A perfect October harshly bid us goodbye for a not so welcoming month of November for Chelsea fans to remember. Over the course of our recent past, many of our bad patches of form began with November. A November to remember for our under performances, Di Matteo’s woes and Rafa’s arrival. Even, the great Ancelotti dreaded the sight of November. We wish that every month is October when everything we touch turns gold: we boot out Bucharest, witch-hunt Norwich, shackle Schalke, Nullify Arsenal and Cardiff? well, they parked wrongly at the Bridge after 10 minutes so we gave them a different Car (a 4×1 wheel drive). Forgive me of the unnecessary superstition which are only remembered in retrospect. “We just didn’t turn up” at St. James. That was all. Maybe Jose made “11 mistakes” in his selection of players or perhaps we should have won the toss of the coin prior to the match. Such is how easy it is to make a retrospective analysis and blame everything after things don’t go well. Jose’s response of “11 mistakes” in his post match interview was exactly to that effect.
The match had a poisonous physical atmosphere. It was as if the stage was set for us to lose at St. James after our great victory over City and the small matter at Emirates. We were billed to play in an early kickoff against a Newcastle side who had just come out from a defeat to a bitter rival at Tyne-side. They were suppose to put up a strong performance in front of their home fans to get things in shape. On that soggy pitch in an unwelcome weather to a good number of our players, victory for us was difficult to come by for a team which seemed to be complacent after a streak of great results. Newcastle gave us the initiative to kill them in the first half but we failed and I could only but yawn after the end of the first half. There was no sense of urgency and purpose and Mazascar experiment by Jose had failed big time. Maybe it is time to seriously think of Mazascar in November. Di Matteo can be the best judge of it.
THE REALITY OF THE EPL
The most exciting football league in the world doesn’t come by mere rhetoric. It is fully demonstrated when you find West Brom beating Manchester United at Old Trafford, Cardiff do their thing against Man City and West Ham hammer Spurs by 3 goals at White Hart Lane. If you ever thought we wouldn’t lose a game after beating City then begin to draw different analogy because the EPL is no respecter of logic. Losing to Newcastle away at St. James is far from losing at home to QPR. And that is exactly the kind of lose we hope it can’t happen under Jose at Stamford Bridge. And that is the reason why we can fully be sure that we will improve upon our 3rd position of last year. I saw a real excitement among rival fans who had gone quiet for long due to their own backyard problems and our recent winning streak. The almighty Chelsea had fallen and it was more than a victory they had longed for. The moment I saw rival fans had an astonishing celebration over our loss was way back in 2009/10 season under Carlo where we went on to win the league. That same sort of interest in our matches by opposing fans is building and I’m beginning to enjoy it. It gives me a good sense of nostalgia of our double winning season.
NOVEMBER CHAMPIONS
Arsenal fans nearly made me think the league ends November 2nd after their all-important- trophy-winning match against the strongest team in the league, Liverpool at Emirates Stadium. They have every reason to celebrate if you were just knocked out of your first chance to win a trophy match by Chelsea, thus limiting their options and margin of error to win trophies. If you know your team can hardly be crowned the title after the 38th match you should make the most out of it when you happen to find yourself in the potential winner’s seat.
The truth of the matter is that, no club wants to lose a match even if you are watching the DVD clip of our 2011 Champions League match against Napoli in Italy where we got thumbed by 3-1, even though you know we would turn the scoreline at home and go on to win the title in Munich. I know you still don’t feel okay when you watch Muller head in their 85th minute goal in the Champions League final even though you know Drogba will eventually respond later in equal but painful measure for us to clinch the title. Such is how difficult it is to watch your team lose or concede. However, that’s football and it is why we call it league, after the 38th fixture, all teams would have played against all teams and the true winner, not November winner, would have emerged.
KTBFFH!
