The Man in The Shed

The Man in The Shed 25 th February 2020 – Rematch It was inevitable that every Chelsea fan would want to re-live our greatest game ever in the lead up to this tie. Could it really be nearly eight years ago ? My proudest football moment was to have been present in Munich that night. The sobering thought was how much better it felt that team was compared to our fledgling squad today. Of course, Bayern just kept motoring along in the intervening years winning title after title. We were definitely the underdogs. Much preparation by a number of Chelsea fans to raise funding and then complete the logistics for the pre-match display at the Matthew Harding end to remind the German fans what they’d said before the final in 2012. It looked great (even if the wind made raising the banners a challenge. Well played ! Something of a surprise was an unchanged team. I was happy with that. Most fans near me in the Shed were realistic. We spent most of the first half ad...

The Man in The Shed 22 nd February 2020 – No way Jose There was no chance to ponder the dismal loss to United with another big game 5 days later ! If you can guarantee a fixture to raise a Chelsea team it is against Tottenham. Add a certain Jose Mourinho to the mix and that’s spicy enough. With both teams arriving on the back of disappointing losses who would raise their game ? It had been highlighted in the media leading up to this game that a certain Ethan Ampadu had led the Leipzig defence to a clean sheet and win against Tottenham in the Champions League. The poor lad had been struggling for game time on loan yet due to injuries he’d stepped in and played a blinder. Ferdinand on BT Sport had heaped praise on the young lad. I had to chuckle. Statistics told us that the next best team in the league on current form since Jose joined Tottenham (after Liverpool) were the men from North London. They were now just a point behind us in fifth place. The teamshe...

The Man in The Shed 17 th February 2020 – Deflated So, after the longest “week” in Fantasy Football history (oh, and the Premier League Winter break) we were back at home to Manchester United. Only time would tell if this benefits the players (no excuses at the Euros in the summer now) but certainly one or two of our young players looked in need of a rest (Mount for one) and the chance for one or two others to work back to fitness (Abraham specifically but Loftus-Cheek and Pulisic too). So, it was with some disappointment to see that both Hudson-Odoi and Abraham had been ruled out with injuries. I’d felt that we’d not suffered too badly with injuries this season (one or two here and there) but as a very tricky run of fixtures arrived so we were losing players. Looking at the starting 11 it was difficult to see where the goals were going to come from out of Pedro, Willian and Batshuayi - backed up by 3 defensive midfielders. The consolation was that United were lo...

The Man in The Shed 1st February 2020 –  Close the window So with a “war chest” of cash and the chance to buy some of the biggest talent on the planet the transfer window closed and we had bought – nobody ! Perhaps the most important acts in the window were the new contract for James and the loss of Lamptey (perhaps because of James). I’d said all along that I would rather we didn’t sign somebody if it ruined the team spirit than bring in a prima-donna type so perhaps it would turn out to be a good window. The hope was now that Chelsea had put down clear markers for key players they want and the opportunity would be better in the summer. Still, it kept an army of media “experts” busy for a month predicting a whole load of nonsense. There were perhaps some deals that got close judging by how tetchy Lampard appeared to be at his press conference. The big news on the teamsheet was Abraham playing through the pain in attack but also the promotion of Caball...