The Man in The Shed

 The Man in The Shed 22nd March 2022 – Retire the shirt ? Standing in the Shed watching The Blues rolling over Lille I couldn’t help but ponder how to solve a long-term Chelsea problem – one that goes back many years. How to fix the curse of the number nine shirt ? In the Abramovich era Chelsea have spent millions of pounds on a variety of centre forwards. The moment they choose to wear that number nine jersey it seems that is the kiss of death to their career. Romelu Lukaku is just the latest to appear to have succumbed to the curse. After a reasonable start he has looked seriously off the pace since returning from injury. OK, we have to factor in “that” interview in Italy but it may require his exit before we really know what was has been going on. The latest outburst from the press about those seven touches against Palace may be the source of the criticism but to be honest, watching the big Belgian even when he first joined us, I was thinking that he wasn’t chasing around much o...

  The Man in The Shed 25 th  January 2021 – Why ? Why did Chelsea appoint Frank Lampard ? I am a Chelsea fan of 50+ years, a Londoner and a season ticket holder. I regard myself as a fan although not a die-hard one (I was in Moscow and Munich) but family commitments mean my attendance is generally limited to home games. So like many Chelsea supporters I am really hurting right now.  For the first time in over 20 years we had an English manager, a playing legend and a very intelligent man coaching our men's first team. He was idolised as a player to the point where he was the main reason players wanted to join our club. So this appealed to the hearts of many - including me. The romantic side of football. But 21st century football is a multi-billion pound industry and those who own top tier clubs are ruthless when it comes to their investments. All fans are constantly reminded how much money is at stake being in the Premier league. Those that aspire to operate at the t...

The Man in The Shed   3 rd March 2020 – Timing is everything Our third meeting of the season against Liverpool and leading up to the game I had feared the worst for our team. The sudden downturn is Liverpool’s form was somewhat of a surprise (with losses to Athletico Madrid and Watford) but would this be a good time or a bad one to play them ? A wounded opponent angry to re-assert itself or a vulnerable one ? To be honest two of our best performances of the season had been against Liverpool. The European Super cup was lost on penalties and a spirited home performance (along with a VAR disallowed goal) was ultimately not quite good enough. The team sheets were a positive sign for Chelsea. Whilst we had a slowly growing injury list, we could still put out a reasonable team; Liverpool had half a team of younger or squad players (Salah and Firmino on the bench). Two big calls for Chelsea – Kepa back in goal and young Gilmour in midfield. With Liverpool having...

The Man in The Shed   <pic> 29 th February 2020 – Bournemouth

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...

The Man in The Shed © Dylan Martinez/Reuters 25th  January 2020 – Hull

The Man in The Shed © Dylan Martinez/Reuters 21st January 2020 – Arsenal

The Man in The Shed © Dylan Martinez/Reuters 18th  January 2020 – Newcastle

The Man in The Shed © Dylan Martinez/Reuters 11th  January 2020 – Burnley

The Man in The Shed © Bob Thomas Sports Photography 6th January 2020 –   Retro Much of the lead up to this game (from a Chelsea fan perspective) was the 1970 retro kit. As a man of a certain age I could remember watching the 1970 cup final on TV so to realise that 50 years had passed since our first FA Cup win was a sobering thought. Checking out the kit in the shop before the game I liked the very subtle sponsor logos (barely visible from a distance) to keep to the retro theme but I just wished it had come with a 1970 price ! The more prominent publicity was for the mental health video which was shown before the game – whilst agreeing with the continued positive publicity I was just sad that you couldn’t really hear the messages in the ground. The manager had named a very strong team (unlike the Carabao cup sides) although there were still 9 changes from the last game. Forest included former Premier League players Dawson and Jenkinson in their defenc...

The Man in The Shed ©  Dylan Martinez/Reuters 1 st January 2020 – Rocked in Brighton A new year, a new decade and for most football fans – new hopes. The cloud of smoke which apparently obscured last night’s London firework display seemed to have blown down to the south coast for the early kick-off. It was a cold and misty day and I was glad to be sitting with a hot coffee in the comfort of my own home for once. Yet again the teamsheet had only a couple of changes with James and Pulisic back in the team. The first few minutes were fairly uneventful before both teams created a chance. Then a Chelsea corner was headed back by Zouma to Abraham to shoot and Dave taps in the rebound. It has been really obvious in the last few games how much more aggressive Azpilicueta has become at set pieces and it was paying off. James is a real presence when he plays. Technically adept, providing probing crosses and physically strong. He appears to be like an old sch...

The Man in The Shed 29th December –  Back to North London So another game already and another game in London ! Such have been the problems for Arsenal this season that I was struggling mentally to categorise them as still being a top six team. It was yet another game against a team who had just sacked a manager; I was hoping that the “new manager bounce” would not be in evidence today. The Chelsea team was relatively unchanged yet again. You are mentally geared up for 4 or 5 changes each game over the festive period – a nightmare for all of us Fantasy Football players. The main point of note today was tactical with the 3-4-3 formation again being set up. The less said about the first half an hour of the game the better. Whilst the previous away game was all about dominating Spurs this was the exact opposite – with Arsenal seeming to have the upper hand. Yet again Lampard gave up on 3-4-3 to try to wrestle the game back. This meant sacrificing Emerson (who h...

The Man in The Shed 26th December –  Too many turkeys The craziness of the English football fixtures over Christmas was taken a step further this year in that all of the games on Boxing Day were being broadcast by Amazon. In the end it turned out to be to my advantage. Family commitments meant that I couldn’t attend the Southampton game – I had the benefit of a few days at my daughters (who did not have a SKY sports subscription). It turned out though that she did have Amazon Prime so I was able to watch the second half. It felt in many ways like I was watching two teams – the one that travelled well and the one that toiled helplessly at home. This was Bournemouth (and West Ham) all over again. There appeared little in the way of squad rotation. It was more painful viewing. The 3-4-3 formation was ditched at half time but little seemed to change. Inevitably as more players were pushed forward in search of the equaliser Southampton picked us off on the cou...

The Man in The Shed 22nd  December –  No way Jose Whilst you can never say never in football I had to admit that I was surprised that Jose had taken the Tottenham job. Almost as surprising as Spurs sacking their previous manager; they were hardly staring at relegation following an appearance in the Champions League final. Credit Jose with lifting the North Londoners, with 4 wins in 5 games compared to our 4 defeats in the last 5. I wasn’t feeling optimistic watching the build-up on SKY. The biggest surprise on the teamsheet was the return of Alonso and the 3-4-3 formation. With a week of preparation Lampard clearly thought this was a way to outthink Mourinho. Alonso was clearly the pantomime villain for the Spurs fans who booed his every touch (he hasn’t been that popular with the Chelsea fans of late either). Well the first ten minutes were a revelation. Chelsea were in complete control. A corner from Willian to Kovacic and back to Wil...

The Man in The Shed    14 th December –  An unhappy home Sitting sipping my pre-match coffee I began to speculate over the January transfer window. Chelsea had a sizable chunk of money in the bank following the sale of Hazard and others in the summer. The question was if or who might they set their sights on and who might actually be persuaded to come for an acceptable price ? Marina Granovskaia was turning out to be a pretty shrewd operator. The likely casualties / outgoing players seemed clear – Giroud, Pedro, Alonso and perhaps even Barkley. An ever increasing list of potential arrivals was circulating from the possible (lesser knowns) to the impossible (Chilwell, Zaha) to the ridiculous (Mbappé). My main hope was that we didn’t ship in a prima donna to upset what appeared to be a great team spirit in the camp. The weather had improved after almost a week of wet and windy days and nights which was a relief. Like Lille, Bournemouth had announc...