Shock sacking

As many of you will have heard, Roberto Di Matteo was sacked from the Chelsea job just earlier today. As a chelsea fan it is deeply concerning that a manager with less than 50 games under his belt has been fired even with the Champions league and FA cup in the trophy cabinet from last season. It's ridiculous, how can you expect anyone to do a good job when they are under such a stupid amount of pressure... 

He lost 2 games, we had a slight dip of form in the league (who doesn't), there is no acceptable reason for Abramovich to rid RDM.

It's literally an abuse of his power, I accept that he has brought us such a prosperous era but that doesn't mean he can treat such people what I feel is a total lack of respect. Think of Arsenal and Wenger; no trophy for many years yet he still has the full backing from the club, something Roman needs to think about with the long term future of the club in mind, we are in a transition period and the success of 2012 cannot be expected to just happen without the leadership of Terry, Lampard or Drogba. His poor excuse for patience is wearing thin on chelsea fans.

On another note, as we are looking for a new manager, I personally want Guardiola for the long term management to bring our team to the standard of play that we see in the likes of Barcelona or Real Madrid. Short term I have know idea who to put in, but please god let it not be the toad that is Avram Grant, and i'm also not keen on Benitez either. I can only hope things will sort out for the better.  

    

 

My club: Chelsea, Part 2.

Who isn't nervous, watching the final of the most important match in your clubs history? It was a truly memorable night for me and all the more sweeter as I sat next a spurs fan, I could barely believe what I was seeing as Drogba stepped up to the fifth and winning penalty, and being a moody teen it's not often that embrace my brother but as two chelsea fans we couldn't help it, overawed with joy and moments that I have watched over and over again, they still give me goosebumps.

Just a few more words from me, my favourite past chelsea players are Gianfranco Zola, Eider Gudjohnson and of course Didier Drogba, my idol and I believe one of the best strikers that the premier league or indeed the world has ever seen. On his day he was unstoppable, and an emotional end to his Chelsea career. My feelings are summed up perfectly in a quote from Gary Lineker: "Farewell Didier Drogba. You have enthralled us, occasionally enraged us, but always entertained us. A striking superstar." 

One last word; there has been good times, bad times, and brilliant times. I remain forever faithful to the mighty blues, and wouldn't change that for the world. I hope I have given you some sort of small, and slightly biased, view on what it has been like to support my club; Chelsea FC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnGxsdruqLk           follow this link... 19th May 2012.

My Club: Chelsea

Haven't posted in a while, been pretty hectic for me at the moment so I thought i'd do a post about my thoughts and opinions on my club; Chelsea.

I'll be honest, I am often taunted or accused by friends and fellow football fans of being a 'glory hunter'. As I have tried to explain (mostly in vein), like many people, I followed in the footsteps of my dad in terms of football; he supports chelsea and has done for over 40 years so it's only natural that from the age of 6 or 7 I have been a faithful blue. The money of Abramovich and the "Chelski" era began in 2003, so a few years after I began as a true blue, just thought I would clear that up for everyone!
As for the "armchair fan" thing, I must admit that I don't get to go to many matches as I would like but being an 18 year old student, as well as jobless, my budget doesn't really stretch to the £500 or so that a season costs nowadays. It's something which I touched upon in my last post and something that affects all us passionate footy lovers, extortionate prices in todays world of sport, but enough about that.

Chelsea's recent history has been pretty good, I feel quite lucky that I have grown up in a very successful time for my club with our first Premier league title and first major league success since the 1950s in 2004 under Jose Mourinho, aka 'the special one'! Of course everyone will argue that it was all down to the money and yes it's obviously a factor but tell me a team to win the league that hasn't spent a hefty sum of money? I'd also like to remind anyone that we were consistently in the top 6 of the league for some years prior so it's not like we just turned up with the cash and boughtlly with the disappointing league position, but I still wasn't confident for Bayern Munich in their own back yard.

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The business of football

Today was just another ordinary Thursday, Europa league as exciting as ever but the match between Liverpool and Anzhi Makhachkala saw Samuel Eto'o play, the worlds highest paid football player and highlighted a very well known and often criticised issue... Money in football.

Iv'e always loved football but it does deeply concern me that in an increasingly materialistic world, wages and prices of players are rocketing to unimaginable amounts of money. It surely cannot be a good thing that these athletes are paid ridiculous sums that are far superior to those wages of much more important roles (e.g. Nurses, policemen, fireman, etc).

Having a role model and aspirations is one thing but it can't be a good example for kids of the next generation to be idolising these millionaires with extortionately big houses, cars and lifestyles. We'd all like to be better off in the world but allowing football to genuinely become a business instead of  sport is, in my opinion, ludicrous. It ruins it for the people who care the most, the fans, with rising ticket prices many already find it difficult to support their club and you can see this right down the echelons of football. My local cub is in the blue square premier, with a good atmosphere and decent quality of football it is a great experience for die hard fans or the family. However, prices there have risen to £15 for adults concession and admission an appalling price to pay for a relatively small club.

We need a cap on wages and a cap on player prices across football, I fear we are losing the sport that I know I couldn't live without, actions must be taken to try and stem the money obsession bringing many more benefits as well as saving money... Think of the homegrown talent we could produce with a consensus on English players instead of hugely pricey players from around the world, the best league in the world would only get better as well as our national team. I believe this is a very real crisis and something that we must all pull together to save the beautiful game!
   

International week

It was a week for world cup qualifiers but unfortunately some fantastic football has been overshadowed by a couple of ridiculous and laughable incidences...

First, in England's U21 game against Serbia, fighting broke out after England scored the winning goal and it seems that Danny Rose was subjected to racist abuse of monkey chants. As the brawl continued players, coaches and even some fans jumped to the pitch. In the aftermath there is now a vendetta against the Serbian FA and in my opinion rightly so after they made outrageous claims of England players behaving inappropriately after scoring. Even if their downright disgraceful statements did have some solidity (which they don't) it would not excuse the Racism Rose had to face, they're denial is ridiculous due to the video evidence found of clear monkey sounds taken by a member of the crowed.
What has infuriated many people, including myself, is the fact that there is even a possibility of Serbia getting away with a fine... A mere slap on the wrist, sanctions need to be put in place to prevent this kind of abuse, fines are pointless and there needs to be much heftier penalties, such as a ban of their supporters or the national side itself.

On a lighter note, a more comedic crisis occurred on Tuesday concerning the postponing of the Poland v England match due to the waterlogged pitch, this may seem normal except from the fact that the stadium has a state of the art roof that takes no more than 15 minutes to close. Not only this, but they also have under pitch heating as well, so while the referee strode around in comic fashion continuously attempting to bounce a ball on what had become a swamp. By far the most alarming thing in the whole charade was the distinct lack of a decision making from the Polish FA, it should definitely not have taken them over an hour to realise that there was torrential rain pummelling the pitch forming what could have been described as a swimming pool... A pretty shameful day all round for both Serbian and Polish associations!    

This weeks action

There were some thrilling games and spectacular goals this weekend, with a standard El Classico taking centre stage and providing much entertainment as it always does. A Messi free kick the highlight in that game but this post is actually about some truly amazing goals scored tonight, two of them scored in Le Classique (PSG v Marseille) to you and me! None other than Zlatan Ibrahimovic bagging a delightful brace which I highly recommend you seek out on the internet, the first was a cheeky back heel volley which flew past the keeper, not something you see everyday. His second, however, was something quite special... a free kick from 35 yards that rocketed into the net, it's goals like these that make players like Zlatan so exciting which is why i'm always looking out for the Ligue 1 highlights.


Another goal you may have missed was in the Porto v Sporting game, Jackson Martinez is in fine form and the goal tonight showed class, confidence and a delightful touch. 

Please take a quick look, it's well worth it and deserves all the credit it gets... The awareness, poise, technique, and all around class to put this one away is majestic and a joy to watch! 

The modern game.

Over the years we have seen the game progress so much, and one of the main points nowadays is safety, however, there is always much controversy surrounding borderline dangerous tackles and we've seen another case today with Jonjo Shelvey of Liverpool being contentiously sent off.

 

Are referees becoming too harsh, are tackles being unnecessarily punished?

In my opinion this is most certainly the case, I know we have to take the players health into consideration but football has never been a non contact sport and I am dreading the fact that we are slowly floating towards it. I hold the view that if a player goes in for a tackle and gets the ball then that is fair play. Obviously if you go in two footed and you catch a player then you should be sent off, but there is no need for a referee to ruin a game by handing out bookings or cards for a fair challenge. Anything above ankle height that does not get the ball also should be punished and this issue is so subjective that we can't just send a player off for "intent". How does the ref know what the players aim was, I think that most players go for the ball 99% of the time, of course you do get nasty cases of rage or the "red mist" but we have to keep tackling in the game at an acceptable level, a good tackle can rile your oppositions and boost your teammates, it can bring a crowd to its feet and it should definitely not be punished.