whistle went, a minute early, Barca were enraged. The "always calm, classy and humble" (yeah...of course) Rijkaard shot out of the dug-out and straight at the referee (perhaps to spit in his face?). If Jose had done this, certainly, the enemy of football would have been burnt alive and destroyed for not shaking hands with his opposite number, but as it was Rijkaard; the greasy clogger who cavorts with the referee at half-time, we'll just leave it at that shall we?

The most amusing aspect to the whole spectacle had to be the ITV interviewer asking Jose three questions. The first was about the game. The other two were about how bad the referee was. Cut back to the studio - and watch the "pundits" tear him apart for "going on about the referee". Why does he need to talk about the referee after a game like this they asked? Because you fucking asked him about it you dumb fucks...

Andy Townsend

Andy Townsend, you're a squeaky-voiced, greasy perm-haired, know-nothing, bent nosed knob jockey.

And for the record, we thought this about you when you played for us too. And you were just as shit then as you are now!