Chelsea v Manchester City

Man City is an unpleasant team to play. last season they were our only loss. Actually we could not win them at all last season it was loss and draw.
We can not drop points anymore, but our recent form is far from good. I trully hope 2:0 is going to be the result today. however, 1:0 win and three points behind the belt will do for me.

now its HT and I can arguably say that this match is relatively one of Chelsea's finer performances since Christmas. Now City with ten men and Chelsea leading 2-0 before sending off including outstanding saves from James, I can safely say that MY CHELSEA IS BACK!!

At least for now.

Boys.........we are 2-0 at half time......what bout drog's first goal.......amm.......no comments about the second one though......was a handball......and heard that Distin has been sent off......i would soon know it though......

hope we thrash them 4-0.....it would be a real comeback......
and guess what.........i am more pleased caz....Gerrard has been sent off at the mersyside .....ho hoooooooo wow

does that mean no gerrard in the FA semi??

2-0 looked ok, harsh on distin, don't argue with the ref though...
Im a rugby ref and as soon as a player has even thought about challenging my decision one of his team members stops him...

footballers do need to learn respect - I guess giving respect is hard to do when you get £70k a week and are held upon a pedestal by thousands - and you feel are mightier than those around you.

Drogs- 2 handballs in 2 weeks. I dont like cheats, I dont like drogba. Fair 'nuff do everything for your team- but he could do so much more for his team legally, without having to cheat.

Pls pls Tevez come enjoy our English winters like the crespo family does.

A few ideas about today's game (long post)
1 - we played a side that wasn't interested at all until Pearce really got at them later in 2nd half when all was lost. Honestly, Citeh were disgraceful with their play and should have been put to the sword, so
2 - our inability to do proper damage to teams is becoming a 'feature' (?) of our play. Two up, playing much better than for weeks,10 men opposition - so what do we do? Contrive a 2nd half where only occasionally did we give a semblance of doing them a mischief. Seems that we lost the rhythm of 1st half, played across them a lot, only looked vaguely okay when we played wide and then missed a number of good chances.
3 - Drogs?! Gets away with handball and scores. Evens up last week I think. Did not fall like a sack of spuds today as he usually does. Except for finger-in-eye incident when he looked as though he'd been shot. Contrast this with JT being stuuded in 1st half in tackel - up on his feet runs it off. The reason Drogs was booed appeared 3 fold. The rolling, writhing over his eye, being given man of match (yes, he played well today but wasn't a patch on JC, Claude, Riccy JT honsetly, and the handball. Doesn't make it right to boo him though but I'm not surprised. He scores a reall peach, displays fair play logo and then seems to be cheating!! Some thinking to be done by JM about him - or FL and JT need a big word with him!
4 - FL? Still not really firing well; simple mistakes today and did nt always make best choice in passing.
5- EG looked lost; missed two decent chances as well. Del played better than for weeks. Paulo solid. DD - is he injured again? HC - not as invisible as against the SW6 poor cousins, missed a sitter. SWP - good little cameo when he came on, and ME put some bite into it.
Three more points, better than recently. Still much to do to show how good we can be!!

How I would have love Drogba to to come up with his to hands after scoring his second goal, saying "Sorry lads. It was a handball.. A reflex from my hand... Sorry.. won't do it again.."

Do we really want such "goals"?

Does anybody know for how many games Gerrard banned? If it is three games so he is going to play in FA semis, however, if it is four games he is out of semis. I have checked BBC they are not saying anything about his ban.

Glad to see a much more improved performance from the team today, we should have won 3-0 or 4-0 but credit to City they dug in in the second half and kept us at bay.

Kinda annoying to see us not make use of numerical advantage. Maybe one of the lessons the JM should teach his players is that they are supposed to be playing for 90 MINS not 45 MINS.

Coz we always play only 45 mins worth of game, we dont always have the best results we can probably achieve.

yeh, looks like gerrard will be back... no worries anyway

Why so much fuss abt drogba's 2nd goal ? Cant all the guys see the 1st goal... that was superb finish ...n no one is talking abt it... and i agree with 'Mike'.

when crespo scores a legal goal and is given offside... no one raises finger on it... but when we were comfortably playing ..with lots of possession (n i was sure we are going to win it, the way we played) ... why bring up the useless discussion of 2nd goal. We were going to win to win even if tht would have been disallowed. So whoever is still claiming it as illegal... U GUYS ARE JEALOUS...

Last, I would like gerrard to play in FA semis so tht we can beat the full strength liverpool side. what u say guys?That would be wonderful... a hatrick of win against liverpool in a season. Seems nice headline.

Why so much fuss? Maybe because chelsea blames the refs for every bad result, blames their opponents for cheating and blames the world for conspiring against them. In the interests of fairness we would like them to blame the refs for winning, their players for cheating and the world for conspiring in their favor.

"So whoever is still claiming it as illegal… U GUYS ARE JEALOUS…"

I don't understand what i'm jealous of Aneer. Maradona scored a similar goal against England- the hand of Drog is no different - an illegal goal.
I will never support cheats. I am not jealous of them in any way.
It is people like Drogba that mean more wrong decisions are made by referees, as it will be on the refs mind that the player is likely to cheat and not own up, so he thinks this (perhaps sub-consciously) when making decisions, even though he is not meant to. Drogba is now more likely to get bad decisions against him personally.
My worst nightmare is Chelsea having as many cheats as the arse - pires, reyes, Ljungberg, (ex) Viera.

The counter argument of course is whether John Terry cheats when the ball hits him on the arm in front of goal. I don't personally believe this to be cheating when the ball is banged at him - arms are used for balance. However if he used his hands to bring the ball down under control - as Drogba, or even Tiago vs Liverpool last year - it is cheating as there was premeditated intent.

agree/disagree?

You know, I've been reading this kind of shit for some time now and was constantly amazed at people. You don't get the point, do you?

Why on earth do you blame Drogba, Maradona, Viera, SWP, Robben etc. for whatever they've done when the REFEREES make those vital decisions?! How can a player do anything?! He can't! It's the ref who fucks up. Is it Drogba's fault the ref didn't whistle yesterday?! Tell me, is it? Is it SWP's fault the ref, being blind, sent Elliot off?! Is it Maradona's fault the ref didn't see him handle the ball? Nope, the players have absolutely no power: they can't disallow goals, can't send players off. The referees do it. So blame the referees!!!

Surely you don't expect anyone to wait for the whistle, then stop the play, come up to the ref and say, "WTF?! Are you blind or sometin'?! I handled the ball! The goals doesn't stand, I handled the ball!" No player will ever do that.

As I said, blame the referees for dives, for these kind of moments. They let them work. No one forced the guy to allow the goal or send Elliot off. He did it himself.

Tell that to your coach and players Gleb. They are the ones who accuse other players even though it is, as you say, part of the game. I agree with you. And they are the ones who accuse refs even though, this being part of the game, errors from refs will be as well.

Threr, you're a constant annoyance on this thread but as you clearly have nothing better to do (a job - you're probably still at school though. Or your own teams blog perhaps?) i'll try and answer you, keeping it as simple as i can (sorry, this'll be a long one).
Most Chelsea fans i know (MHL) find Drogba annoying, he's a strong bloke and should be able to ride/withstand tackles better, but the interview yesterday where he was conned into saying "yes i dive" (remember English isn't his first language!) and then later in the same interview said "no, i don't dive, but people should be on the pitch and witness some of the challenges i have to take" summed it up for me. RvN, Rooney, little Mickey Owen and many others go down too easily with minimal contact, which is what Drogba does (admittedly more often), but they don't get slaughtered by the press.
Last week SWP went down because Elliott went to bodycheck him and then pulled away at the last second, by which time SWP had already tried to avoid/emphasise the challenge. Rooney did the same thing against Campbell not so long ago but didn't get slaughtered (a few papers commented on it being a dive but no more). Because it's Chelsea this weeks "news"papers have reported on how we've ended Elliotts career as his contract runs out this year and he might not get a renewal if he can't get back in the team (frankly if you're not better than 2 out of Bramble, Boumsong and Craig Moore you don't deserve a new contract - let's forget that he was lucky to still be on the pitch after kicking Joe Cole 10 minutes earlier, the papers did), and how SWPs dive had cost Shearer his last chance of a medal with his hometown side (the fact that it was the 87th minute, they were a goal down and hadn't looked like scoring all game was apparently irrelevant).
We had the same thing when we beat the scousers 2-0. All the reporters after the game and in the papers wanted to comment on was Robben over emphasising (again, no Chelsea supporter i know was impressed by it) Reina's grab at his throat, to the extent that certain websites (Football365) and newspaper reporters implied it was the deciding point in the game (Chelsea win 2-0 after Robben gets Reina sent off) almost neglecting to mention that we were 2-0 up already, it was late in the game and Reina had just committed a horrendous foul on Gudjohnsen. I saw Alonso roll over about half a dozen times yesterday after getting caught by van der Meyde's arm going for a header, as soon as the red card was produced he got up, unmarked. Nothing in the papers about that though!
Following the FA cup draw Benitez commented "i won't make any comments about them, they normally start the comments anyway and we respect other clubs too much". Now i'm not surprised he won't make comments as i seem to recall that the last time when he mentioned how they knew how to play us and we were scared of them we stuffed them 4-1, but i was surprised to learn how much he "respects other clubs" as, apart from regular digs at Chelsea, Spuds have reported him to the FA about his comments that they are "desperate to sell Defoe". Papers haven't said too much about that though, as i'm sure they wouldn't if Jose said something like that!!
Two final points, we've had much larger fines imposed on us than any other club, and over the last two weeks we've been called up for disciplinary hearings twice, when our opponents who were as involved were let off. I'm sure when Kenyon (Chelsea fans i know don't like him either) had his meeting with Eriksson he didn't anticipate that, although he wouldn't be our manager, we'd still be made to pay his wages.
Oh, and Threr, if you want to get into an argument about handballs i can correct you on that one too.

"Yes, strictly it was cheating — but you name me a centre-forward who would have stopped and said, “Sorry ref, the ball slid off my chest and hit my arm. The goal shouldn’t stand.â€? Can anybody name one?"

Watch Roma's 2-1 win over Messina last week. Daniele de Rossi scored with his hand to make it 3-1 and then had a word with the ref and had the goal disallowed.

"Watch Roma’s 2-1 win over Messina last week. Daniele de Rossi scored with his hand to make it 3-1 and then had a word with the ref and had the goal disallowed."

Conclusive proof then that all other footballers are honest and only Drogba is a cheat?

"Watch Roma’s 2-1 win over Messina last week. Daniele de Rossi scored with his hand to make it 3-1 and then had a word with the ref and had the goal disallowed."

The cynic in me wonders whether Daniele de Rossi would have behaved similarly if his team hadn't been leading at the time. We'll never know.

I'm about to take this site offline to complete the move to its new server.

To Vince well said mate. The case is that all this clown who learns the news from the newspapers are not worth any explanational effort. There were so many time when I was amazed by English press and lables they stick to people and moreover by the people who takes it serious. I know one thing Maradona scored hell lot of a goals with hands. I know one to England and one to Russia. However, he is still great player.
Yes drogba played with his hand , he admoitted it after the game and that is good enough for me! All the rest is Rob Styles problem.
Crespo has scored to Liverpool and it was dissallowed after replay you could see that it is clearly kosher goal. has anybody went to referee and said look man it was clear goal let's count it!?
I have not seen Benitez running after referee and have not seen anyone else does.
Now to all these whinnig clowns "This is the game guys whether you like it or not!!!"

"# grocerjack March 26th 2006 at 6:31pm | Permalink
“Yes, strictly it was cheating — but you name me a centre-forward who would have stopped and said, “Sorry ref, the ball slid off my chest and hit my arm. The goal shouldn’t stand. Can anybody name one?”

“Watch Roma’s 2-1 win over Messina last week. Daniele de Rossi scored with his hand to make it 3-1 and then had a word with the ref and had the goal disallowed.”

Conclusive proof then that all other footballers are honest and only Drogba is a cheat?"

Not conclusive proof nor proof of any sort for anything. I was just respondingto a question you posed in your blog. If you want to fly off the handle at that, go ahead.

thank you Vince for highlighting out how Chelsea fans get treated by the media. It is absolutely true. Now that u mentioned it, the quickly taken free kick had actually crossed the line but the ref didnt see it, and what do you know, they didnt own up that they had conceeded a goal. I suppose now that is the ref's fault for not noticing that goal and that that team didnt cheat?

Threr, u got to admit that there is definitely a slight difference in treating Chelsea FC by the FA than the other clubs in EPL.

Please Drogba enough of this nonsense the home why hand to ball or ball to hand? drogba is cheat he is spoiling our good names for crying out low chelsea fan are not comfotably in public anymore.

Spot on, Vince! If only all those journalists read this blog... :( Too bad they don't having their head too deep in their fat arse.

A nice win...especially the hand ball goal...kind of makes up for the fulham cancelled goal... on the whole a good display especially for the man of the match Drogba...

Crespo seems to be really off...I will not mention Lampard...something is seriously wrong there...The backline was tremendous and Carvalho and Terry did put in some nice displays...

It is true that we were playing a second string side but I loved the way we moved the ball...A little more involvement by Joe COle...Love to see him like this or is it because Robben will be back????

Ferreira was good o watch again but Del Horno Del Horno...this boy lacks confidence and i wonder...

The maka is always maka...Gud is off again those miss hits...Please coach these boys need shooting practice....

Go Chelsea Go Chelsea
I loved watching it all the way

Does someone from the FA fancy explaingin the logic of making us all drive to Manchester, 20 minutes down the road from Liverpool?

I like this new idea that footballers should always admit when they've got away with something illegal. I wonder if the press will insist upon such honesty from England players during the World Cup?

Great new look - maybe you could make the important part (i.e. this bit) more obvious to navigate to (for new users not useless t**ts like me of course).

All the talk about what did(ier) he mean by..."blah", should also be taken in context. English is not his first langauge. Under pressure whilst during interview, many overseas players have been tricked/led/coerced or simply blundered into saying something they didn't mean. Mr Drogba is not the first - 'dive' is easily confused with 'fell over after a tough challenge' (I am sticking up for him but the gag came first).

Either way - Peter - great point. Truth is so refreshing at the moment - maybe a post match polygraph?

Great new look. Guys, come on, you should be flattered I am not a chelski fan and still read you...

Thanks guys.