Sound Of Football Podcast 14

This week, we offer an alternative to our usual format. This is due to a technical problem that wiped out all of Terry's track and rendered the original podcast useless.

Instead. Chris Oakley has gone it alone this morning to talk about Manchester United v Chelsea, the FA Cup and World Cup qualifiers.

We'll be back to normal service next week. In the meantime we hope you enjoy this light but tasty morsel.

You can listen by clicking here. Or if you right click on that link, you can download the MP3. Alternatively, you can subscribe via the your reader of choice or via our iTunes feed.

The Friday List of Little or No Consequence #122

Wot no 'Special One'?
16 People That Featured In The 2008 Chelsea FC Version Of The Board Game 'Monopoly'

1. Steve Clarke (Old Kent Road)
2. Marcel Desailly (Whitechapel Road)
3. Peter Bonetti (Euston Road)
4. Petr Cech (Pentonville Road)
5. Ashley Cole (Whitehall)
6. Nicolas Anelka (Marlborough Street)
7. Joe Cole (Vine Street)
8. Didier Drogba (Strand)
9. Michael Ballack (Trafalgar Square)
10. Gianluca Vialli (Leicester Square)
11. Ron 'Chopper' Harris (Coventry Street)
12. Frank Lampard (Regent Street)
13. Peter Osgood (Oxford Street)
14. Gianfranco Zola (Bond Street)
15. John Terry (Park Lane)
16. Luiz Felipe Scolari (Mayfair)

Equivalent spaces for the UK Standard edition shown in brackets. Any Chelsea personnel you think should have been included, and if so, on which space? Leave us a comment and let us know...

Chelsea sack Scolari

And yay, in years henceforth, they will arrive upon this day and know their fate may fall into the lap of the gods. It shall be known as The Day of the Damned and those who believeth they are immune will be punished verily.

Or something.

Yes, no sooner had we consigned Tony Adams to a future selling hamburgers of dubious meat content from a van outside the Emirates Stadium than another Premier League manager was shown the door this afternoon.

Luis Felipe Scolari was the first and so far only World Cup-winning manager to ply his trade in the Premier League, but he might be the last for a while if other members of that elite band see what a narrow margin for success you have to operate in.

The affable Brazilian was, it's true, going through a sticky patch with Chelsea prior to his expulsion. Quite whether the patch was severe enough to cause his expulsion is open to much debate. In a snap poll on the BBC Sport website, 69% of people said Chelsea were wrong to dismiss Scolari and you can't help but feeling that the other 31% must have been hard-nosed businessmen and women with the phrase 'time is money' tattooed on their foreheads.

Somewhat scanadlously, Scolari's reign as Chelsea coach lasted just 223 days. During that time, he lost Steve Clarke as his coaching assistant, the club's 86-game unbeaten run at home and the opportunity to sign Robinho. Though these three are listed in order of most to least importance, it does highlight some of Scolari's less happier moments at Stamford Bridge.

Much has also been made of the fact that Chelsea's form against the other three members of 'the big four' was not good, but to be fair Scolari's side have just drawn too many games that perhaps they should have won. At any other club outside the top four, that wouldn't have been signalled an all-out crisis, but Chelsea are very much a top four club with ambitions to be the top club. Mr. Abramovich, it seems, wants that to become reality rather more quickly than the manager he appointed last June.

It's a shame really. Some people say he didn't have the ability to guide a club team through its day-to-day existence as opposed to an international team manager who can do a bit of work here and there on the odd day once in a while, but that doesn't hold much water. Some say Scolari didn't have the tactical awareness to adapt the team to cope with all situations. As the former coach of a World Cup winning team, you'd have to discount that theory too.

No, what Scolari lacked was time - pure and simple. As a club bank-rolled by one of the richest men in the world, it's utterly scandalous that the possibility of finishing as low as fourth in this season's Premier League was out of the question. All coaches and managers need time to mould a winning team and even if Chelsea had missed out on next season's Champions League and all the financial benefits it brings, that would have only been a short-term inconvenience.

Luis Felipe Scolari had the potential to set up a truly great Chelsea squad, but the club couldn't be bothered to wait for it to bear fruit. And here endeth the lesson: whoever does come in to replaceth him as their manager must maketh success almost quickly as the special one turned water into wine.

Now there was someone who could turn miracles into reality...

Obscure Kits From British Football History #9

Chelsea (away)
1978 - 1981

You'll have gathered by now that SPAOTP are big fans of ITV4's brilliant retrospective of vintage football, The Big Match Revisited. The series showing hour-long re-runs of football action from the 1978/79 season is a joy to behold for anyone that yearns for a more innocent time before rampant commercialisation took over.

This week's show featured a First Division clash between Manchester City and Chelsea at Maine Road dated January 22nd 1979, and it's from here that we get the latest in our Obscure Kit series.

With Manchester City playing in all-Sky Blue, Chelsea (managed by Danny Blanchflower) couldn't possibly enter the field of play wearing their traditional Royal Blue shirts for fear of a colour clash. It was therefore time to wheel out the change strip, and even by the rich and varied history of all Chelsea'a change strips, this one was a bit peculiar.

When playing away from home, Chelsea have worn various colour combinations down the years - white and blue, red and white, even yellow and blue, but between 1978 and 1981, Chelsea opted for the rarely seen combo of yellow and green.

A quick check of my True Colours book by John Devlin tells me that ostensibly this was an all-yellow kit with green trim, but on certain isolated occasions (such as the aforementioned match against Man City) green shorts would be worn to create a distinctly 'Norwichesque' ensemble.

Chelsea's kit at the time was made by Umbro and featured their familiar styling du jour, namely the famous diamond logo running liberally along the sleeves, shorts and stocking tops. It was a device they used to great effect on their blue and white home kit back then, but when their yellow away kit was originally launched in 1977/78, it featured blue trim, not green.

Obviously someone in the Marketing department decided to change things around to give the team a more Brazilian feel for the following year, but it didn't do them much good - they were relegated at the end of the 78/79 season and promptly stayed in Division Two for five long seasons.

Oh well, at least they'd make up for that with interest a decade or two later. And as for that yellow and green kit, we've still got the photographic evidence to remind us of a time when Micky Droy et al looked ever so slightly Brazilian. Or like a member of Norwich City's reserve team - one or the other.

Premier League Kit Parade (Part 1)

This time last year, SPAOTP brought you pictures of some of the new shirts being released for public purchase by each of the Premier League clubs, and we asked you to tell us what you thought of them.

This year, we've back again for more of the same and we've got even more new designs to show you, so let's crack on and see what the twenty clubs of the Premier League will be wearing this season. In Part 1, we begin with...

Arsenal
...and the first thing you notice about their new home and away shirts is that they're strangely familiar - particularly the away one.

Nike have this time come up with another of those 'controversial' Arsenal home shirts where the sleeves aren't predominantly white as we're all used to seeing - a bit like the first one they produced for The Gunners back in 1994 - but that navy blue stripe resonates with their 2000-2002 kit as well.

As for the yellow change shirt, that can only bring back memories of one thing - the exciting climax to Arsenal's 1988/89 season in which they beat Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield to clinch the title.

It's the classic combination - yellow with navy blue sleeves, and it's bound to prove a big hit with the Arsenal fans, purely for nostalgia value alone. A good pair of shirts from Nike, we think, and a slight improvement on last season.

Aston Villa
Once again, we have a couple of offerings from Nike, but this time we're left with a slight feeling of disappointment.

Oh don't get us wrong - both the home and away shirts are nice and smart and no doubt well made, but they lack any sense of excitement or specific interest. Perhaps Nike went for the traditional look - something non-flashy and respectable?

Either way, the home shirt isn't vastly different from the one Villa wore last season, while the Summer Blue away shirt contrasts nicely with the previous white one. The thing is, we like Aston Villa's white away shirts so even that isn't scoring big points with us.

All in all then, a couple of safe shirts design-wise from Nike but if this were a school report we'd now be scribbling down the immortal phrase 'could do better...'

Blackburn Rovers
The first of six Umbro offerings here, and already there's one thing to note - the new Blackburn away shirt is already available to buy via their club website, but the home shirt isn't. You'll therefore have to make do with a picture of David Dunn wearing it for the time being.

So let's begin with that home shirt. Once again, the pendulum that is the eternal debate about whether the kit should have red trim swings back in the direction of 'No'. In many ways, that makes this shirt smarter and more refined - OK, we're tempted to say it's potentially less interesting to look at, but we think it's nicely styled, actually.

And then there's the away shirt. Now this is more like it... We're big fans of this one as it's that classic 'feature stripe' design that comes back in vogue every so often. This one's well executed with a white and royal blue stripe going down the middle on a navy blue background, but a technical point here - shouldn't an away shirt be coloured in such a way that it contrasts significantly with the home shirt? Discuss...

Bolton Wanderers
Now here's where we enter the realms of the surreal and the slightly comedic...

As you can see, Bolton's new shirts for home and away have what you might call a 'unique design element' - a strange dark-coloured thing that goes around the neck, over the shoulders and under the arms.

Seen from a distance and from certain angles, it looks like any player wearing one has got a rucksack strapped on his back. Suffice to say we fear for any replica shirt-wearing Bolton fan that has to catch a Tube train home from an away match in London this season.

While we're all in favour of creative design and a fresh approach, we think this is a step too far on the part of Reebok. We're also tempted to say that this is the sort of kit that you'll either love or hate, but to be honest it's more likely to just make you laugh more than anything. We'd like to be persuaded otherwise, though, so if you're a fan of Reebok's latest, leave us a comment and tell us why...

Chelsea
Somewhat typically from one of the 'Big Four', we have not two but three new shirts for the coming season, all of which are once again brought to us by Adidas.

Seen side by side in this manner, you'd first have to say there's an element of the 'template kit' about this (not that Adidas are any strangers to the art of designing template kits) but there is at least some difference in all three shirts as can be seen by (a) their colours, and (b) their collars.

Yes, it's another example of that 'let's keep it simple' mentality which you can't really knock but at the same time it doesn't really set the pulse racing either. We think the first point on the agenda when Chelsea met up with Adidas this summer was 'Get rid of that fluorescent yellow aberration from last season', and that they've duly done. It's been replaced with an old-fashioned (for Chelsea) warm yellow and blue edition which is much more pleasing on the eye, although it'll probably end up selling fewer units than the black one.

Still, all three look good to us and they're probably already flying out of the Chelsea club shop as we speak. So what are your thoughts on the new Chelsea shirts, or indeed any of the shirts mentioned above? Which would you be happy to keep as a memento for your future grandchildren and which would you happily set fire to in a frantic fit of pyromania?

Leave us a comment and tell us - we'd love to know your opinions. Meantime, look out for Part 2 heading your way shortly as it features Everton, Fulham, Hull, Liverpool and Man City...

Kaka to sign for Blues?

AC Milan's Vice-President has reported that Chelsea have made an 'astronomical' bid for playmaker Kaka. According to reports, the Italian side would be wanting a fee in the region of £50 million for the Brazilian star and with former national coach Luiz Felipe Scolari getting the backing from Roman Abramovich to begin a super-sized Summer spending spree coupled with any possible transfer going a long way to wiping out the Rossonieri's debts, a deal would appear to suit both parties.

If Kaka does sign for the club, he'll arguably become the biggest star ever to sign for Chelsea but what's the betting the club is being forced into paying far too much money for players - in other words, are their valuations inflated purely because the Blues come a'knocking?

For the Brazilian star himself, I would rush to deny this as for me he is one of the game's true greats at the moment and is playing at his peak right now. Let's face it - there is no way right now that Chelsea (or any other English cub) could ever prize Ronaldo away from Old Trafford if the club themselves had anything to do with it and I highly doubt that the player himself would be willing to move to another Premiership side, this is one reason why betting on United to retain their title is so strong right now.

Lionel Messi is a great player but the same can be said about his chances of making a switch right now in his career, Barcelona have already stated that it would take an offer in the region of £80 million for them even to consider a transfer. After spending much of his early life in the Catalan region it is unlikely that the player would want to leave Barca so early in his career either.

There are other players who could be named such as Torres or Gerrard, players which are highly sought after but becoming increasingly difficult to sign. Perhaps Kaka is a rare breed, a player who is close to his peak and available – if the price is right.

Galliano himself has spoken out about the transfers of both Kaka and Andrea Pirlo stating that "all we would need to do in order to wipe out our debts is sell Kaka and Pirlo". This could be mind games for the Blues as they search seemingly to create the most potent midfield quartet in world football after signing Deco shortly after this summer's European Championships. On the other hand it could be an untimely slip of the tongue from Milan's Vice President and the catalyst for Chelsea to move in and make an offer the Rossonieri - to quote the Godfather - 'could not refuse'.

If The Pensioners do entice the 26-year-old to the club it could also trigger moves for other potential transfer targets in David Villa and David Silva such is Kaka's value to these forward players. To have the Brazilian delivering delightful ball after sumptuous pass must be as appetising as a cold pint on a hot Summers day - not that we get many of those in Blighty!

Chelsea fans themselves must be licking their lips at the thought of seeing potentially an attacking line consisting of Silva, Kaka, Deco, Essien, Ballack and Villa, not to mention Joe Cole, Shaun Wright-Philips, Kalou and, if still there in August, Frank Lampard. Nor too must those against Chelsea want to see the likes of those mentioned above flowing forward towards the opponent's goal.

What is certain (if you believe everything you read in the paper) is that this season's Premier League campaign looks set to include an array of talent never seen before on these shores. Seems like we say that every year...

Phil your boots, Scolari

Well, it seems to be happening again. As soon as Chelsea appointed Felipe Scolari as their new manager than the rumours of their Summer spending began and there have been a number of 'headline hunters' that are well and truly in Scolari's sights.

Scolari has wasted no time in ruffling feathers with one of his biggest rivals next season - Sir Alex Ferguson - after apparently telling Cristiano Ronaldo that he should move to Real Madrid. No doubt this has earned him massive kudos with the Chelsea faithful and proven early on that he won't be showing any respect to Ferguson purely down to the Scot's stature in the English game.

When not dashing any future positive relationship with the Manchester United manager, Scolari looks as though he has already begun the chase for his inaugural Summer signing with current Barcelona midfielder Deco seemingly destined for The Bridge in July.

Officials at Barca have claimed that the former Porto player will not be moving to West London this Summer but the BBC's Mike Sewell - their man in the Portugal camp for this month's European Championships - believes that many are tipping the player to make the move to Chelsea.

Sewell told the BBC that his contacts "believe Deco will go with Scolari rather than join up with old boss Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan". This follows a statement from Barcelona telling prospective buyers that Deco was free to leave the Catalan club.

Deco chose to join Barcelona four years ago ahead of the Blues but it looks as though Chelsea's climb to a Champions League Final coupled with an injury-hit season for the midfielder has boosted their chances of capturing his signature this time.

The next big name linked to Scolari's Blues is the ever prolific Fernando Torres and if Chelsea were to pull off such a coo the betting on Chelsea for next season's title would go through the roof.

Okay, so I could have picked a different photo for this one but hey, artistic license and all that.

The striker has been linked with a move to SW6 for a number of years but following Liverpool's successful bid to land the youngster last Summer, any chance of signing the Spaniard appeared to have been lost for The Blues but with a seemingly bottomless transfer kitty being put forward for Scolari, a new bid is likely - not that Liverpool are going to be willing to sell their star asset.

After a truly staggering first season in England (totalling 33 goals) it's no doubt that he is once again linked with The Blues and it's highly unlikely that other teams aren't sniffing around but the player himself and Liverpool Chief Executive Rick Parry have made it very clear that it's in both their interests for the player to stay on Merseyside.

Parry told a press conference that "Fernando Torres is just not for sale to anyone. It is as simple as that, really - he is not going anywhere", and after a brilliant display against Russia in Spain's opening match of Euro 2008 which has led to many people placing bets on Spain to lift the trophy at the end of this month, Torres spoke out on the interest saying that "I want to say very clearly that I'm not on the market and it is my desire to continue at Liverpool."

"I am very happy at Liverpool and want to carry on."

It seems unlikely that Torres will be moving anywhere anytime soon but another player, and arguably the biggest name of the three, is appearing as a player which Scolari - and every Chelsea fan - will focus much of his attention upon come July.

Kaka is seen as the missing piece in the puzzle for Chelsea as their search for the Champions League title continues and with both Scolari and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich keen on the player, much of the transfer budget is likely to be set aside on bringing one of world football's greatest talents to Stamford Bridge.

Leonardo, Milan's Technical Director who, like Kaka, played under Scolari during his playing days with Brazil has come forward to deny any rumour before they can gather momentum.

He stated that Kaka is a Milan player and will remain that way until the end of his career but with the player smack-bang in the middle of his peak, the Blues are set to offer a massive sum for the attacker which could force Milan's hand.

One thing which is for sure is that no matter what happens this Summer it's almost inevitable that Chelsea will be spending figures not seen since Abramovich's takeover of 2003.

Play the game, Chelsea...

I'm sorry, Avram Grant, but you had it coming to you.

You may have taken Chelsea to the Carling Cup Final, you may have helped Chelsea to finish second in the 2007/08 Premier League (just two points behind champions Man United), you may have steered Chelsea to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup and the Final of the Champions League, (losing out only penalties), but if you thought that was the sort of standard that would cut the mustard in this modern era, you were seriously mistaken.

Frankly you deserve to have your contract terminated so you can go off and gain employment elsewhere... like a club that appreciates your efforts and is only too pleased to achieve one of the above, let alone all four.

Good luck, Avram - we hope you go onto bigger and better things than Chelsea Football Club.

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 12

Yet another long-running feature reaches its conclusion now at SPAOTP.com as we play our final round of Champions League You Bet.

Let's be honest - we've not done terribly well since we've started. Any hopes we had of making a fortune for our chosen charity have been sadly dashed, but before we try one last time to recoup a little cash for Little League Football, let's remind ourselves that one of the three options in Week 11 would have come up trumps if enough people had voted for it. That should give you enough incentive to think long and hard on this last occasion before selecting the bet you want us to choose this week.

And of course this Wednesday sees the Final of the 2007/2008 Champions League between Chelsea and Manchester United, so it's an extra-special occasion in more ways than one. To add a bit of spice to the proceedings, we've decided to give you not three but five bets to choose from and here they are in all their glory...

Bet A
Three goals scored in the match (not including Extra Time)
Potential winnings: £3.60

Bet B
Cristiano Ronaldo to score first
Potential winnings: £4.50

Bet C
Five minutes of injury time to be played (not including Extra Time)
Potential winnings: £8.00

Bet D
Manchester United to win in Extra Time
Potential winnings: £11.00

Bet E
Chelsea to win 2-0
Potential winnings: £15.00

The choice, as ever, is yours so tell us which one you think we should bet our final £1 stake on and if your opinion coincides with the majority of all those taking part, we will do...

VOTING ON THIS WEEK'S 'YOU BET' HAS NOW CLOSED.
For tonight's Final, the majority of you feel we should bet on Cristiano Ronaldo scoring first. That was Bet B which got 33% of your vote, so keep those fingers crossed, sit back and cheer on your most*/least* favourite Portuguese starlet. You never know - he might just win us some money...

The Final Curtain

Well that just about wraps it up for another Premier League season. Amazing to think how quickly time passes, isn't it? It seems like only yesterday the season was just beginning...

Anyway, congratulations to Manchester United, the new champions and to my mind the right ones given the standard of the opposition. Had Chelsea claimed the title today, I doubt it would have sat right with many fans of the Premier League. I say that only because Chelsea have barely been at the front of the title race all season and have limped along in third or fourth place for much of the time. Man United, for all their poor phases this season, have always been there or thereabouts like Arsenal were until they capitulated so dramatically when it mattered most.

That said, Chelsea did an amazing job pushing United all the way to the bitter end. Today's result has little or no significance to me today given the fact Alex Ferguson's men were such strong favourites to see off Wigan. Bolton earned a creditable draw, but it was all a fait accompli anyway. The FA in their wisdom elected to take the real Premier League trophy to the Man United match today (rather than the copy which went to Chelsea) and with some justification too. United proved again they have the pedigree to make a sustained challenge for the trophy over 38 games, so the title must be theirs.

At the other end of the table, an eventful afternoon saw Fulham and Bolton Wanderers keep their place in the Premier League at the expense of Birmingham City and Reading who are relegated to The Championship.

As I may have said before, I tend to feel that Fulham are perpetually one of those sides that seem to achieve little, perhaps flirt with relegation but ultimately retain their place every season and for that reason I wouldn't have batted an eyelid if they'd been relegated today. The thing is Roy Hodgson looks like a genuinely nice bloke who deserves great credit for all he's done thus far in his career. I want to see if he can turn Fulham around and make them more of a force to be reckoned with, and thanks to today's 1-0 win over Portsmouth, it looks like he'll get the chance to do so.

As for Reading, I have some sympathy with them. I think they've done pretty well since arriving in the Premier League and have played some exciting football at times, but they've gone steadily stale over the course of this season and as we all know, when the rot sets in the result can be fatal.

Birmingham have been brave in their approach this season, looking capable of putting up a decent fight with most of the teams in the bottom half of the table, but they too have seen their challenge run out of gas when they needed it most. Alex McLeish's arrival in November may have given the club a belief that better things were around the corner, but sadly it didn't quite turn out that way. Whether McLeish is still their manager by the time they return to the Premier League remains to be seen.

So that's it - the final curtain has fallen on the 2007/08 season, but fear not - we still have some things to discuss on this campaign before we can draw a line under this whole sorry affair, and we'll be tying up all those loose conversational ends over the coming week or so.

SPAOTP's Road to Wembley: FA Cup Quarter Finals

If you're a Barnsley supporter, today will see you experiencing distinct emotional highs and lows. On the one hand, you'll see your team have an all-too-rare prestige outing in the FA Cup Quarter Finals against Chelsea, yet on the other hand you'll see them get beaten thanks to the 'SPAOTP Road To Wembley Jinx' (Copyright 2007).

Yes, thanks to us, more teams have gone crashing out of the FA Cup without good reason than ever before, and the last round was no different. You'll remember our featured team was Liverpool, no less, as they faced a Barnsley team at Anfield that everyone thought would be the proverbial lambs heading for the slaughter.

How they overlooked SPAOTP's ability to scupper the team we follow on any given FA Cup weekend. Yes, Barnsley are the team we're with this weekend and what a match it'll be for them today. Chelsea will be huge favourites to win, of course, but The Tykes have put together a good run in the Cup this season.

Already falling foul of Simon Davey's men are Blackpool (knocked out in Round 3 by two goals to one), Southend (losing 1-0 on their own ground) and of course Rafa's Reds who lost by the odd goal in three a few week's ago.

So, are Barnsley a force to be reckoned with in the League too? Well so far, not really. They're currently 16th of the 24 teams in The Championship and haven't won a league match since February 9th. It's one of only two wins they've had since December 4th 2007 and they now run the very real risk of dropping to 21st in the table if the next five teams below them were all to win today.

All very strange, then, that they should be capable of beating Liverpool, but that shows the power of the FA Cup to make even the smallest teams punch above their weight. And who do they have in their squad that could make their mark today?

Well their top scorer so far in 2007/08 is Brian Howard, formerly of Swindon Town, who's so far bagged 10 goals in the league and one in the Cup - the decisive second against Liverpool. Then there's Hungarian Istvan Ferenczi and Jonathan Macken, twice voted Preston's Player of the Year. They've both scored five each in total this season and are as likely as anyone to get on the scoresheet today.

So historically speaking, can Barnsley do it today? Well they've not gone beyond the Third Round in the last few seasons, but Barnsley did knock Chelsea out at the Third Round stage back in 1989. The Barnsley side then featured John Beresford who later went on to gain a higher profile at Newcastle United and were managed by Leeds United legend Allan Clarke. The Chelsea side weren't bad either, putting out a line-up featuring Kerry Dixon, Gordon Durie and Graham Roberts. OK, so they weren't a patch on Roman Abramovich's band of international all-stars, but they were no pushovers either.

All in all, we're inclined to think the win will go to Chelsea today, but only with our logical heads on. If we used our hearts instead, we'd have to go for the romantic upset that SPAOTP have caused on more than one occasion in the FA Cup this season. We say 'Go Barnsley' - show the Blues how to do it! There's a place waiting in a Wembley semi-final if you do...

The Premier League percentage game

Isn't it amazing how the three-horse-race in this season's Premier League has shown Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United to be equally as fallible? Very rarely have any of them got together a long run of wins to get them ahead of the chasing pack. What we see at the moment is Arsenal at the top of the table on 65 points, Man United a point behind on 64 with Chelsea in third on 58 points but with a game in hand on the other two.

So with all three teams dropping points with some regularity, is there any way to tell which will prevail in the battle to win the Premier League? Hopefully there is thanks to a nifty little graph we've created which shows the form of all three clubs on a month-to-month basis since the start of the season.

What we've done is calculate how many of the available points Arsenal, Chelsea and Man United collected for each month since the season started last August and shown the figures as percentages on our graph. So for instance, if during September Arsenal won three games and lost one, that would mean they picked up 9 points from a possible 12 which in turn means Arsenal picked up 75% of the available points for that month… clear? Good.

So here's the graph and the main thing to note is that the red line represents Arsenal, the white line represents Man United and the blue is for Chelsea (naturally).



(click image for bigger version)

And while you're looking at that, let's track how the three teams did throughout each month.

August 2007
Man United's start to the season was a pretty poor one by their standards. Only one win in their first four games, along with a defeat away to near neighbours Man City, left them with a success rate of only 41.7%. Chelsea, meanwhile, won three out of four of their games with only Liverpool stopping them from winning in a 1-1 draw at Anfield. Arsenal played three games, two of which were wins - the other being a draw away to Blackburn.

September 2007
A much better month for Man United. Following their only August win at home to Tottenham, they won all four of their matches in September including a 2-0 victory of Chelsea at Old Trafford. Arsenal also won four out of four, of which two were against London neighbours Spurs and West Ham. Chelsea, however, had an absolute shocker of a month. Only two points from a possible twelve left them with a success rating of only 16.7%, causing Jose Mourinho to leave the Stamford Bridge club.

October 2007
Man United's amazing run of wins in September extended right through to the end of October as well. They scored four goals in all three of their games against Wigan, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough leaving them level with Arsenal on points and goal difference at the end of the month. Arsenal's lead at the top of the table was wiped out when they dropped their only points in October in a 1-1 draw against Liverpool. Chelsea, however, were doing much better under new manager Avram Grant. They won three out of three including a 6-0 win over Manchester City.

November 2007
Chelsea and Arsenal kept their campaigns ticking along as both teams won two games and drew one, giving them a success rating of 77.8%. For Man United, however, November saw a return to the poor form of August. After a hard-fought 2-2 draw against Arsenal, they earned a 2-0 home win over Blackburn before a shock defeat to Bolton left them three points behind Arsenal in the title race again.

December 2007
A busy month for all teams, particularly Arsenal who had a game in hand to fit in along with the six matches already scheduled for the festive season. It was in fact Manchester United who came through it best, though, winning five consecutive games before ending the year with a surprise 2-1 defeat to West Ham. Arsenal won four and drew two of their seven ties, losing only to Middlesbrough, but Chelsea lost further ground in the chase for the title despite losing only one of their six games in December against fellow challengers Arsenal.

January 2008
The new year saw excellent form on the part of all three teams, especially Man United and Chelsea who had a 100% record after their four games. Arsenal managed to win three and draw one during January, Birmingham being the only team to take points from The Gunners all month. Once again, Arsenal's slight slip allowed Manchester United to draw level with them on points, but this time United topped the table due to a superior goal difference.

February 2008
Having clawed their way back to within four points of the leaders, Chelsea saw all their hard work undone during February. Admittedly they played only twice last month, but both games ended in draws at the hands of Liverpool and Portsmouth. Arsenal pulled away from Man United at the top of the table once again thanks to two wins and yet another draw against Birmingham, but Sir Alex Ferguson's men had to endure their third bad patch of the season. A second defeat to Man City and a draw at Tottenham was only offset by another convincing win against Newcastle.

…and that brings us almost up to date. There has, of course, been one match so far this month and that resulted in Arsenal's three point lead over United being reduced to one, but look at the graph. Notice how Arsenal's line is much straighter than Man United's which has a distinctly alpine look. Does that suggest The Gunners are much more consistent and therefore more likely to win the title come May? Can Chelsea make their game in hand count and mount a decent challenge of their own?

Your thoughts, as ever, will be interesting to hear…

Drogba in shock South American move?

Guest writer: James Ellis

Didier Drogba reportedly wants out of the Chelski revolution, seeking new horizons abroad. It’s no surprise, an inevitable consequence of Mourinho’s departure.

In line with the Ivory Coast hit man's diving antics on the pitch, his comments off it are equally over-dramatic: "I want to get back to playing with butterflies in my stomach for a club who make me dream" states Didier, adding "there aren't 50 clubs who could stimulate this sort of passion, just four: AC Milan, Inter, Barça and Real." Or in other words, a club that can match the astronomical wage he is currently drawing from the Bank of Abramovich.

However, I believe Mr Drogba would be much more at home playing in the Peruvian league. The team below are just as ambitious as Europe’s leading clubs and will certainly match his personality.



What's your reaction to the news that Didier Drogba could be leaving Chelsea? Has he been a loyal servant who's justified in wanting to leave, or is he just another money-chasing international superstar? Let us know your thoughts by leaving us a comment.

For now, we thank James for his article and if you'd like to write one for us like he did, drop us a line to the usual address - write4us[at]spaotp[dot]com.

Blackburn in Europe - the biggest turn-off of all?

The people behind the scenes at Chelsea have obviously been getting a little concerned of late. After The Blues' first Champions League game of the season attracted a crowd of 'only' 24,973, the powers that be have decided to lower the price of the cheapest Champions League tickets from £45 to £36.

With seats to fill, the priority is obviously to maximise revenue but to say there's a crisis going on is to miss the point. Chelsea's match against Rosenborg was the first European home tie of the season and the opposition was, with all due respect, not the kind to make fans queue up round the block for 48 hours in advance demanding a ticket.

Yes, the price of the cheapest tickets was rather high, but that has been addressed now and I for one wouldn't be surprised to see considerably more of the 40,055 seats filled for the next game.

Chelsea at least managed to fill over half of their stadium for that match against the Norwegians recently. If you're looking for a more serious situation than that, turn your attention towards Blackburn Rovers.

In the Premier League last season, Blackburn's Ewood Park stadium was, on average, filled to only 68% of its 31,154 capacity - the lowest of all clubs in the top flight. That works out at an average home attendance of 21,271, but if you take the average from all Blackburn's UEFA Cup ties played at home last year, the figure drops to 17,592.

It will perhaps come as no surprise to learn that the cost of the cheapest ticket at Blackburn for their upcoming home tie against Larissa on October 4th will be just £10. The question is, will it tempt the fans to go along and support their team as they embark on another exciting European campaign?

If last night's Carling Cup match against Birmingham - watched by just 9,205 - is anything to go by, I'd say perhaps not.

It's therefore unfair to point to the empty seats at Chelsea in their match against Rosenborg claiming a crisis is unfolding. For a real crisis, head up the M6 and look for the Blackburn turn-off.

Wanted: Head Coach, Chelsea FC...

Life is full of little surprises, to say nothing of big ones. Like many of you (at least those of you living in the UK), I woke this morning to hear that Jose Mourinho had parted company with Chelsea Football Club. Not something I was expecting, but then neither were most level-headed, sane football fans.

The reason why 'The Chosen One' (hereafter to be known as 'The Unemployed One') left Chelsea is still unclear, but give it about a month or so and you should find all the details being splashed across the sports pages of your favourite daily newspaper. One thing you can be sure of with Mourinho is that he doesn't keep his mouth closed for long.

In the meantime, where does all this leave us, the shell-shocked followers of Premier League football? Well my first thoughts surround who Chelsea are going to recruit as a replacement.

Various names are already being bandied around as you'd expect, one of which, rather bewilderingly, is Jurgen Klinsmann. Don't get me wrong - he did a good job of guiding the German national team to third place in the last World Cup, but he has no experience of coaching at club level which, to be fair, is a completely different thing altogether.

Next up, you have to ask yourself how quickly Chelsea will snap up their new manager. Though Roman Abramovich's millions and Mourinho's know-how quickly helped The Blues win much in the way of silverware, it has to be said that recently their fortunes have started to whither.

Last season saw no Premier League title retained and no success in Europe while this season has started in, let's say, 'unspectacular' fashion. Mourinho's departure has now brought that slide firmly into focus and as a club which has generated millions of pounds in revenue around the world in recent years, Abramovich will be more than well aware that time is of the essence.

And then finally there's Mourinho himself. In a strange sort of way, I shall miss him. Yes, he could act like tempestuous teenager with an attitude problem at times, but he also had that very rare quality amongst Premier League managers these days - persona.

Back in the days when I was growing up, strong personalities could be found at the head of many top-flight football clubs. Brian Clough, Don Revie, Bill Shankly, Tommy Docherty… they could all be guaranteed to liven the game up a bit with their strong opinions and stronger will to succeed. And who are we left with now that Mourinho's gone? Arsene Wenger. I know… depressing, isn't it?

Yes, the world of football will be a less interesting place while we wait for Jose Mourinho to take up his next managerial assignment. One thing's for certain, though - he'll be much in demand from now on, particularly among the other multi-millionaires running some of the world's best football clubs.

STOP PRESS... Since this article was written, Chelsea have appointed their Director of Football, Avram Grant as permanent replacement for José Mourinho.

No way, Jose

The surprise news of the day has to be the departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea last night?

We all know about Mourinho's record - joined Chelsea in June 2004 and led them to the Premiership title in each of his first two seasons as well as winning domestic cups, etc.

Avram Grant is due to be announced as the Mourinho's replacement and when you look at his track record it leaves you in no doubt that Roman Abramovich will be picking the team from now on.

Shevchenko will be pleased.

Perhaps, after the press conference speech about eggs earlier this week, the Chelsea board thought Mourinho was cracking up and going beyond a yolk? Perhaps they feared someone would try to poach him? Perhaps they thought he was a 'Grade A' plonker?

Either way, they have decided en-oeuf was en-oeuf.

Whatever your opinions on the 'Special One', there is no denying that his comments and humour will be missed from the English game.

Unless he goes to Spurs...

Shirts for 2007/08: Chelsea (away / 2nd)

Just four teams left on our list to go. Hopefully we'll cover every Premier League team by the end of September, but in the meantime cast your eye over the new shirt that Chelsea are wearing away from home this season...



Very yellow, isn't it?

Yes, those wacky funsters at Adidas have obviously been sniffing their flourescent markers too often for their own good as this is the new '2nd' shirt for Jose Mourinho's men. You may have already seen it being worn during Chelsea's recent away match against Aston Villa (let's face it, you could hardly avoid a colour like that) and has the rare distinction of being luminous - something which should come in handy for those night-time matches.

It features the ubiquitous three stripes of Adidas as well as some curious black markings that are, well, different. I'll refrain from doing any lion-tamer jokes at this juncture and instead tell you that you can buy the shirt from the Chelsea FC online megastore for just under £40.00. An added bonus is that if you collect your new shirt from the Chelsea shop itself, you can wear it on the way home safe in the knowledge that you won't be hit by any passing road vehicles. I think you'll agree that's gotta be worth the money alone...

Anyway, before we lose any Chelsea fans who might be regular visitors to this site, here's my personal opinion. I rather like it - more so than the black shirts that Chelsea have been wearing in recent years. No problems with on-pitch visibility of course, and that luminous aspect to the yellow makes it quite an original feature by the manufacturers. Full marks for that, I suppose.

My opinion, however, counts for very little on its own. It needs you to add your thoughts and opinions to it so that the world can see for itself whether this is a design masterpiece or a tribute to narrow-minded kit production. Leave us a comment or take part in our online vote below...

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VOTING HAS NOW CLOSED FOR THIS SHIRT
The final results were as follows:

Excellent: 12 (22%)
Good: 2 (4%)
OK: 4 (7%)
Poor: 6 (11%)
Terrible: 30 (56%)

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Battle of the Big Four

So let's see - we're four or five games into the Premier League season and what seems to be happening? Well according to Jose Mourinho the title race is wide open. That maybe true, but what's apparent already is that out of the 'big four' that most of us had pencilled in to finish near the top, it's Arsenal and Liverpool that are leading the way, not Man United and Chelsea.

I don’t know about you but when I heard that Arsenal were 1-0 down to Fulham with six minutes to go on the opening day of the season, I feared the worst. No Thierry Henry, no ruthless front man to put the goals in the net. The writing was on the wall until Van Persie and Hleb cropped up with a couple of winners, but from that point onwards they’ve barely looked back. The only points they’ve dropped so far have been against Blackburn where they drew 1-1.

The Reds have been even more convincing. Like Arsenal, they've only dropped two points up to now, but they were against Chelsea. Yet what makes Liverpool a real eye-opening title challenger this season is the way Rafa Benitez has managed to bring in new players and get them playing to their strengths. No longer are they relying on wing-play and crosses into the box . Now a more direct approach is the order of the day. Players like Torres and Voronin are being given the ball and told to do what they do best: take on defenders and shoot on sight.

It's a method that's paid dividends so far. For a start they were able to beat Aston Villa 2-1 away (something that Chelsea failed to do yesterday) and most notably they demolished Derby County 6-0. OK, so Derby aren’t exactly the toughest opponents anyone will play all year, but they'll doubtless trip someone up before the season's over.

The absence of Thierry Henry seems to have had a strange effect on Arsenal. Instead of contemplating a future without a world-class striker, many of the players now look relieved to have thrown off the shackles of being just another one of Henry's support team. Individuals are now finding a chance to shine in their own right. A look at Arsenal's scoresheets from the first three weeks of the season backs this up: names like Van Persie, Adebayor, Rosicky, Fabregas and Hleb show that goals are now coming from a variety of sources, rather than the one that now plays for Barcelona.

It's remarkably similar to the way Man United used to play but may have now lost. If one player was off form, someone else in the team could step in to provide the goals but without a main striker of note until this weekend, United suddenly found that the supply chain had broken down. Think of Man U teams in the recent past and practically anyone could have scored in any match. Giggs, Scholes, Solskjaer, Keane, Beckham, Butt, Cole, Sheringham, Yorke - even defenders like O'Shea and Ferdinand might have chipped in with the odd one here or there. This season it's been a different story.

After United's Carling Cup Final victory in 2005/06, they went on to score 23 goals in 12 games but in the five they've played since August 12th this year, they've managed just three.

Now before I go on, yes I know it's early days so far and that anything can happen between now and May 11th 2008 but it has to be said that Sir Alex Ferguson's team appears to lack the strength in depth they once had. Never more has this been apparent since Ronaldo and Rooney took their leave of absence, but what of Tevez? Wasn't he the one that was going to give United some flair and plenty of goals? Sadly I think he's the victim of United's new playing style - too much passing and too little in the way of impulsive shooting from anywhere on the pitch.

All of which leaves Chelsea. Their only defeat of the season so far was rather mind-boggling in that Aston Villa's 2-0 win wasn't a fair reflection of who the superior team was. Martin O'Neill's men certainly defended well, but it was more a case of Mourinho's team having a 'bad day at the office.' Yet even there it's interesting to see Chelsea's 'goals scored' column for their first five games: three, two, one, one, zero.

So was it a case of 'too much talent, not enough end product' or were Aston Villa just playing out of their skins yesterday? Looking at Villa's results this season, perhaps the former. Villa have only lost once in their first four games and that was to Liverpool, so maybe Chelsea's title challenge isn't the stuff of major catastrophe after all. My guess it was just a blip, but their next game against Blackburn will prove or deny that.

On reflection then, the race for the title has started with no team taking maximum points from their first four games. No one team has laid down the gauntlet to the rest of the league, so is this Liverpool's best chance to finally get their name on the trophy? Watch this space…

Brainstorm #2

Time once again to get the old grey cells working as we attempt to solve one of the problems of modern-day football, and today's scenario is given to us by Chelsea manager José Mourinho.

Following his team's 0-0 draw with Newcastle United yesterday, 'The Special One' bemoaned the fact that Middlesbrough hadn't been awarded a penalty in the dying moments of their game against Manchester United on Saturday. It would have almost certainly won them the game causing United to lose all three points enabling Chelsea to close the gap in their race for the Premiership title with Sir Alex Ferguson's men.

Mourinho was quoted as saying: "It was a penalty at Old Trafford. It was a penalty to us. We are talking about points. It is not a conspiracy, it is fact. I speak facts. If you tell me it was not a penalty for Sheffield United, or a penalty for Middlesbrough, or for us against Newcastle, I must go to my optician."

So what are you to do if you feel your arch-enemies are being given preferential treatment by every referee in the country?

Mr. Mourinho, you're in luck as SPAOTP has the answer. We've been working through the night to come up with a solution and after much mental gymnastics, this is it:

Win more games, thereby avoiding the reliance on other teams being awarded occasional penalties.

It's a solution we like, and we hope you like it too.

Next time on Brainstorm: Neil Warnock asks why poor teams should even be allowed to play in the Premiership.

News Catch-up

A selection of recent news stories from the world of football that we'd love to have talked about earlier but frankly didn't have the time...

Neil Desperandum

How very sad. How incredibly ignorant and pathetic.

That was my reaction to the utterances of Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock last Friday as he was interviewed on the eve of their match against West Ham. Warnock was aggrieved by the fact that West Ham were likely to avoid relegation due to a goal scored by Hayden Mullins against the Blades in their previous encounter which should not have been given and another scored recently by Bobby Zamora against Blackburn where the ball never actually crossed the line.

Such things happen in football as we all know, but because Warnock's side are now slipping dangerously close to the relegation zone that West Ham may now scramble out of, he feels West Ham don't deserve to stay up. By his reckoning, West Ham have played poorly all season as reflected in the poor number of points they've accrued (which no-one can deny), but what an insult it would be if they avoided the drop on the back of those two 'non-goals'?

He even went on to say that “everyone else will be very bitter” if the Hammers were to stay in the Premiership (by a single point) too.

Well here's a reminder for Mr. Warnock: the Premiership is played over an entire season, and if at the end of that season West Ham somehow manage to gain just enough points to stay up while Sheffield United endure months without a win, he'll have no-one to blame but his miserable old self.

It's hard to be spiteful about an individual - especially one who this season has been less irascible and outspoken than in the past - but on the basis of his comments last week it has to be said that this emotionless man deserves to be banished back to the lower leagues he languished in for so long.

Chelsea v Man U x 3

So we appear to be heading for a triple showdown between Chelsea and Manchester United, but what are we to make of it all?

If the great fixture organiser in the sky has his way, we could be seeing a European Champions League Final, an FA Cup Final and a Premiership decider all featuring the top two teams in England. Such a mouthwatering prospect... or is it?

On paper, it could be a chance to see two teams that both think they're the best thing since sliced bread battling it out in a goal-packed and somewhat fractious series of games, but do we need to see the same thing played out in triplicate?

Yes, they're both great teams that at times play to a breathtakingly high standard, but the big games are an ideal opportunity to showcase the variety and talent of as many teams as possible and to that end it's a pity we may be denied the chance to see it.

And I know what you're going to say - it's not the fault of Chelsea or Man United that they've been successful enough to get where they are - but it's got to be a fear amongst many that follow the game that this may be the start of a trend that leads to only the biggest teams battling it out for glory.

In the meantime, let's keep our fingers crossed that we at least get to see one game between the two that shows the quality they have as a sign of the best that the Premiership has to offer.

Brazil to host the 2014 World Cup... maybe...

On the eve of UEFA's announcement on who's to host the 2012 European Championships, FIFA has given notification that Colombia have now dropped out of the race to host the 2014 World Cup. This leaves Brazil as the only contenders under FIFA's continental rotation policy that dictates that the World Cup after next should be held in South America.

But before you pack your yellow and green shirt and head off for your apartment overlooking Copacabana beach, be warned: things aren't as cut and dried as they look.

The problem is that Brazil lack the wherewithal to host the World Cup. Its stadia are in desperate need of an overhaul, its transport links are feeble and the money to improve both is practically non-existent. Even if the Brazilian government could somehow stump up the money to make such wide-ranging improvements, it would meet vehement opposition from the public who feel it would be better spent on education, crime and poverty.

And yet by taking on such a huge project, Brazil could make things better for themselves. The jobs created to improve the transport systems and build nearby hotels could invigorate the local and national economy. The notoriously low attendance figures for league football would undoubtedly be boosted and who knows - maybe tomorrow's young players would want to ply their trade in their home country rather than in Europe?

Deep down, I suspect many of us would love to see the World Cup return to Brazil for the first time since 1950. It represents the spiritual and emotional aspects of the competition and the game of football itself to millions all over the world, so it seems only right that Brazil should provide it with a temporary home in seven years time. Don't be surprised, though, if sheer practicality dictates that the World Cup doesn't on this occasion return to the birthplace of Jairzinho, Rivelino and Pélé.