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Chelsea beat Tottenham to break mini-league wide open

Chelsea leapfrogged Arsenal in the mini-league table by taking all three points at Stamford Bridge in a controversial 2-1 win over fellow Londoners Tottenham.

Tottenham started brightly and even took the lead when Sandro collected the ball from van der Vaart and fired in a long range shot that curled impossibly past Petr Cech’s outstretched hands. It was Tottenham’s League leading 11th goal from distance and yet another in the growing catalog of players who make their name for Spurs with cracking shots in big games. Though, whether Sandro will go the way of Danny Rose remains to be seen.

Harry Redknapp immediately called a time out and organized his team to park the bus. Despite the time wasting and defensive tactics which would see Spurs finish the game with just the one shot on goal, Tottenham managed to tack two more goals on to their total and thus surpassing their 41 goal haul of last season. This should prove conclusively that William Gallas was the worst signing of the Summer.

Redknapp might also be left regretting not signing a keeper in January as Gomes allowed a League leading 5th howler in just before half time to even the score. Lampard had but the briefest of moments of daylight but snatched his shot which tamely hit Gomes in the one place he has had trouble dealing with the ball all season; his hands. The ball dribbled between his legs and the keeper appeared to claw the ball off the line only for the linesman to award the goal.

Redknapp’s tactical naivete was again exposed as Ancelotti brought on Ramires, Kalou, and Anelka while Harry’s moment of brilliance was to bring on Jermaine Jenas. Jenas ran around a bit and Kalou scored the winner — almost certainly cementing Redknapp as England manager next season.

Barely scraping a single win in all competitions since February 15th Redknapp has bravely clung to the rim as his season has swirled out of control.  Just in January, Spurs were the talk of the nation and looked poised to win the treble and now four months later they are looking at mid-table mediocrity and likely losing all of their top players to the lure of European football.

Even Man of the Decade Gareth Bale couldn’t save Redknapp’s season as he was shut down by Ivanovich time and again. The result was that the future Balon D’Or nominee was kept to just a singe shot in this game.

Meanwhile, Chelsea staked their claim to the Premier League title and closed the gap with Manchester United to just three points. Arsenal could do everyone a favor with a win tomorrow and Patrice Evra openly worried when he compared Arsenal to a wounded animal. It remains to be seen what type of wounded animal they are: deer, raccoon, shrew, or that lizard which loses it’s tail to escape predators.

If Arsenal need anything to motivate then the thought that just one point from tomorrow’s game will allow them to celebrate St. Totteringham’s Day.

Monday’s Fiver

Good morning kickers.

Before I get into the top five stories that are boggling my mind this morning, there’s something I need to tell you: site traffic is at… an all time low!

My feedburner feed is actually at an all-time high but it looks like what happened is a combination of two things. First, Goonernews.com is now a pay site, requiring the blogs they aggregate to pay £10 a month for the privilege of their news aggregator. Seriously.

The second thing that happened is that NewsNow not only dropped the blog, but it looks like they scrubbed their entire database of all articles I’ve ever published. I contacted them to find out what happened but they are one of the least communicative web sites I’ve ever dealt with and I honestly don’t expect a response.

So, it’s back to square f*cking one with the blog. I’ve gone from a few thousand readers a day and gathering new, dedicated, readers every day to now just a few hundred readers a day. I guess the positive is that you all are my real readers and those other folks were all just posuers but the problem is that I won’t reach new, dedicated, readers without publicity.

So, that’s why the comments have been so quiet lately. I have to start thinking what I’m going to do about all of this. Obviously, I’m open to suggestions.

Number 1: Man City takes the mantle from Chelsea

When Abramovich bought Chelsea and pumped them full of shiny new players it wasn’t enough to just have the best players in the world, they also needed to have the right attitude. By “right” attitude I mean, they were (are) a pack of c*nts.

To overcome the current champions and pry the Premier League trophy from them it helps if players believe that it’s their God given right to win. If anyone tries to get between them and God, they’re going to get kicked, pushed, shoved, and if needed slapped in the face.

Chelsea did that 5 years ago and they won the title. With the recent outbursts of Adebayor and Bellamy it looks like City are full of this “right” attitude.

Number 2: Chelsea look the team to beat, with a bat

Tottenham ran into the Chelsea buzz saw, who are brimming with the feeling that the title is their God given right, and two of Tottenham’s center backs suffered injuries yesterday. It was an amazing physical display all over the pitch: from Terry to Mikel to Essien to Lampard to Drogba and Anelka they are the most frighteningly physical team I have ever seen play. And they have belief.

There was a glimmer of hope when Dogbag went off with what I prayed was a career, nay LIFE, threatening injury. In typical Drogba style he needed to be stretchered off for maximum drama and, of course, the injury turned out to be just a cramp. So, I’m sure he’ll be back to throwing defenders to the ground in no time.

Ugh… Who’s going to stop them? People are already talking about a perfect 10 start.

Number 3: UEFA, Sportsmail, and the Diving Evangelists to blame

I don’t feel an ounce of pity for Robbie Keane not getting a stonewall penalty call yesterday in that Chelsea v. Tottenham match. Robbie Keane is a despicable player and if he never wins another penalty in his career I would feel like the universe was back to normal. That said, I fear that what we are seeing is a knock on effect from the retarded Diving Evangelists’ campaign against “diving.”

It looks like referees in the EPL are no longer going to call a stonewall penalty if there’s any doubt, or if the player doesn’t play for Man U. I don’t need to tell you that this is a stupid and dangerous and ripe for exploitation. Supporters need to feel like their players are going to get a fair shake and if they see a penalty like Wayne Rooney’s obvious dive given while Keane has his legs taken and the ref waves on play, it’s potentially destructive to the whole EPL fan base.

Why is it again that we can’t use video technology?

Number 4: ugh, Wenger’s crusade against “persistent fouls”

Look, I watch MLS, I know what persistent fouling looks like and I can tell you that even clubs like Bolton are no where near the level of persistent fouling that a club like the Seattle Sounders are. I agree with him that the FA needs to take a look at it and keep it to a minimum, but the FA is not going to remove 16 teams’ only means of remaining competitive with the top four.

Besides, why fight it? Why not join them a little? It would be nice if we had more than just Alex Song putting in professional fouls. In fact, I think it’s the only way to stop a team like Chelsea, or Arsenal, so why not use the rules to your advantage?

Number five: the Carling Cup match no one will see

There’s no television coverage of tomorrow’s Arsenal v. W.B.A. match in the USA. As far as I can tell, even the dot com isn’t covering the match live. Ugh… that means some illegal sopcasts or something.

Maybe the dot com will have a replay after the match.

That’s it for today, I’ll do a match preview tomorrow.

"Rafa signs Pompey's Johnson"

What? You didn’t think I could let a world class joke like that go could you?

Seriously though, the transfer window is heating up and rumors are now flying faster than ever, though for some reason, Chelsea seem to keep getting shafted in the end.

What?

Ok…

The Chelsea story is an actual story, it’s just that no one is reporting on it. Nearly half the time I’ve been an Arsenal supporter the summer transfer window went like this: Week 1, “Arsenal to bring former great Ian Wright’s adopted son back to Highbury for £8m.” Week2, “Chelsea snap up Shaun Wright-Phillips from City for  record fee of £30m.” Week 3, “Arsenal looking at Ghana star Essien to replace departing Vieira.” Week 4, “Chelsea stun the Premier League again with £35m swoop for Essien.” Something like that, you get the point.

So, regardless what I think of Melo as a player, you can imagine my apprehension when I see Chelsea being linked with Melo. It’s almost an apoplectic reaction, honestly, I feel like shouting “HOLY F*CK PAY ANYTHING JUST SIGN HIM.”

But the truth is that Chelsea are more like a toothless old lion these days: their ocassional roars only frighten if you fail to see them gumming their meat over in the corner.

No pun intended.

The facts is that Chelsea are starting to look like an old team and their director is desperate to bring in new recruits to inject life. The only problem is that his transfer policy (“hmmm, let’s see who the other top four are linked to and bid MOAR”) is both transparent to everyone involved and the prices elsewhere are just flat out better. I mean, why would Glen Johnson want to return to the team which famously snubbed him and, worse, then only showed interest after other clubs were linked? Given an offer of money from his old mercenary club, the new mercenary club on the block, and a club like Liverpool — someone who has actually won a European Championship — the choice was obvious.

The funny thing is that this story is repeating itself ad nauseum this transfer season. Some team is linked to a big name player and suddenly Chelsea’s name is added to the list, only to be swept aside by Real Madrid or Liverpool or the prospects offered by a club like Arsenal. Listen to what Vermaelen said in his interview, he mentions Arsene Wenger as one of the reasons that he came to Arsenal, calling le Boss “one of the top names in football.” Even if Chelsea come in with some huge money offer I still suspect a player like Melo will be given some pause. After all, Arsenal is pretty much the only team where he is likely to get the first team action needed to secure a World Cup spot.

Meanwhile, back up north in Liverpool the Reds are nearly admitting defeat in their bid to hold on to Xabi Alonso. This article lists the transfer fee as £30m and I’ve seen that number as high as £38m. Even the lower of those two valuations is, well, it’s crazy. Just last season, Arsenal were mooted to have bid between £12m and £18m for his services and they had that bid denied. By all accounts Alonso went on to have a tremendous season, but a double the value season? Wow, I wish we’d have broken the bank for him, just the sell on value alone would be worth it!

And you know what? If Real don’t sign Alonso, it looks like they could just get Essien. HA!. That would be delicious, delicious, irony if Essien would leave Chelsea and go to Real. I always thought Chelsea would collapse when Abramovich lost interest but it’s starting to look like they are going to collapse when all their best players either leave for greener pastures or die of old age. Live by the Euro, die by the Euro, I guess.

Which brings me to our beloved Arsenal, where Arsene Wenger is still preaching fiscal prudence and talking about keeping a young squad together. No argument there from me, I like all the players on this team* and think that it would be premature to start breaking it up, so I greet news that Robin van Persie may have signed another deal with open arms.

Meanwhile, the transfer fanatics will be looking for a sign of a signing from Wenger and he has given us one saying

I want to add to the squad and have identified one or two targets. But identifying players and buying them are two different things. Ideally I would like to bring everybody in before we start back in pre-season training in July. I don’t want to leave it until the end of August.

All Arsenal fans should be very excited to hear that, because if he pulls it off it will be a first for me to see the whole team assembled before summer practice starts. The only problem is if we’re after Felipe Melo we won’t be able to negoatiate with him until after the Confederations Cup — which ends the 28th of June. I’ve never seen an Arsenal transfer take less than a month, so maybe we can get him in before August but let’s not get our hopes up.

The other funny thing Wenger said in the interview happened when he hit on the magical £100m “money in the bank” number

I am fed-up with people who think I have £100m in the bank yet don’t want to spend it. How can people think that? The pride of the club is in having moved to a new stadium while maintaining the club at the top level.The policy of the club is that they have backed me in what I do and the way I do it. We now have to be strong enough to stick to that. We cannot pump £100m into it, so we must keep faith in what we are doing.

Well, people think it because Arsenal keep releasing statements saying that they have £100m in the bank! Now, maybe you don’t have that at your disposal, fair enough, but don’t take the piss out of the supporters when they are just listening to what the board is saying. Simply put, Arsene, this is the modern condition: everyone knows what everyone else is up to nowadays, you can’t hide information, especially if it’s in public reports. So, take the piss out of the board. If they said, “Arsenal have to have a strategic reserve of [such and such] in order to stave off possible economic disaster” then I don’t think fans would have a problem seeing this huge number. Sorry, but that’s the kind of transparency that’s needed now days.

Either that or re-invest the money into the damn Highbury development and get that off our backs!

I will break in to our regular coverage if there is a miracle signing, other than that, see you tomorrow.

*ok, I wouldn’t be heartbroken to see Silvestre, Adebayor, and Eboue sent off to greener pastures, but I still, erm, uhhh, like them, as people.