A shocker!

What can I say? We'll start with the birthday first. I got home and DC was ...well.....tired and emotional shall we say. The coven was also there, consisting of The Kings Wife, MiddleSis and LittleSis. They were also in a fairly "socially relaxed" state. I stood and laughed and joked, but the house was a mess with various members of the different broods slowly but surely trashing every section of each room. If I complain I just get the Coven saying "But they're only kids". I cannot win this one, but when you add the noise of the TV belting out Planet Rock (for the Coven are all ex Rock Chicks, except for The Kings Wife - an ex-punk I believe), well the blood pressure slowly but inexorably starts to climb up. I needed to be somewhere else.

I retired to the bedroom, my one and only sanctuary from the horrendous cacophony of noise consisting of a bastardised mish mash of rock music, mobile phone tones, cackling Coven personnel, screaming kids and PS2's. The door closes, I can still hear the row but it is suitably muffled. My TV is on and the footie starts. Slowly my pulse falls , the blood pressure drops, the feeling of sickness in the pit of my stomach slowly subsides. Yes, the noise really gets me that bad. It doesn't happen anywhere else, but in my house, my sanctuary, my bolt hole, it does this every time. Christmas, when all the Clan are down, is a fucking nightmare for me.

Anyway, the match starts, I have my Chelsea shirt on. As I expect for the first 20 minutes we are under the cosh, after all they are the home team. Then they score.

Jack sighs....it's the fucking shirt innit. Jack takes off shirt. Within 2 minutes of said action we equalize! If that isn't empirical proof of my ability to put a hex on the team then I don't know what is. It's a bit cold, but we look good so back goes the shirt.

Half time: 1-1 and we are in the ascendancy and looking very comfortable. The second half starts and.....wait a minute...Ranieri had substituted Gronkjaer for Veron! Veron hasn't played for 6 months or more.

I know the press like Ranieri, and the neutrals as well. I know he likes his "Tinkerman" tag. But I have never thought he was the man to take us to the next level. I think the "Tinkerman" tag shows he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Don't get me wrong, he's a gent and a nice bloke. He has dignity in spades. But as a football manager a better title would be "Fuckwit".

Veron immediately looks like an impostor, as Monaco payers take the ball from him with ease, and intercept his frankly "gay" passes with ease. Then, just as bizarrely Fuckwit takes off Melchiot, our right back and having a decent game, and replaces him with a striker!. Admittedly this was after Makalele, one of our midfielders had got a Monaco player sent off with a disgraceful piece of play acting. For this alone Makalele should be suspended from our side. He should have been sent off as well, no question. Fuckwit moves Scott Parker from right midfield to right back, but then replaces him with Huth - a good prospect but not ready for this level by a long chalk. The whole balance of the team is now irrevocably damaged. Tactics are indecipherable, players (not the brightest of people) are confused over roles and responsibilities. The team, my beloved team is now broken and with it, my heart.

"Pub team "is now a phrase that sums us up.

Monaco outplay us, motivated by the scandalous injustice of the sending off. They saw the fear in our eyes and they salivated. They gorged on the wounded torso of our team, as it crumbled into pieces and fell apart. They had revenge, and it tasted ..oh so good. They went on to score 2 more goals, and we eventually lose 3-1, leaving a fucking mountain to climb. In 45 minutes Fuckwit has managed to alienate a lot of Chelsea fans. Don't get me wrong, mistakes do happen, but I have yet to meet a single Chelsea fan who understood why he made those changes. It wasn't broke, so why try to fix it? These are my players to leave the club (not all featured last night)

Desailly is over the hill, a shadow of the past great player
Haisselbank - contributes nothing if not scoring - a luxury
Makalele - a cheat - bring in Beckham and give this tosser back to Madrid
Ambrosio - lucky until last night but the 3rd goal showed his lack of ability to keep goal at this level
Geremi - why did we buy him?
Stanic - bye bye
Sullivan - how desperate were we?

Crespo, Veron, Gudjohnson all deserve another season. I will not dismiss Veron last night, except to criticise him for not accepting he was not ready to play. He should have told Fuckwit this, and been honest to himself and the fans. Cole, Lampard, Bridge, Terry, Johnson, Duff, Mutu, Parker and all the others are are our future. Bring on Martin O' Neill or Didier Deschamps. Someone to take us into our bright future.

By the way, this piss take from the BBC amused me.


Lucy, thanks for your comment on Caron Keating. The same sentiment goes to Priceless for her comments via email. You may have a point, but I still think it is mainly because she was so close to my own age and that hits home more and more every time. I also thought she was fairly close to my ideal woman. Someone you could imagine always being positive! To the guy who left me a note in the guestbook. I'm not having a mid-life crisis! I'm having a continuing life crisis! And as for the "closet gay" comment. I could get some references on that one from some of my previous female partners, but I am the soul of discretion. I think you should try and understand the allegorical nature of my language when talking about work!

This has been a big, but enjoyable one...

Later, Grocerjack