Pre-Match Thoughts
It’s so dark, wet and miserable outside that I’ve got the lights on. We played crap on Wednesday after the joy of last Saturday and now we’ve got to face Chelsea, where we can expect not much more than the proverbial cup of tea and a good hiding. So... what have got to lose? The only match news so far is that Kenwyne is likely to start and I hope so as long as he spends more time in their penalty area than he does in ours, like he seemed to against Stoke. John Terry was full of praise for him after their last encounter and the new, stockier Kenwyne will want to do even better this time around. Fulop looks likely to play again. Well, it’s 1.30 and I’m off to catch the 295 bus to Fulham Broadway.

The Match
It’s 7.15 and I’ve just returned from Stamford Bridge. It took twice as long as it should have, what with Tube closures and traffic jams, plus it was very cold and wet. This just put the icing on the cake of a lousy afternoon. We were never in this game and Chelsea strolled it. We pressed quite a bit after Chelsea went 5-0 up but they’d just taken their foot off the gas and coped easily with whatever we tried. Okay the first goal looked offside and Chimbonda was given what looked like a cross-buttocks and body-slam before their third in the first-half stoppage-time but we never looked like scoring ourselves. There was a lot of debate among our own fans, in one case getting very heavy at one point, and there was a general feeling that Keano should never have played Waghorn in a game like this.

He did have one good run down the right wing but that was it and we looked a lot better after Cisse and Diouf came on. The guy in front of me left after 30 minutes and the two blokes on my right didn’t show for the second-half, though they’d presumably shelled out £48 like I did. Fulop should have done better with the first goal and I’m not sure what he was trying to do when they scored their fourth. Three of the goals came down our left flank and McCartney must take a lot of the blame. Chelsea have a lot of great players and when you see Didier Drogba coming on as sub, it doesn’t exactly lift your spirits so they’d take most teams to the cleaners. Kenwyne still looked a long way short of his best and was replaced by Cisse after an hour. To give credit where it’s due, I think Richardson provided some much-needed creativity and Nos looked assured a lot of the time, but not all.

When the third one went in everyone knew we had no chance whatsoever; if we’d got to half-time at only 2-0, there was at least some hope of a fight-back. I was looking at the clock a lot after the break just so I could feel nearer to getting home. Our fans were great and hardly ever stopped singing, coming up with, “We’re gonna win 6-5. We’re gonna win 6-5”, and, to the same tune, “We only want one shot”. A lot of the Chelsea fans were smiling along; well, they could afford to smile. I’m going to get some Indian food down my neck followed by several cold drinks and try to put this game behind me. Portsmouth at home next Saturday seems much more manageable but Keano has his work cut out before then to try and stop the rot.

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