Chelsea 3-1 Newcastle - All I care about is Chelsea and Gin.

In the News: So Mingolet (intentional sic) gets away with attempting to murder an opponent, nothing gets done to Lukaku for being a thug. Where do the F*ckwit association decide to direct their paltry wrath this week? At Antonio Conte. For being right. You couldn't make it up. In response the boss has gone a bit Chequebook. Difficult to believe that they haven't pointedly decided to single us out for sh*t fixtures. It hasn't been great, I'll give him that, with us repeatedly being scheduled to play early on a Saturday after a Wednesday game. I'm just pleased that it's the Toon Army that have had to leave home at 3am to play us for once and not the other way around. If any manager deserves a dressing down it's not ours. When Pepstarted jumping around like a coked up Jack-in-a-box in front of Nathan Redmond I would have paid money to see the Southampton player put him on the ground with a swift head butt and tell the FA he felt for his personal safety. What kind of oddball does that to someone else's employee? And as for the "I was paying him compliments" line, or whatever wittering nonsense he came up with whilst picking his nose in front of the camera this time, 90% of communication is body language and there wasn't anything remotely positive about that cringeworthy display. At least he's acknowledged he's a twat I suppose. Still don't like him. Speaking of cringeworthy, Podgettino is releasing a tell-all book about last season. Ew. Tacky. Also what a waste of time. I can do it in eleven words:

They won nothing. Again. But they put pressure on. The End. 

Hilariously, as predicted their players are lining up to jump ship. The Diving Little Sh*t doesn't appear to give a crap at the moment. Alderweireld is understandably insulted by their refusal to pay him more than 50k a week which is nonsense in today's market. I'm pretty sure Ross Turnbull earned at least half of that at Chelsea. And Danny F*cking Rose, evil, cheating little turd that he is, has made no secret of his desire to run away.

On to things that make me angry. Fat Sam, for the inevitable 18 months he will last at Everton is going to get paid about £8m. Criminal. The top brass at the club say he is underrated. On the contrary, I think I've given him plenty of credit for being a crooked, tedious bore with the chewing action of a geriatric goat.  Out of nowhere the classless oaf decided to have a pop at the Watford Manager. Silva's record cannot be compared to his "whatsoever" apparently. Firstly, that's a mighty big word for you Sam, and secondly, I'm sure Silva, Watford and indeed the whole Premier League are immensely grateful that there's only one of you. Still, at least the Toffees can thank their lucky stars they didn't get Real Pulis. If you're the Daily Fail, apparently taking a picture of Ian Holloway lying on a bench getting a tattoo is newsworthy. Even when you don't have a picture of the tattoo. Half an article. About nothing. Once again someone is getting paid to produce this sh*t. Oh and some draw took place for some competition in Russia. Just when you thought Gary Lineker couldn't stoop any lower in pursuit of cash than crisp adverts, he shows up endorsing a corrupt event that nobody even wants to sponsor. England are in some group. With some other countries. Nobody cares. 

And transfer nonsense this week? Ozil to Chequebook Pulis on a free. Enjoy. Also, Barcelona to put in a bid for our little Willy if they don't get Coutinho. Bit if a sideways move. Bench/Starter at Chelsea to Mostly Bench at UEFAlona. Would be sunnier there I suppose. And regarding my plan to sell Bertie to Real Madrid for £80m (if they are willing to spend that on Martial it was a given) and his buy back "claws" (I stole that) the deal fell through. His personal terms were just too demanding. All that premium cat food and the massive toy box. He wanted Ronaldo's spot in the dressing room too, it was next to the radiator. Plus he baulked at the lack of marmite products available in Spain. 

The Others: Let's all take a moment to bask in the joy of Sp*rs failing to win a match. Again. 1-1 with Watford. A bore draw for West Brom and Palace, the Scouse won at Brighton and Huddersfield lost at Everton. As usual the Red Swarm painted up this Arse/United affair like it was going to blow the mind. First billion dollar game apparently. They did realise that this was Chequebook Pulis right? Pogba has got the intelligence of a mangy wet sponge and even he is moaning about all the work he has to do on defensive tactics. Somehow with 70% possession, Arsenal managed to f*ck it up by conceding three goals from three shots on target. Snigger. 

I cut a virtuous figure shopping for the food bank before kick off (with the help of my minions from the London is Blue) and sitting in the pub with my lemonade. Let's leave out the part where I had already been necking limoncello at the CFCUK stall before 10:30.

Them: Maybe we should feel sorry for Rafa. He's gone from managing Real Madrid to being at a club where the board give him a score come summer and say "don't spend it all at once treacle." With the exception of Shelvey, with his uncanny resemblance to Lord Voldemort (this is a reference to the villain in Harry Potter for those of you who have been in a cave for the last twenty years) I honestly don't think I'd recognise any of the Newcastle players if you offered me a million pounds. 

Us: And we rotate again, mostly with a Champions League game on the horizon. Danny Drinkwater came in, as did Moses, Dave and Hazard. Out went Willian, Cahill, Pesto (yawn autospell) and Zappacosta. 

There was a flurry of early possession from them. Hazard chested the ball down for Alonso on nine minutes but his shot was wide. They had the better of it in the opening spell. In fact they were all over us. I don't know what it is about us at the moment that means we have to knob about for the opening five/ten minutes before we get out sh*t together. We paid for it today when they went ahead: a faffy attempt at defending, a possible handball and an eventual tap in. You can guess part of what happened next. Their goalkeeper, cunningly disguised as a traffic cone, got his first time-wasting warning after less than quarter of an hour, his second a few minutes later. We were not awful by any means, just frustrating when it came to retaining the ball. Hazard should have scored after a trademark long pass from Fabregas, there were two penalty shouts from Morata which of course were not given. The first one, I wasn't convinced but the second was outrageous. Christensen watched a header float agonisingly towards goal only to see it hit the post. We didn't have to wait much longer though. On twenty minutes another sublime cross in from Dave to Morata, the defender gets a foot on it, but only to drop it down for Eden Hazard to smash it home.

Well that knocked them on their a*ses. We had got the measure of them in midfield, largely thanks to an on-song Fabregas and Drinkwater, who continues to impress as he builds up his form after injury. For obvious reasons he fits right in next to Kante and I love how determined he is to win the ball. I'm going to call him Tenacious Double D.

A little over ten minutes after our equaliser Rudi ran it forward, Moses inherited it after a poor header from the defender out wide and hammered it past the goalie and two more barcodes ready to be headed in by Morata for his tenth goal of the season. Their defenders were lying face down in the six yard box. Quite rightly dying of shame. Baby Boycie, (sitcom alias) whose brother started glory supporting Newcastle in the nineties and was in the away end, was leaping up and down doing the wanker sign at him. Then we had a cringeworthy chorus of we don't care about Rafa. I could never get on with this, because I don't care about him and that means I certainly don't want to sing about him. I did chuckle when he tried to kick a football today and was treated to a rousing chorus of "What the F*cking Hell Was That?" Morata's goal appeared to knock all the wind out of Newcastle, if not their manager. We could have had another when TDD hit a long range effort but it curled away from the goal. Approaching halftime Newcastle had offered nothing since we went ahead except slapstick. Doing his own sh*t festive version of The Nutcracker, Perez pirouetted round the ball four times and fell in his arse. 2-1 it was at the break. 

We had two good chances to put the game to bed within a couple of minutes of the restart. Rafa had started the second half by leaving six back whenever they made a rare foray forward, which said it all about Newcastle for most of the game today. It's not that the intent wasn't there to have a go, but the quality was certainly lacking and as this became more and more evident they continued to fade away save for a final death throe in injury time. 

On 53 minutes Hazard had a shot on target deflected, which almost then went in the corner, before a third penalty shout was waved away. Which brings me to Refwatch: Kevin Not-My-Friend was just as inconsistent and nonsensical as always. Right from the off. He even managed to foul Fabregas himself he's that f*cking incompetent. And rude because he twattish hand signal that in no way acknowledged that he was in the way. He also doesn't know what obstruction is. And he's finickity. Which is a word I think I've made up. But it means anal and annoying. 

Therefore we were all stunned on 73 minutes when Moses was brought down in the area by a hapless Ritchie and he awarded a penalty. Newcastle had few complaints though and having seen it again not even Kevin could have f*cked that up. Hazard steps up, sends the traffic cone the wrong way and hits it in with ease. He could have had another two minutes later but he was run out of it. He was not to have the match ball today. Conte already had Tuesday in mind and replaced him with Willian. Fabregas too made way for Bakayoko, who made his first appearance since a day to forget in the land of Scouse. Moments later Cahill too came on for Christensen. There were opportunities for a fourth with some pinball in the box and Kante could have had a goal had he not run round and round the ball in circles in the box instead of getting a shot off. The highlight of the remaining time though were the chants of “Harry Potter, he’s coming for you” at Shelvey. Even better, I doff my wooly hat to one wit in The Shed, because every time JonJo drew his leg back to kick the ball he shouted EXPELIARMUS! at him at the top of his voice. Three mins of injury time saw Newcastle make more of a fist at getting a goal back, but it was too little too late. 

So: At least they came to play football. Even if it was mostly badly. Despite going behind we made it look a bit easy in the end. I can forgive Moses for not being entirely match fit, but not for wearing gloves with short sleeves. Dave didn’t have his best day but I don't feel like I can criticise him, ever. It would be like bitching at Mother Theresa for having a lie in. I didn’t think anybody had a bad game today, least of all Christensen who just looks like part of the furniture now. On to Tuesday, where a win will ensure that we wont be left with a 66% chance of facing another miserable bout of police brutality in Paris or a trip to UEFAlona where the crooked buggers will know the final score before kick off. This would have been posted hours earlier were it not for the Podcest mashup that went out live featuring regulars from both the Chelsea Fancast and the lovely visiting yanks from London is Blue. Many f*cks were exclaimed, but none were given. And I drank a lot of gin.

AC - Check out her Blog - A Girl who likes balls HERE