It's always the way that we lose at the Bridge, and they lose at Anfield. That was again the case, although we needed extra time to finish them off. To be honest, we should have done it in normal time, but Robbie was having Ðone of those nights.Ž Absolutely nothing would go in for him, and it looked as though he could play until next week and not score. Thankfully it all worked out in the end. I absolutely fucking hate Chelsea. Recently, a reporter from the Times sent me an email asking me to name the three teams I hate the most and why (apparently they're conducting a nationwide survey to find the most disliked team in the land). The blueshite and mancs filled the top two spots (in that order), and Chelsea made it to third. The reasons are many. Firstly, their dictator of a chairman. The club suffers from serious delusions of grandeur and that stems from Master Bates himself. One league title in their history, they've always been a middle of the road club, and always will be. They sacked their most successful manager (five trophies in three seasons) because his record wasn't good enough for a club of Chelsea's Ðstanding in the game.Ž Since when?
Another thing to hate about Chelsea is the number of ÐcelebrityŽ fans. David ¿I used to support Fulham until Chelsea became trendyŽ Mellor has to be the worst, but Soccer AM's Tim Lovejoy also manages to get right on my tits. Then of course there's the players. Frank LeBoef is one of the most irritating, hateful footballers I've ever seen, and when you throw in Dennis Wise, Graeme Le Saux, Marcel Desailly, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Jody Morris & co, then you have a side that may actually even eclipse the mancs when it comes to spitefulness, cheating, moaning and general irritation.
They showed all of those qualities and more in this game, and it is a mystery how they ended the game with a full compliment of players. Desailly and Heskey don't get along, that is hardly a secret, but the provocation Emile suffered from the moment he entered the field of play was so bad the only surprise was that he never walked sooner. His tackle on Melchiot was awful, and few could have argued had Rob Harris given him a straight red card for that. Mind you, Wise went in two footed in the first half and never even received a talking to, but that's Rob Harris for you.
The reaction of the Chelsea players to every foul was comical, with Desailly and Hasselbaink in particular trying to referee the game themselves. It was quite funny to see our players clatter into one of them, and then stand there with arms raised in innocence. Heskey did it after flattening Melchiot, but even funnier was Henchoz, when he almost cut one of their players in half, but walked away from the ensuing melee with his hands up as if to say ¿It wasn't me guv.î The Chelsea players all came steaming over on the bounce, but Hamann actually got the blame and picked up a yellow card.
Still it doesn't take much to rattle the cages of Chelsea does it? They've been like that ever since they brought in all those French and Italian players, although Wise and Le Saux have always been aggravating little shits. But enough of that, what about our performance? Well despite the general opinion of the press, I thought we were excellent.
Chelsea were restricted to three chances in two hours of football. We created plenty ourselves, although we wasted most of them. We started off with a curious formation, which appeared to be 4-2-3-1. Berger and Hamann were in the centre, with Barmby, Smicer and Murphy all playing behind Fowler and interchanging positions. It worked well at first, but ultimately everyone seemed a bit confused and it wasn't until the introduction of Heskey that things really picked up. I was absolutely made up for Danny Murphy (who I thought had an excellent game), and when that goal went in I thought of those wankers who had been so abusive to him less than a week before against Liberec. It was a wonderful ball from Hamann, who was without doubt our star man on the night, and turned in a performance which was almost on a par with the one at Highbury last season.
Since half time in the derby, Hamann has been a different player. Maybe Gerard showed him my article from issue 13 in the dressing room at half time! Whatever it was, it seems to have done the trick, and full credit to Didi, he's certainly been producing the goods of late. Running him close for the star man award was Jamie Carragher, who was fantastic tonight. His tackling was ferocious, but fair, and his distribution was good. He even managed to hit a rasper of a shot that went just over at the Kop end. He looked sharp when he came on against the blueshite too, and I'm pleased for Carra, as he's another who tends to take a bit of stick from the crowd sometimes.
Fowler went close a couple of times, and Berger wasted a good chance as well, whilst all Chelsea had to show from the first half was one chance which Zola put away. They passed the ball around okay, but never threatened our defence, in which Sami Hyypia was majestic once more. The second half wasn't great, but we were the better side. Heskey's arrival livened things up, and Fowler must have wondered if he was ever going to score when he hit the post. Justice was done in the end though, when a typical Fowler finish found it's way into the bottom corner, and he set off on a 'maddie.' He even stopped for high fives with the manager and Phil Thompson, and the relief from everyone in the ground was obvious.
We knew it was only a matter of time before Robbie was back amongst the goals, but it was becoming a bit of a worry. At least that particular monkey is off his back now, and there's less pressure on him. As for the sending off, well frankly it was a joke. I don't blame Rob Harris, as he can only go on what his linesman told him, but how the hell could the linesman spot Emile's ÐkickŽ, yet miss the elbow by Bogarde? Chelsea set out to get Heskey sent off, and they achieved it. But the bottom line is we're in the next round, and they aren't.
TEAM: Pegguy Arphexad; Jamie Carragher, Stephane Henchoz, Sami Hyypia, Djimi Traore (Christian Ziege); Dietmar Hamann, Patrik Berger, Danny Murphy, Vladimir Smicer (Emile Heskey, Nick Barmby (Gary McAllister); Robbie Fowler:
