It’s not often you see the world’s all-time greatest footballer loitering down at Chelsea’s training ground (Andy Myers left before we moved there, after all). Argentine legend Diego Maradona popped in to see the boys at Cobham this week, possibly keeping an eye on new signing Franco Di Santo, the latest of Maradona’s countrymen to be dubbed his heir apparent. Andriy Shevchenko apparently took some time off his busy golfing schedule to meet El Diego, which was jolly good of him.
Given the rather kind fifth round draw, one might wonder whether the ‘Hand of God’ played its part in pulling another decent tie for the Blues (the Hand of Butch Wilkins doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, I suppose). Huddersfield visit the Bridge as they did two years ago; Avram’s good fortune in cup draws continues. We’ll have to have a whip round for a decent suit for him if we get to the final though; the thought of a billion people across the globe clapping eyes on Man at C&A’s representative in SW6 is just too awful to contemplate.
The win up at Wigan rounded off a very good week for us; progress in another competition, seven wins out of seven in 2008 with a squad as threadbare as Grant’s wardrobe and the pitch at the JJB. The ‘Manager of the Month’ award is surely on its way to the boss as we speak, unless Kevin Keegan has bagged it for services to comedy. Dennis Wise has apparently agreed to join the Geordie messiah up at St. James’ Park – proof, were it ever needed, that our former midfield terrier was always one to take a joke just a touch too far.
Elsewhere, Ashley Cole has been endearing himself to the public once more with news of his quick fumble with a hairdresser from Morden. All very odd, this. Whilst Cole’s wife (the bouncer baiting one from Girls Aloud) might not be to everyone’s taste, I can’t help thinking that this takes Paul Newman’s timeless ‘why fool around with a hamburger when you can have steak at home?’ quote to burger from the van outside the Shed / fillet of Wagyu beef type extremes.
Cole reportedly gave the young lady what can best be described as a ‘pussy pizza’, pausing only for a swig of Listerene before climbing back on board to finish the job. News has followed that his ‘people’ (and we can only imagine what a shower of staggering cunts they must be) supposedly offered to ‘sort her out’ if she was pregnant as had been suggested. Mothercare vouchers and a baby shower presumably not on the agenda then. Classy, Ashley, very classy.
Peter Kenyon is surely disappointed with Cole’s behaviour. In terms of headlines and global brand building it would have been preferable if our second choice left-back had been caught ‘in flagrante’ with a higher profile strumpet, rather than a pasty cut and blow dry (avoiding the obvious gag here) artist from a suburb of South London which, should our fair city ever require an enema, would serve as a good place to insert the tube.
The whole sorry saga does rather drive a stake through the heart of romantics everywhere. The trollop in question is unsurprisingly milking her fifteen minutes, clearly masking her disappointment that she didn’t get invited to Rio Ferdinand’s annual Manchester United Yuletide Sexual Assault-a-thon, while Cole is surely now up there with David Mellor in the “Great Chelsea Seducer” stakes. Sadly, it’s all a long way from Raquel Welch blowing kisses at Peter Osgood from the touchline.
On a serious note, one would hope that someone is kicking Cole’s feckless arse around Cobham, issuing some stern instructions to sort his vacuous little life out. Having spent much of his Chelsea career in the ‘6 out of 10, could do better’ bracket, he should be made aware that whilst behaving like a twat can be temporarily forgotten if you’re delivering on the pitch, any more mediocrity and tabloid headlines would mean a spell in the reserves and a chat with that nice man Mr. Keegan, who is currently looking for defenders to roam Bigg Market of a Saturday evening.
And so to Wednesday night’s meeting with Reading. Lampard and Drogba scored the goals that sealed the win in the corresponding fixture at the Madejski Stadium back in August; neither will be available for the fixture at Stamford Bridge so we hope that Nicolas Anelka carries on where he left off against Wigan. Terry and Shevchenko are still absent through injury, while new signing Branislav Ivanovic is likely to continue his pursuit of match fitness for a little while yet.
Reading will probably bring ambitious career footballer Dave Kitson (whose lofty goal of maintaining Premiership wages will surely be something to tell his grandchildren about; an example to those fools at Havant and Waterlooville who took the FA Cup seriously) and violent, slack-jawed piece of filth Stephen Hunt, who will be verbally abused from all corners of the ground and hopefully, physically abused on the pitch. Those nice chaps at BBC online provide a proper facts ‘n’ stats type preview on the day which is always worth a browse. I mean, you don’t really come here for all that nonsense, do you?
