Monday 25 September
Fifa handed the woman of the year award to Marta (again) despite the fact she has done little or nothing. Fran Kirby didn’t even make the top ten. Luca Modric scooped the men’s award to add another tearful failure to Ronaldo’s season.
Both Eden Hazard and N’Golo Kante made the team of the year.
Tuesday 25 September
Newport County 3:0 Chelsea U21
After last month’s stroll against Swindon many expected serene progress at Rodney Parade but Newport were ruthless in taking their chances and we seemed curiously dull in front of goal. It was another match where the professionals came with their full physical game and we tried to keep playing our football. In the long term playing football will serve the youngsters better…
Especially as Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori, Jody Morris and Frank Lampard proved that playing football will sometimes pay off as they beat United on penalties at Old Trafford.
Agent Mourinho’s five-year plan to undermine and destroy the Salford club from the inside is starting to pay dividends as he stripped Pogba of the vice-captaincy and put out a side that looked second best to Championship Derby for much of the night.
The Rams created the better chances in both halves and deserved to progress.
In diplomatic news it emerges that the Swiss authorities have a grudge against Roman Abramovich. A secret report denying his visa application has emerged that accuses him of money laundering among other offences.
Roman hasn’t even ever been charged in connection to anything in the report and it is just possible that the individuals who drew it up are anti-Semitic.
Wednesday 26 September
Liverpool 1:2 Chelsea
This was almost the perfect way to burst Liverpool’s bubble, undefeated in seven games and a goal up with quarter of an hour to play it looked, for all the world like the season was panning out as they expected.
The equaliser highlighted how vulnerable they can be from set-pieces but our winner came from a fabulous move from substitute Eden Hazard. Ghosting past half the Liverpool team, the Belgian’s lashed finish ranks as one of the best winning goals Anfield has ever seen.
The result will ring a little hollow if we fail to get a result at the weekend but it is an important marker – Chelsea are up for it this season.
Chelsea 6:0 SFK 2000 Sarajevo
The women wrapped up the tie in style as Fran Kirby scored twice, and Drew Spence, Maren Mjelde, Hannah Blundell and Erin Cuthbert scored the rest. The draw for the nyxt round is in Nyon in Switzerland on Monday.
Saturday 29 September
Chelsea 1:1 Liverpool
If Liverpool, and not City, are the measure of the title challengers this season then we are not far away.
Midweek was two scratch sides duking it out for the minor prize. Today was two undefeated title challengers squaring off at the summit… and we nearly pulled it off.
Eden Hazard’s first-half strike was a perfect illustration of Sarri’s philosophy quick passing and direct play. And another great finish for the Belgian.
That Liverpool fashioned the clearer chances should be a lesson to those with their title hopes too high but we held on until the dying moments when Daniel Sturridge found the very top of the top corner to equalise.
It was a world-class finish but a part of you knows that that kind of shot finds the crowd behind the goal 99 times out of 100.
We are in third behind City and Liverpool but City’s goal difference is already growing.
Jose Mourinho’s bald patch is growing by the day as he led his latest rabble to a 3-1 defeat at West Ham. It seems our point there was better than we thought.
The balls out of the bag for the League Cup pair us with Frank ‘Derby’ Lampard. County will arrive at the Bridge with an assistant coach, in Jody Morris, who spent the whole of his pundit role on Wednesday referring to Chelsea as ‘us’.
Chelsea U18 5:1 Norwich City U18
U18 Premier League Cup action and a drubbing of Norwich on a lovely sunny day. Thierno Ballo netted a quick-fire hat-trick to set us on our way and Henry Lawrence and Jon Russell completed the scoring. Manchester United and Newcastle are also in our group.
Chelsea U23 1:3 Liverpool U23
We let them have a two-goal head start and couldn’t recover from the 0-2 half-time deficit.
Sunday 30 September
Chelsea 2:0 Brighton
Finally, some league goals as the girls, free-scoring in Europe, beat Brighton to improve on the three drawn games that started the season.
