Humble Pie is not on the menu

Many Chelsea fans have been contacting me to write another blog since I seem to have offended them with the previous one Much ado about NOTHING. Many of my  Chelsea supporting friends ( frenemies)  believe I will eat humble pie and say Chelsea deserved to win or that Manchester United is crumbling, but if know Lethario.....then you will know that you might as well as hope for an apology and resignation from Gaddafi being aired on CNN  minutes after Charlie Sheen's apology to Chuck Lorre and CBS!

                                                             Dueces




I wont dwell too deep on the controversy of the penalty which won the game for Chelsea or the sending off that should have happened when David Luiz clearly fouled Rooney before the "penalty". The facts speak for themselves when it comes to Martin Atkinson who controversially refereed the corresponding fixture at Stamford Bridge last season.



He has awarded 11 penalties so far this season and as of 27 January 2011 had also given the most (8) red cards. To say the least he is a controversial character and his poor performance in November 2010 led to  Stoke boss Tony Pulis calling for a performance based relegation and promotion system for referees in an effort to reduce the number of poor decisions. But enough on him. I will come back to this topic later.

                                      Atkinson, "WRONG, my favourite colour is RED!"


The match was not as I had expected it to be. All I can say is even though we lost, I enjoyed a good competitive game which showed us why the Barclay's Premier League is the most watched league in the world. The game was entertaining as both sets of players played their hearts out to the final whistle. Congrats to Chelsea for not giving up, I admired their fighting spirit but was disappointed at how United's died down after an emphatic adrenalin pumped start

.But every game has a winner or loser although a draw would have been a fair result for the lads from Manchester. Vidic and Smalling held their own against the Chelsea strike force whilst Chelsea's defence excluding Ivanovic was also commendable. Anelka was the flop of the night again so Torres can sleep easy knowing there is someone doing worse than him!!! Rooney was excellent whilst Chicharito provided great support.

                      Don't worry about not scoring, Anelka is playing worse than you


The lesson of the day, was that Chelsea got what they paid for in defender David Luiz who is an absolute gem and probably the best buy of the transfer window so far compared to his deadline-day compatriots Fernando " I cant seem to score" Torres and Andy " Gotta lose weight" Carroll!! The lad can defend, has great control, beautiful finishing and great movement off the ball although he needs to work on his discipline as he was lucky not to be sent off for the challenge on Rooney while the Fulham 90th minute penalty is fresh on our minds.

                Andy Carroll was declared match fit for the game against Manchester United



Everton crashed out the F.A cup while our very own Belgian Afro guy has an early holiday after being declared out for the season with an ankle injury. I hear Everton were poor, lacking passion and basically just didn't do anything to beat Reading. Tonight the noisy neighbours Man City play Aston Villa and we all know who I will be cheering for. Good luck to Arsenal too, I hope they do not suffer further humiliation against a lowly side (starting to sound familiar hey).

Now although at times Manchester United benefit from poor decisions and performances by match officials, I believe football as a whole just needs to swallow its pride and introduce video technology to assist them. This way we can avoid people blaming the ref ....( DONT LOOK AT ME ) or controversial game changing events. The promotion and relegation spoken off by Pulis would also be a good idea to eradicate bias as well as encourage better officiating of matches.An article on the BBC website shows that :
.

Since the start of the 2007/8 season, 15 opposition players have been sent off against Manchester United at Old Trafford, while only three home players have been dismissed.And as far as penalties go, opposition teams have given away eight at Old Trafford since 2007, while United have conceded only two.

Six Chelsea players have been sent off at Stamford Bridge since 2007, twice the number of opposition players who have received red cards, while the Blues have won 18 penalties, six times the number of spot-kicks won by visiting teams.

So lets hope that FIFA, UEFA and the FA can deal with these unfavourable conditions creeping into modern football.

                          See Frank Lampard, the ball did NOT cross the line!

Over in the NBA the Boston Celtics beat  Utah with special mention going to Ray Allen, who broke Reggie Miller's NBA record for 3-pointers made, Garnett and Rondo. Their 43-15 record is impressive but I must commend the Spurs who are now 49-11 which shows they also mean business this season. The Celtics captured free agent Murphy who I hope will be another valuable addition to the squad in a quest for the Championship this year.

The Cricket continued with a Malinga hat-trick leading the way as Sri Lanka thrashing Kenya.

On we march to Anfield.   GO MANCHESTER UNITED

au revoir