LIFE is never dull at Chelsea since they became a super club. As the Blues unveiled their latest financial figures, other statistics were being pored over, those that indicate Frank Lampard, club legend and all-round good fellow, could be losing his way at the moment. There has been paper talk that some players are confused […]
HOW do you sack managers like Pep Guardiola, or replace parts of the furniture like Frank Lampard? There’s an assumption that clubs will not fire people who are football luminaries or club “legends”. But it would be wrong to believe Lampard and Guardiola are untouchable, at best they will be left in a room and […]
REMEMBER Pierluigi Casiraghi, the Italian international signed by Chelsea in May 1998 for £ 5.4 million? Not many people do, for his 10 Premier League appearances cost around half a million a piece. Luckless Casiraghi sustained a bad injury in November of that year and was never seen again. Historically, big price tags haven’t weighed […]
CHELSEA and Bayern Munich are supposed to be in transition, two teams in reconstruction mode. Of the two, on the evidence of their UEFA Champions League meeting at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea look a long way off moulding a team capable of living up to the heights of the Abramovich era, while Bayern look to be […]
AJAX charmed Europe in 2018-19 season and players like Donny van de Beek, Frenkie De Jong and Matthijs de Ligt all won rave reviews for their performances in the UEFA Champions League. But the Dutch side’s success was also owed to the presence of Hakim Ziyech, a 26 year-old Morocco international whose virtuosity and creative […]
WITH seven minutes remaining at the Emirates stadium, Chelsea must have been getting their chequebook ready for action, but two goals later, the shortcomings of the first hour of the game were brushed aside. Recent Chelsea performances have shown that they are very short of experienced talent. The energy and enthusiasm of their young players […]
BACK IN 1970, one of the most captivating games of an outstanding World Cup, Italy’s 4-3 win over West Germany, was so exciting that the final whistle left you disappointed that the match had ended after 120 pulsating minutes. The same feeling was evident at Stamford Bridge when Chelsea and Ajax shared eight goals on […]
YOU’RE ONLY as good as your manager allows you to be. That should sum up the Jorginho story in his two seasons at Chelsea. Last year, Jorginho was less than popular with the Stamford Bridge regulars – he was seen as representative of the so-called “Sarri ball” philosophy of uncomfortable manager Maurizio Sarri. He moved […]
PERHAPS Chelsea’s season will be tougher than their 5-2 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers might have suggested. In a fortnight’s time, should Frank Lampard’s young team lose in the Eurostar city of Lille, they may get a chance to defend their Europa League crown. It’s surely premature to write Chelsea’s Champions League obit, but against Valencia […]
