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10 01 2007 Wycombe Wanderers 1 Chelsea 1
The biggest shock about this result was that not too many Chelsea fans were surprised by it.
From the beginning Wycombe looked dangerous and Chelsea's defence was a shambles.
There are a few players at the club who seem to be meandering through the matches and relying on their teammates to
grind out a victory. Yet again, Ballack looked woeful. He bottled tackles, misplaced passes and wandered around the
pitch without a care in the world. Maybe he has extra stress outside the football pitch such as high house prices which
are not allowing him to concentrate on the game?
In any case, he was not the only one who underperformed. SWP should be annihilating teams like this on the wing, but
instead was tackled most of the time as usual. At the back, Ferreira and Geremi looked panicky and failed to clear the
ball on many occasions. I only noticed Mikel was playing thirty minutes into the game. What exactly does he do?
Now on to Dutch football. When are we going to learn that the majority of players in the Dutch League are crap? When
was the last time a Dutch team did anything good in a European cup? Kalou was hailed as a great up and coming striker
who regularly banged in 20 a season in Holland - that for me is like someone scoring 20 a season in the Scottish
Premier League - even Rod Wallace did it! The only decent imports over recent years have been Nistelrooy and
Robben.
On the positive side Wayne Bridge, Maka and Essien seemed to be the only ones who battled throughout the game and
gave a toss.
For Wycombe, I was very impressed with their big striker Tommy Mooney. He really rattled the defence and epitomised
their battling spirit.
Adams Park is located in the middle of nowhere. You drive through the country and suddenly come across an industrial
estate. The stadium is really badly positioned at the end of a street with no side roads. Car parks were overflowing so
we parked not too far away on a single yellow line - and of course I received a parking ticket to top the night off! It was
very strange to stand in the Chelsea end and in the background behind the stadium seeing nothing but pitch black bar
the occasional car driving up in the hills beyond.
Despite the doom and gloom I was glad to tick another stadium off the list. There is no doubt we will get to the final but
performances like this really make me wonder if we will catch Man Utd in the league as our "B" team seems to be very
poor. This is of course in contrast to Arsenal who played their youngsters at Anfield and annihilated Liverpool. When
there are matches like we had yesterday, I would prefer Jose to play a majority of youth and reserves who would battle
and fight rather than some of the overpaid players we had on the pitch yesterday. Of course, with so many first teamers
injured/suspended you can always make excuses - but not against a team three divisions below you!
Finally, I hope all this talk about Jose leaving is nonsense. If Kenyon has forced Jose to buy Ballack and Sheva just for
shirt sales then our manager has a good excuse to leave. If he did, I would not be surprised if many die hard fans called
this their last campaign as Chelsea season ticket holders... I know I would!
From the beginning Wycombe looked dangerous and Chelsea's defence was a shambles.
There are a few players at the club who seem to be meandering through the matches and relying on their teammates to
grind out a victory. Yet again, Ballack looked woeful. He bottled tackles, misplaced passes and wandered around the
pitch without a care in the world. Maybe he has extra stress outside the football pitch such as high house prices which
are not allowing him to concentrate on the game?
In any case, he was not the only one who underperformed. SWP should be annihilating teams like this on the wing, but
instead was tackled most of the time as usual. At the back, Ferreira and Geremi looked panicky and failed to clear the
ball on many occasions. I only noticed Mikel was playing thirty minutes into the game. What exactly does he do?
Now on to Dutch football. When are we going to learn that the majority of players in the Dutch League are crap? When
was the last time a Dutch team did anything good in a European cup? Kalou was hailed as a great up and coming striker
who regularly banged in 20 a season in Holland - that for me is like someone scoring 20 a season in the Scottish
Premier League - even Rod Wallace did it! The only decent imports over recent years have been Nistelrooy and
Robben.
On the positive side Wayne Bridge, Maka and Essien seemed to be the only ones who battled throughout the game and
gave a toss.
For Wycombe, I was very impressed with their big striker Tommy Mooney. He really rattled the defence and epitomised
their battling spirit.
Adams Park is located in the middle of nowhere. You drive through the country and suddenly come across an industrial
estate. The stadium is really badly positioned at the end of a street with no side roads. Car parks were overflowing so
we parked not too far away on a single yellow line - and of course I received a parking ticket to top the night off! It was
very strange to stand in the Chelsea end and in the background behind the stadium seeing nothing but pitch black bar
the occasional car driving up in the hills beyond.
Despite the doom and gloom I was glad to tick another stadium off the list. There is no doubt we will get to the final but
performances like this really make me wonder if we will catch Man Utd in the league as our "B" team seems to be very
poor. This is of course in contrast to Arsenal who played their youngsters at Anfield and annihilated Liverpool. When
there are matches like we had yesterday, I would prefer Jose to play a majority of youth and reserves who would battle
and fight rather than some of the overpaid players we had on the pitch yesterday. Of course, with so many first teamers
injured/suspended you can always make excuses - but not against a team three divisions below you!
Finally, I hope all this talk about Jose leaving is nonsense. If Kenyon has forced Jose to buy Ballack and Sheva just for
shirt sales then our manager has a good excuse to leave. If he did, I would not be surprised if many die hard fans called
this their last campaign as Chelsea season ticket holders... I know I would!
