Saturday 30th September

Premiership: Chelsea v. Aston Villa

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Chelsea meet a resurgent Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge later today.

Chelsea have beaten Villa in their last four meetings but Jose Mourinho will not be taking the in-form Midlanders lightly.

Martin O'Neill has led Villa to their best Premiership start for five years, and they enter the game as one of only two unbeaten sides in the league.

In team news, John Obi Mikel is set to make his first Premiership start, while Claude Makelele is likely to be recalled after being rested for the midweek win over Levski Sofia.

Michael Ballack will definitely miss the game as he continues his...

Thursday 28th September

Champions League: Levski Sofia 1-3 Chelsea

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Match reports

The Guardian, Jon Brodkin: "Again this was not a spectacular Chelsea performance but Jose Mourinho has made it clear he cares little about that. A first Champions League away victory since November 2005 leaves his squad set fair in Group A with Barcelona next at Stamford Bridge, and they have now won six consecutive matches."

The Times, Tom Dart: "Despite claiming before the match that he would pick his best side, Mourinho rested Claude Makelele and Ashley Cole. Wayne Bridge was excellent in Cole’s place and Michael Essien was a dynamic presence in the midfield holding role. Jon Obi Mikel, the teenager, made his first start and played with...

Wednesday 27th September

Champions League: Levski Sofia v. Chelsea

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Chelsea's second Champions League Group A game kicks off later this evening against Bulgarian side Levski Sofia.

Jose Mourinho said he would be happy with a 1-0 win after Levski coach Stanimir Stoilov compared Chelsea's win-at-all-costs style of play with Barcelona's "more attractive football".

"We don’t have a player like Barcelona has, someone to do a trick that’ll leave people open-mouthed," Mourinho said. "But when he [Stoilov] says we are all about winning, I take that as a very good compliment ... If someone wants to offer me 1-0, I’ll go back to London now."

John Terry, who missed

Monday 25th September

Premiership: Fulham 0 - 2 Chelsea

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Match reports

Sunday Telegraph, Andrew Warshaw: "Chelsea may not be firing on all cylinders quite yet, but even in third gear and without the inspiration of John Terry, ruled out with back spasms, they snuffed out everything their injury-hit nearest rivals could throw at them - then struck late on with a match-winning double blow."

The Observer, Jamie Jackson: "Mourinho played the narrow three of recent vogue, ahead of Makelele. But only Robben held his position on the left, while Essien and Lampard could not resist dropping deeper to pick up the ball. This caused Chelsea to stutter, and explained why Drogba and Andriy Shevchenko...

Saturday 23rd September

League Cup: Blackburn away

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Chelsea will play Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park in the third round of this season’s Carling Cup.

The tie will be played during the week commencing 23rd October.

Saturday 23rd September

Premiership: Fulham v. Chelsea

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Chelsea make the short trip across the west of town this afternoon to face Chris Coleman's Fulham in what is likely to be a full-blooded affair.

Fulham won last season's corresponding fixture 1-0, Luis Boa Morte scoring the winner after 17 minutes. Chelsea were poor in a match that had everything from a sending off to a pitch invasion, and never really looked like taking all three points. It was the Cottagers' first win over the Blues for 27 years.

Jose Mourinho is expecting today's game to be equally as difficult.

"Fulham is always difficult. They play much better against us. They fight much more against us. They will give us a hard game again. That's their season," he said.

Mourinho will be without Michael Ballack after his red card against Liverpool earned a three-game ban. Arjen Robben looks the likely replacement as Joe Cole is still recuperating from his...

Thursday 21st September

Hard drives, hard win, hard cash...

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First off, apologies for the lack of activity 'round these parts. Late last Saturday I switched on my PC to post a preview of the Liverpool game only to be presented with an ominous-looking error message. I didn't panic at first because in recent years I've become somewhat obsessive about keeping regular backups of my primary hard drive. But, upon further investigation it became apparent that something borderline catastrophic had occured: according to a number of 'rescue' disks there was no longer any data on either my primary or backup drive. At this point I think I experienced what can only be descibed as shock: the thought of losing five years' worth of personal and work data, including nearly ten thousand mp3s, left me reeling.

Sunday morning was spent staring at what I thought was a kaput PC wondering what on earth to do next. I must confess that I strongly considered missing the Liverpool game - which isn't surprising I guess given that at this point I assumed I'd...

Wednesday 13th September

Champions League: Chelsea 2-0 Werder Bremen

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Match reports

The Guardian, Kevin McCarra: "The result has the authentic Chelsea ring to it but there were still false notes. It took the penalty that Michael Ballack converted after 66 minutes for his first goal at the club to dim the brightness of Werder Bremen's spirit. Only the post prevented Frank Lampard from raising the margin to 3-0, but even Jose Mourinho agreed that would have been unjust."

Daily Telegraph, Henry Winter: "Although the English champions were not completely convincing, they showed enough threat, particularly from midfield, to have their fans dreaming of the Parthenon in spring time. They may even renew acquaintance with...

Tuesday 12th September

Champions League: Chelsea v. Werder Bremen

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Chelsea's Champions League campaign kicks off at Stamford Bridge later this evening with Jose Mourinho dismissing speculation that he might leave Stamford Bridge if Chelsea win the competition.

“I did one mistake in Porto, leaving Porto when I was European champion because I could have won the Intercontinental Cup. I couldn’t because I had left,” he said. “If one day I win the Champions League again, I want to win the Intercontinental Cup and not give [the club] to another manager to win it.”

Joe Cole, out with a knee injury since the pre-season tour of the United States, trained with the first team yesterday and could make the squad, while Claude Makelele...

Tuesday 12th September

Premiership: Chelsea 2 - 1 Charlton Athletic

8 Comments

Match reports

The Observer, Amy Lawrence: "Chelsea confirmed their superiority as Drogba, Lampard and Shevchenko threatened a goalfest. A narrow scoreline it might have been but by half time it was hard to conclude Charlton provided anything more than shooting practice."

Independent on Sunday, Ronald Atkin: "In the end, whistles of relief greeted a close-run thing for Chelsea which should have been sealed and signed by half-time. Charlton, routinely embarrassed in the first 45 minutes as Chelsea cavorted and flaunted their superiority, overcame the need to rearrange the side because of injury to...

Friday 8th September

The week ahead: Charlton, Werder Bremen and Jose's old friend Rafa...

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In a little over twenty-four hours, fans of all things Blue will turn their attention to the pitch at Stamford Bridge. After a week of international football and the never-ending Gallasgate soap opera, the sight of eleven men in Chelsea shirts on the glorious green turf (Charlton fans, take note) will come as a truly welcome relief. Football, rather than statements and slanging matches, is the primary business of the club lest we forget.

With three home games in eight days, two of which could be regarded as having huge significance on the outcome of the season, Jose Mourinho will have been relieved that the players on international duty returned to him unscathed. The added bonus that none of his men tasted defeat will also have been pleasing.

More specific details of the games are available here, but the highlights proved to be John Terry’s superb...

Wednesday 6th September

'Classy' Gallas scores own goal!

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Predictably, from the enemies’ camp, the huge knives are out to carve up Chelsea. And, as has become customary in these times, the Fickle Fans Brigade are also out in force with their own little razor-sharp blades to do complementary damage to their club in an attempt to appear ‘unbiased’. Chelsea’s crime is that they’ve chosen to clarify the situation that led to the sale of William Gallas, after days of anti-Chelsea and anti-Mourinho sniping from the player. But, perhaps if these crusading Chelsea-haters (both within and outside the club) had asked the right questions, maybe they’d have better answers than their thickheaded responses so far. Of course, there are also some well-informed and decent fans and football followers who still think the club needed not to have made the statement on Gallas, even...

Tuesday 5th September

Gallas sniping angers Chelsea

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William Gallas' sniping in the press in recent days has clearly upset certain elements within the Chelsea hierarchy.

This evening the club took the unprecedented step of issuing a strongly-worded statement to inform fans about the lack of respect Gallas showed in a bid to get a transfer away from Stamford Bridge.

The statement revealed how he initially refused to play against Liverpool in last season's FA Cup semi-final and how, if selected to play against Manchester City on August 20th, he threatened to score an own goal, get sent off or make deliberate mistakes.

Obviously

Monday 4th September

Deadline day: lawyers, Gunners and money

18 Comments

Given the drama and speculation flying around Chelsea last week, you could have been forgiven for thinking that Oliver Stone was orchestrating events rather than Peter Kenyon. Football’s armchair pundits, well known to be fond of a conspiracy theory went from Parker Knoll to grassy knoll quicker than you could say ‘Abramovich’.

The conclusion of the Cole saga was only part of the story. Some twenty months after Chelsea introduced ‘tapping up’ to the nation, Mr. Tweedy signed on at Stamford Bridge as representatives and officials looked nervously at their watches in the expectation that he would become a diamond encrusted pumpkin at the witching hour.

Not since Lyon’s nutter-in-chief Jean-Michel Aulas bellowed belligerently for several months about Michael Essien being worth £20-30-40 million and a couple of marmosets has there been a deal so protracted...

Monday 4th September

Zola enters Hall of Fame

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Gianfranco Zola, Chelsea’s greatest player of all-time, has been inducted into the National Football Museum Hall of Fame.

The former Chelsea star is one of seven players chosen to join the Hall for 2006. The other players are: Jackie Milburn, Martin Peters, Roger Hunt, Liam Brady, Alan Hansen, and Ian Rush.

Launched in 2002, the National Football Museum Hall of Fame celebrates the greatest players and managers of all-time in English football.

In other news, ticket telesales have returned. From today [Monday], telephone bookings will be accepted for home match tickets. The telesales number is 0870 300 2322.

No away tickets can be purchased via this number.

Saturday 2nd September

They think it's all over...

29 Comments

It is now. The transfer window is shut and shut along with it are the hopes of millions of fans around the world — hope that the players they want arrive at their clubs and the ones they do not want move on or not come at all. As in everything in life, you win some, lose some and wait until January to hope again.

As a Chelsea fan, I’ve been highly infuriated by William Gallas and his summer antics. While I was one of those who believed he shouldn’t be sold (not to banish him to the reserves, but simply not to let him fall into the hands of our rivals), I must admit that sending him to Arsenal with a paltry £5m and getting Ashley Cole in return is one of the best deals Chelsea have ever done. Considering that Arsenal were asking for nothing less than £20m for Cole and offering £5m for Gallas, if we’d done a deal on their terms, they would have made £15m at least; but in the end, they got only £5m! Even the most optimistic Gunner knows that Gallas in...

Friday 1st September

Do players have a right to buy out the last year of their contract?

5 Comments

Now that the transfer window is finally closed, it’s probably the best time to discuss a pertinent issue that has always been interjected into the transfer debate in that period. This is the issue of a player’s right to buy out the last year of his contract. As usual, there are loads of misconceptions involved in the discussion. Though it is generally reported in the press to be contained in “the new FIFA Regulations”, the truth is these are no new regulations. “FIFA Regulations for the Transfer and Status of Players” is a product of negotiations between the body and the European Commission in order to keep it in line with the European body’s Competition rules to a certain extent (sports have a special dispensation under EC law).

The Regulations have been in force since September 1, 2001, but have been revised once in 2005. This revision is what is erroneously called “new FIFA rules” when indeed it affects nothing of...

Friday 1st September

Cole signs, Gallas leaves

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The most protracted transfer of recent times has finally been completed.

Chelsea and Arsenal released a joint statement confirming that Ashley Cole has signed for Chelsea in exchange for £5m and William Gallas.

“Chelsea FC and Arsenal have agreed terms for the transfers of Ashley Cole and William Gallas,” the statement read.

“Chelsea will also pay Arsenal £5m. Both players have agreed personal terms and passed their respective medicals.”

Cole is believed to have signed a five-year deal worth between £75,000 and £90,000 per week.

Friday 1st September

Gallas undergoing medical

4 Comments

William Gallas is currently undergoing a medical at Arsenal, according to Sky Sports News.

Friday 1st September

Chelsea confirm Cole talks

7 Comments

Chelsea have confirmed that talks are ongoing with Arsenal regarding a swap deal involving Ashley Cole and William Gallas. Current rumours suggest Chelsea will also pay a fee of around £5m for Cole.