The Man in The Shed

The Man in The Shed 26th March – Watching “our team” Two weeks without a game can leave a large hole in your life. Having fallen out of love with England (the country of my birth) in the last few years it feels as if the number of international breaks increases every season. I know England reached the world cup semi-final just a few months ago but winning back my affections will take more than that after so many years of disappointments. It feels more like a divorced wife trying to seek a reconciliation than a disagreement with your brother down the pub. It takes time to build bridges and rebuild trust. So I seek solace by following “team Chelsea” individually rather than collectively. The results seem “mixed” Gold stars for : Ross Barkley (75 minutes in a good win against Czech Republic followed by 2 goals and an assist in the 5-1 win in Montenegro) Callum Hudon-Odoi (with a 20 minute cameo against the Czechs and then a brilliant 90 minutes against Montenegr...

The Man in The Shed   18th March - Two steps back Sometimes I really hate football. I know the highs and lows come with the territory but this season has been more of a roller-coaster than most. For all the games we’d lost over the last 20 years or so we’d never taken a real hiding. I was quite proud of that. And then we get spanked twice in quick succession. So I had slowly recovered from that and tried to reassure myself that it was character building for the team and after the cup final loss we’d started to show some backbone again. And then this game happened. So rewind to the start. First thoughts are to which players in the opposition are still ours and cannot play today – Kurt Zuma. Poor lad, his career never seemed to recover after that terrible knee injury a couple of years back. He was on the crest of a wave playing alongside Terry and really looking a Chelsea player. Fast forward to today and after a season with Stoke at the wrong end of the table he’d...

The Man in The Shed   15th March Hot in Kiev Back to Thursdays ! How UEFA expect fans to get to games for 6pm (in the ground or at home) is beyond me. At least this time the Chelsea fans at home could dash off to a local pub or bar after work. After last week’s shenanigans trying to watch the home leg by connecting a laptop to two tin cans and a piece of string I was glad to be sitting down in my own lounge hoping for a better viewing experience. So the inevitable squad rotation – with Hazard, Luiz, Dave and Jorginho wrapped in thick coats and blankets. But opportunities for Loftus-Cheek, Hudson-Odoi and Christensen. With Alonso playing in this game it appears that Emerson has edged ahead as the number one left back now. The first thing that struck me was that it surely could not be as cold as I was expecting over in the Ukraine – there were players with short sleeved shirts on. But Rudiger with short sleeves and gloves – really ? And the Kiev right back was ...

The Man in The Shed 11th  March - Wolves park the bus Two o’clock on a Sunday – never the most appealing time to attend a live game. But let’s not let the feelings of the fans get in the way of the mighty TV broadcasters ! Despite high winds and weekend engineering work I was lucky enough to get to the ground in good time; others were clearly not so lucky. It seemed like the game was ten minutes old before the ground seemed full. The “B” crowd were also in today. No sign of the pumped up singing and chanting we get against Spurs, Arsenal and Man Utd. Many of the noisy regulars clearly didn’t believe it was worth coming to watch us play the team one place below us in 7 th . It took less than 15 minutes for the away fans to notice and serenade us with the inevitable “this is a library”. Sadly I had to agree with them. My first thought was to look hopefully towards the Shed’s main Zigger Zagger man ( https://youtu.be/d-p-smr8k0U ). But even he hadn’t bothered to tur...

The Man in The Shed   9th  March Dynamo Kiev - Russian roulette Well this didn’t work out quite as planned. I should have been ensconced in my usual Shed seat and here I was in front of a laptop in a Travelodge in Buckinghamshire ! They say it is dangerous to make assumptions and here I was “suffering” because I assumed (naturally) that the home leg of our Europa League last 16 tie would be the second one. After agreeing to take my long suffering football widow on a two day trip for some R&R I realised that in fact the home game was actually this week. So here I am with a laptop lashed up to my phone to get an internet connection and BT sport delivering a picture akin to one of those dubious foreign websites that show Premier league games surrounded by messages telling me that my flash player is out of date (again). Well at least it was clear enough to tell the difference between the blue shirted players and the white ones – even if I could barely tell the ...

The Man in The Shed   3 rd March Villain to hero They say a week is a long time in politics – well it can seem even longer in football. Our third game in a week (and seventh in 21 days) and we were living in hope that the team could avoid another Premier League away meltdown. So who better to be pitted against than relegation fodder Fulham? Already on their third manager of the season (all with previous Chelsea connections) and they ship goals more frequently than Gary Lineker tweets. Surely we could finally score an away league goal in 2019 ? So big team news – and its Alonso dropped for Emerson again ! OK, so Kepa is back in the first team after sitting it out on the naughty step last Wednesday. The SKY cameraman was all over the Spanish keeper leading up to kick-off. Quite a dangerous job if you’ve seen the way the lad throws his arms about doing his loosening up exercises. Looking at the Fulham team you had to say there was nothing too frightening – excep...