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Saturday 30th December

Premiership: Chelsea 2 - 2 Fulham

Things can only get better in 2007... can't they?

Match reports

The Observer, Amy Lawrence: "In stoppage time, with another two points slipping from their grasp, John Terry sat in the dugout and shook his head in thinly disguised dismay. For the second time in five days he has looked on as the kind of defensive shockers that are anathema to him gave Manchester United yet more Premiership ground. The gap has been extended to six points."

Independent on Sunday, Steve Tongue: "This is getting serious. For the fourth game in succession, a Chelsea defence deprived of John Terry's commanding presence conceded two...

Wednesday 27th December

Premiership review: Chelsea 2 - 2 Reading

Match reports

Daily Telegraph, Henry Winter: "In the festive season of a thousand toasts, the poignant salute at Stamford Bridge yesterday was to absent friends. Chelsea would never have dropped two points had their commanding centre-half, John Terry, been present and the captain's imminent operation to shave a disc in his back cannot come soon enough. The champions' spine will be strengthened only when Terry's is."

The Guardian, Kevin McCarra: "The rivalry with Manchester United may be no more than runner-up to the Premiership's most gripping struggle of all. Chelsea's battle with themselves could exercise a greater...

Tuesday 26th December

Premiership preview: Chelsea v. Reading

The second of Chelsea's four games in ten days sees them take on Reading at Stamford Bridge.

Serious injuries to Blues goalkeepers Petr Cech and Carlo Cudicini overshadowed the reverse fixture in October.

Stephen Hunt's challenge on Cech divided opinion but the majority felt that he could have avoided leaving Cech with a fractured skull.

A hostile atmosphere awaits the Irishman.

John Terry will miss a fourth straight game with a back injury that may keep him out for three more weeks, while Cudicini is still absent with a leg muscle strain suffered at Bolton.

Reading have no new injury worries.

If Chelsea beat the Royals they will top the Premiership table for the first time since 1st October.

Related...

Sunday 24th December

Premiership review: Wigan Athletic 2 - 3 Chelsea

Match reports

Sunday Telegraph, James Mossop: "On many a Saturday Jose Mourinho becomes the clown with the scowl but here absolute honesty prevailed. He admitted that Wigan deserved a point, that his Chelsea side thought the match was over when they went two up and publicly thanked his central defender, Ricardo Carvalho, for covering up the errors of his team-mates."

The Observer, Paul Wilson: "While their comeback at Everton was gripping, here it was much less inexorable and decidedly cruel on Wigan. The home side had fought back brilliantly from two goals down to come within four added minutes of holding a top four team for the first time and...

Saturday 23rd December

Premiership preview: Wigan Athletic v. Chelsea

In recent seasons the busy Christmas schedule has proved particularly fruitful for Chelsea. Since Jose Mourinho's arrival in 2004, the Blues have taken maximum points in all of their holiday fixtures.

The current campaign's festive feast of football kicks off with a difficult away game against Wigan Athletic. Last season's trip to the JJB Stadium saw a memorable last gasp goal from Hernan Crespo nick all three points for Chelsea, but that was cruel on Paul Jewell's side who had outplayed the Blues for the majority of the 90 minutes. Today's game is likely to prove equally as challenging.

Chelsea's squad is unchanged from that which travelled to Newcastle in midweek. Captain John Terry is out with a recurrence of the back injury he sustained earlier in the season, while Carlo Cudicini is absent with a leg muscle strain suffered at Bolton. Khalid Boulahrouz is expected to take Terry's place and Henrique Hilario will continue in goal. Ricardo Carvalho is also...

Friday 22nd December

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

A quick post to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and to thank you all for your contributions during what has been another memorable year for Chelsea Football Club.

I would particularly like to thank Jonathan, Tony, Blingo, Graham, Danny, Kenn, Peter,

Friday 22nd December

Letter from America: Jos

What is it with José Mourinho bashing? The latest example in our pages is to call him a prat (or rather PRAT) which according to my online dictionary, is "an incompetent, stupid, or foolish person". I'm not personally acquainted with Mr Mourinho, but simply from observing what he has achieved, both at Chelsea and at Porto, the last thing one could call him is "incompetent" or "stupid", so I suppose it must be "foolish" which draws down the ire. Referring back to my trusty dictionary, this means "lacking good sense or judgement". Well, I suppose there is a case to be answered on that, but in general, if he is wrong (and even in the infamous case of Barcelona and the Referee, he turned out right about what he said he had observed), he is generally the first (well maybe the second) to admit it.

In the recent Everton...

Thursday 21st December

League Cup: Newcastle United 0 - 1 Chelsea

Match reports

Daily Telegraph, Tim Rich: "Newcastle's search for a trophy has come to grief at Chelsea's hands with what by the Tyne must seem depressingly regular intervals. This was the eighth time in 10 years they had barred Newcastle's way in cup competitions and only once, when they lost an FA Cup tie in the January snows last year, had the outcome been anything other than defeat."

The Guardian, Michael Walker: "As Glenn Roeder surveyed his visitors' teamsheet he quipped that the Chelsea substitutes constituted "the best five-a-side team in the world". Sadly for Newcastle, their manager was to be proved near the mark with that analysis as...

Wednesday 20th December

League Cup preview: Newcastle United v. Chelsea

Jose Mourinho will rest several players but has told Newcastle not to expect an early Christmas present.

Mourinho said: "I'm going to rest some players, that's obvious. People think we have a massive squad but it is not true. Our squad is very short and at this moment we have some problems.

"We have a game to play at Wigan next weekend and then Reading so for these three games I am going to make some changes.

"We are in the quarter-finals so we are not going there to give a present to Newcastle and an easy game. We go there with some fresh players so some of the boys can rest, but I hope we can get a result."

Wayne Bridge, Paulo Ferreira and Shaun Wright-Phillips will all be hoping to start. John Terry and Carlo Cudicini are doubtful and unlikely to be risked in any case.

Glenn Roeder will give late fitness tests to Nolberto Solano and Emre, while Damien Duff is set to face Chelsea for the first time since his summer move to St. James'...

Monday 18th December

Premiership review: Everton 2-3 Chelsea

First half bad, second half good — this might well be the chanted mantra of the average Chelsea supporting alpha male these days as he tears off more meat with his teeth whilst his wife toils away at the ironing and washing (well maybe that’s just my house on a cold Sunday afternoon when we play away). And on current evidence he would be right. It seems to be a continuing pattern - play poorly for one half (usually the first) and then turn it on for the second. The last three games have been exactly that - Arsenal, Newcastle and Everton, but look a little deeper into the games versus Werder Bremen,

Monday 18th December

Premiership: Everton 2-3 Chelsea

Match reports

Daily Telegraph, Clive Tyldesley: "Functional? Effective? Boring even? Not a bit of it. Chelsea's true champion pedigree was underlined by moments of rare brilliance and beauty in a stunning success at Goodison Park. Trailing 2-1 with less than 10 minutes remaining, they turned a damaging defeat into what could prove to be a pivotal success with two memorable late goals from Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba. Chelsea may have a bit of an image problem, but no team in Europe could have won a vital game more dramatically."

The Times, Matt Hughes: "With their passing particularly poor, Mourinho changed his team around at...

Sunday 17th December

Premiership preview: Everton v. Chelsea

Chelsea have an opportunity to put some pressure on Manchester United, who play struggling West Ham at Upton Park later this afternoon. Will fortune favour new Hammers manager Alan Curbishley? Let's hope so.

Jose Mourinho is still without Carlo Cudicini who hasn't fully recovered from a strained leg muscle, so Henrique Hilario is likely to continue in goal. Joe Cole is out with a broken foot but Ricardo Carvalho is expected to return.

Everton are without a host of players including Mikel Arteta, Tim Cahill, Tony Hibbert, Alessandro Pistone and Gary Naysmith.

Chelsea have won eight and drawn three of the last eleven Premiership matches against Everton including three wins in the last four visits to Goodison Park.

Related links

Saturday 16th December

What's really damaging football in England?

One of my Arsenal supporting friends recently claimed Chelsea were "spoiling football". It set me thinking and the conclusions are set out below.

Newcastle United are close to being bought by another foreign consortium to add to Liverpool, Manchester United, Portsmouth, Aston Villa, West Ham United and, obviously, our beloved Blues, and yet it is Chelsea who are cast as the pantomime villains, slandered in the media, sniped at by certain rival managers and hated by the non-Chelsea supporting public at large.

So what is really wrong with our national game and why do the Fourth Estate ignore the real problem and focus their bile on the most charismatic and colourful manager in British football and his financial backers? Beyond jealousy it’s a question I don’t have an answer to but let's examine the only member of the “big four” still in domestic ownership and ask ourselves why we tolerate a club who routinely field eleven foreign players and...

Friday 15th December

Champions League draw: Porto v. Chelsea

Chelsea will play Porto, Jose Mourinho's former club, in the last 16 of this season's Champions League.

The first leg is in Portugal on Wednesday 21st February, and the return leg at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday 6th March.

The full draw:

Porto v. Chelsea Celtic v. AC Milan PSV Eindhoven v. Arsenal Lille v. Manchester United Roma v. Lyon Barcelona v. Liverpool Real Madrid v. Bayern Munich Inter Milan v. Valencia

Friday 15th December

And now it gets personal...

Giles Smith's mid-week article on the official site makes a pertinent point about John Barnes' claim, in a newspaper, that we charge children £50 on matchdays. Barnes is an idiot who never bothered to check his facts, but his original article passed editorial control because it confirmed the general media demonisation of Chelsea. It's a type of lazy opinionising we expect from tabloid pundits, but when we see a kind of collective cultural consensus is being engineered by supposedly intelligent and serious writers against us, we need to respond. Though we should not get over-sensitive. Success automatically brings envy, which begets hatred. And there is a certain satisfaction to be enjoyed in watching our opponents' apoplectic blatherings, a sure sign of their impotence in the face of our virility. Hatred breeds irrational behaviour, and the sheer hypocritical madness of much that is said and written...

Thursday 14th December

Letter from America: Can it get any worse?

For a while, Chelsea seemed to be out of favour with Fox Sports so that for some weeks they hardly figured at all. In the last couple of weeks, however, things have improved, at least in this respect. I have been able to watch all of Chelsea's recent Premiership games, starting with that against Manchester United. To be precise, I did not exactly watch all of that game, or even much of it. I overslept and because of its 8am start in local time, I missed the first 20 minutes or so. So imagine my disgust when switching on the TV of immediately seeing our lads give away a really dumb goal. Off went the TV again and if anything large and heavy had been at hand, the offending instrument might never have recovered (my wife understands that before a game, lethal objects should be moved from my immediate viewing area. In this respect, this year is much worse...

Wednesday 13th December

Premiership: Chelsea v. Newcastle United

Update: I wasn't at the game, and other commitments meant that I couldn't even listen to any radio commentary, therefore I won't be posting the usual good/bad type match report. See below for links to external reports.

Chelsea face injury-hit Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge later this evening knowing that they cannot afford to drop points if they are to keep the pressure on Manchester United.

Sunday's disappointing draw with Arsenal left the Blues eight points adrift of Alex Ferguson's side with just one game in hand, but Jose Mourinho remained unconcerned.

"I think he [Ferguson] must be happy now because we dropped two points, but if he thinks it's over, he is in big trouble. After Wednesday's game against Newcastle we will be five points behind them and five points is nothing in a long season," he said.

Mourinho's...

Wednesday 13th December

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