If you were going to pinpoint one thing that really made Stoke’s season, you’d have to look at their massive offensive line. The key to their game this year is that their offensive line protects the quarterback so that he has time to throw the long bombs and Hail Mary passes that have gotten them to their very first Superbowl. A towering wide receiver like Carew makes Delap’s passes look easy, sure, but there’s no need to take credit away from the orchestral way their offensive line blocks and harasses defenses. Meanwhile, when they don’t score a touchdown, their place kicker, Pennant, is one of the best in the League and has added plenty of firepower when they get into the red zone.

Defensively, Stoke have one of the hardest hitting linebackers in the league in Ryan Shawcross. This is a man who has broken several legs with his uncompromising and full blooded tackles. Opposing running backs are terrified of him for good reason, he and the Stoke fans revel in breaking legs, cheering him on with their blood curdling songs and “bear pit” atmosphere at the Britannia. As they like to say “they are Stoke City, they play the way they like.”

That is, if the referees will let them.

Morning all, how about them Chelsea fans eh? For the first 30 minutes or so they booed Wayne Bridge every time he touched the ball and I really cvouldn’t understand what it was that made him the pantomime villian. Until I realized that every one of those people booing Wayne Bridge were doing so because they actually thought he had done some wrong: after all, they would let John Terry diddle their wives in a heartbeat. I mean, how dare Wayne Bridge rebuke what is clearly an honor in the hearts of the Chelsea supporters?

It’s the only thing that makes sense.

My favorite moment of the match, though, was when Wayne Bridge refused to shake John Terry’s hand. I know it’s not the sporting thing to do, but then it’s not very sporting to bone your teammate and best friend’s girlfriend. I don’t know why more folks don’t refuse to shake his hand, you could always make the excuse that you were afraid of STDs.

How ironic is is that it was Wayne Bridge’s clearance and John Terry’s shockingly poor form at center back for Chelsea which saw Manciti equalize? I mentioned that I felt like Chelsea were “clearly struggling”  during the Inter match and watching them again I’d like to reiterate that assertion. Now, without Cech back there to save them, they are looking like a very average defensive team, who lack a real midfield (what does Ballack DO?), and who rely entirely on magic from Drogba to put teams to the sword. Moreover, they are an extremely indisciplined side and now that they’ve been exposed as a bunch of cheats, led by the cheater-in-chief, they managed to lose two men to red cards. I can only hope more referees see them in this new light, though I highly doubt it.

Anyway, this isn’t a Chelsea, City, Bridge, Terry blog, is it? Arsenal have a real chance to make up 3 points when they take on Stoke in the Potteries in just a little bit and we’re going to have a little liveblog covering the match.

For those of you who have used this coveritlive.com software before you’ll know that the actual liveblog doesn’t start until I authorize it and that will be happening around 9am local time. Another bit you should know is that I either have to authorize individual comments or I have to give each person  free reign to comment. I’m not quite sure how to handle that last bit yet because there’s also a problem with time delay; the matches in the States are time delayed by a few minutes so, if I authorize my British readers to comment they will let the cat out of the bag on any big moments in the match.

Basically, if I don’t authorize you to comment freely don’t take it personally.

Anyway, to get into the liveblog click here. Start time is 9am PST and the earlier you get in the earlier I can authorize you to comment, or not authorize you as the case may be!

See you there…

Between Arsenal releasing their half annual financial accounting, Wenger giving his presser a day early, and me needing to be in to work early it’s been a pretty crazy morning so far.

The Arsenal profit/debt report is deserving of its own column but I frankly just don’t have the time this morning to read through the entire report and find the aporia. Instead, I’ll just say that my initial reaction is one of surprise. The board are claiming that not only did they turn a profit of £35m on all projects but that sales of the Highbury Square development are going so well that total debt on that project is just down to £13m.

Moreover, the club’s debt at this time last year was a whopping £332m and that has been reduced in just six months to £203m with Gazidis trumpeting the fact that as of today that figure is “well below £190m.” With football now delivering nearly £50m in profit a year and with Highbury delivering nearly £10m a year Arsenal look to be in the greatest financial shape of their entire history. Oh, and that doesn’t even touch on what’s happening at Queensland road where they have already sold the affordable housing to a local trust.

All of this profit is a huge bone of contention among supporters with many asking why that money isn’t being invested in big name players on the pitch and Ivan Gazidis’ answer won’t help soothe those malcontents: we’ve the youngest squad in the Premier League and Arsenal signed 17 players to extended contracts this year.

I’m even starting to wonder what the hell is going on with all the money that this club is generating and until I have a look at the whole report I can’t make a really informed comment there. What I will say is that while the Arsenalization of the Emirates stadium is nice, most supporters who are paying $160 a seat to watch Arsenal in the Champions League would rather that we put money into “Arsenalizing” the squad. I see this Summer transfer window as a real opportunity for Arsenal to make good with their fans and purchase a big name player. Judging from the comments here and elsewhere if they fail to do that and keep reporting record profits they could have a serious fan revolt on their hands.

Gazidis tries to address this and you can check out his remarks on the report in the embedded video below.

Meanwhile, tomorrow marks the return to football where we can all put down the balance sheet for a moment and pick up a ball, and a towel, as Arsenal travel to Stoke for a rugby match played without hands and with a roundy ball.

Wenger is saying that every match Arsenal play for the rest of the season is “like a cup match” to which I reply; well we better not play them like we played them in the cup! You’ll remember that match, that’s where they beat us 20 to 8 in the fouls given category.

We can’t expect any relief from the match official in the fouls department because Peter Walton is in charge. You might remember him from the Everton match, where he allowed Phil Neville to hack down Denilson in the box and gave Fellaini free reign to kick everyone off the pitch. We have broken our Premier League penalty “curse” last week and maybe now that the FA lockdown on Arsenal penalties has been lifted the floodgates will be opened.

We all know what Stoke is going to do tomorrow and thankfully Arsenal have Sol Campbell and Thomas Vermaelen available for a little bit of heading practice. Let’s just hope that the really decent version of Manuel Almunia shows up and is able to punch away some of their direct throws. Which reminds me, is it legal to throw the ball directly into the goal?

As you already know, Gallas, Diaby, and Arshavin are all out for tomorrow and Eduardo’s fitness is going to be assessed today. I’d rather Arsene didn’t start Eduardo irregardless his match fitness. Let’s hold him in reserve in case we need a late, poached goal.

On the other side, Higginbotham and Etherington are out for Stoke which just means that we’ll probably see them bring in some absolute animal like Salif Diao to kick, I mean “mark” Cesc in the midfield. Make no mistake, that’s what we’re looking at tomorrow; the whole team will take turns kicking Cesc Fabregas. It’d be nice if Sol Campbell or someone would take a yellow for the team and just take one of their players out for once. Hey, I know, how about Rory Delap? Not that I’m advocating any form of violence against any of their players that they wouldn’t advocate for ours.

Right, the match is live here in the States on Fox Soccer Channel and it’s the late match. Since Chelsea will be hosting Team Bridge tomorrow we should know where we stand in the table by the time we kickoff at 9:30am PST. I have to say that the early match there (on ESPN2 here) could very well be a real cracker since Wayne Bridge is playing and it seems he hasn’t forgiven John Terry his cuckoldry quite yet. I’ll be tuning in to that for sure.

Meanwhile, over here I’m going to try to do the liveblog but I’ll be honest and say that it’ll mostly be you all just chatting since I get to be Mr. Mom tomorrow and watch the 2 year old all by myself.

That’s it for today from me, see you all tomorrow!