Chelsea 5-0 Stoke: Where There's a Willy There's a Way

Match report written by Alex Churchill and featured with permission from her fantastic Blog - A Girl Who Likes Balls. 

In the News: Most of the amusement this week has come from the shy, retiring, self-pronounced non-drama queen that is Chequebook Pulis. Says he hasn't been able to spend enough money to win. Just the £300m. It's obviously not that he has become boring and repetitive as a manager, and that he has no flexibility or seemingly any desire to evolve. Oh and when people counter with the fact that he spent a monstrous amount of money on Lukaku, who doesn't do anything, he says he is tired. Poor baby. 

Jamie Carragher made a relevant point this week. (It happens occasionally) He said that the way in which teams come out and play against the top six in the league is flat out embarrassing. They don't even try, and that this is not why the world tunes in to watch it. Are we becoming just like the Spanish league? Where everything below the Champions League scrap is just irrelevant and tedious? Perish the thought. But Newcastle didn't so much as attempt to play football until the 85th minute against City. And it surely is a trend that is becoming more pronounced. Jazz-Hands Fellaini believes that he has been harshly treated in English football. On the contrary I think the hapless tit has been completely overindulged by officials as he cannons round various stadia fouling people and trying to kill them with his elbows. Sanchez went to celebrate a goal only to find that none of his teammates wanted to celebrate with him. The amusing thing about this was the expression on his face, which seemed not to understand why this might be the case. 

And Transfer Silly Season has officially begun. Conte spoke the absolute truth when he said this week that our ability to keep Eden Hazard will depend on demonstrating our own ambition as a club. He wants to win European trophies, and for once Madrid don't exactly look like the force they should be. So perhaps if we look like a club bent on conquering Europe he might consider staying. As it stands though, Chelsea have not discussed any contract with Eden. It's too early. So anything you are reading about him rejecting deals is made up nonsense. But Courtois is close to signing a new five year contract. 

I don't know what is funnier, the fact that Liverpool have spent 75m on Virgil van Dijk, or the fact that they think is going to fix their defensive issues in one hit. Apparently City, who obviously can't watch other people spending money without spunking cash on something, are monitoring Ryan Bertrand and Jonny Evans. To bump their homegrown quota no doubt. Because neither will even see the pitch. And Southampton and Stoke are supposedly set to fight it out over Spaghetti Legs Sturridge. Oh how the ego has fallen. This is the same schmuck that was banging on Ancelotti's door complaining about not starting as a lone centre forward ahead of Drogba. 

The Others: I gave Jamie Vardy a pass on being a cheating little w*nker for putting Leicester ahead of the Scouse. Then I took it away again after they made a comeback. Neil Barnett dubbed Newcastle vs. Brighton the "Park the Bus Derby" at half time. A predictable 0-0. Same scoreline to round off the year for high-flying Burnley at Huddersfield. Swansea, of all teams, made a comeback at Watford to win 1-2, Bournemouth inflicted defeat on Fat Sam and the Scouse's Academy (Southampton) rounded off everyone's year with some festive cheer by inflicting more pain on Chequebook and his mob. Their fans are getting a look at the other side of Matic, they have no strikers and Pogba just embarrasses himself every time the staff go round to his house and drag him out of bed. In the words of Fake Klopp: (special alias) "after the best part of two decades of strutting arrogance there is something delicious about listening to United fans lashing out every which way now they are the most expensive ordinary team in the league." 

Us: Christensen was able to take to the bench, but Conte did not risk starting him after illness kept him sidelined on Boxing Day. Hazard dropped to the bench, where he was kept company by Fabregas and Bakayoko. 

Them: "Sterk" had won one single game away from home all season. They had defensive personnel woes, including not being able to field Kurt Zouma against us, not to mention Hughes's team selection was batsh*t crazy, leaving the likes of Shaqiri and Allen on the bench. 
We were gunning for our eighth consecutive home win. What could possibly go wrong on his birthday? I'll tell you what. Today's referee? Kevin Not-My-Friend. 

Thanks to the tossers at TfL, there are still no tubes running in the direction of Stamford Bridge and so the ground looked half empty in the run up to kick off. I'm not convinced that anyone actually knows what day it is in this week before Christmas and New Year, so I wouldn't be surprised if a few hundred people woke up tomorrow and realised they'd missed the game too, but shortly before 3pm the seats finally filled up for kick-off. 

Those who struggled to SW6 today will be glad they did. We had opportunities in the opening minute and it quickly transpired that not even on his worst day could Kevin Friend save these jobbers from annihilation. After two and half minutes we were ahead. A Willian free kick came in high from the touchline. Out of five Sterk players in the six yard box, four of them didn’t even bother to leave the ground to try and intercept the ball and the last did this pathetic little skip thing that gave him about six inches of added height but took him away from Rudiger, who soared into the air completely unmolested and headed it home. What a Christmas present from the meatheads for him. Shambolic defending and Butland (Butlins, according to auto-spell, I like this) just pranced a yard off his line and made no attempt to come for the ball in the six-yard box. Chumps. 

Within a few minutes he was left on his line opening and closing his mouth like a guppy. To be fair, I don't think any keeper would have seen this coming. Pesto. (I can’t help but refer to him as this in conversation now, which makes people look at me like I’m a moron) The ball he played wasn’t great - he had a meathead coming at him to intercept. But on the outside of the box Tenacious Double D controlled it once, then like a cheeky f*cker hit it with the outside of his foot to score a stunning debut goal for the Blues, Butlins (why not, it makes me laugh) could do nothing but watch it sail past him into the top right hand corner. I’m a little bit in love with the new boy.

We’d had 75% possession in the opening ten minutes, were 2-0 up and the opposition had been frankly embarrassing. This was the worst possible scenario for them. To be two behind so early on and left to come out for 80 plus minutes to try and salvage the game. Were they even capable of this? Their better attacking players were on the bench, inexplicably. Charlie Adam? Are you sh*tting me? I did fashion at school and they taught us that vertical stripes were slimming. Nope. He can barely kick a ball without falling on his fat a*se. The only reason he exists in football is as some form of equal opportunities employee who makes slightly wide middle aged men in the stands continue to buy into the fantasy that one day they too might be professional footballers. Who did they have on the bench by way of firepower to bring on? Crouuuuuuch. (You have to say it really low and basically like you are belching to get the right effect) Does the circus know you’re here? That’s right, a big top runaway who is almost as bad now at football as he is at writing his football column for the Daily Mail, where his admittedly admirable sense of humour is lost in print and he just sounds like a complete f*cktard. Still, who gives a sh*t. It had been ages since we trounced someone by an Ancelotti-like scoreline. We wanted more. Even if many of us were too fat, drunk, traumatised by the journey to the Bridge or plain exhausted after Christmas to articulate this properly. 

I lost count of how many we could have scored. We nicknamed Rudi “Antonio Iniesta,” this lot made him look so good he ventured up the field. He was sublime. Morata was allowed to run the whole length of their half without anybody bothering to try and intercept him, until Butlins blocked his shot. Their fans were giving it large. What else could they do? They must be longing for the days of Real Pulis. All those epic 0-0s where they cheered like they won the Champions League. At home. They put up a far better showing than their hapless players. On 22 minutes Willian, while three meatheads ran about him like headless chickens, their minds blown when he changed direction with the ball, stroked it across the outside of the eighteen yard box to Pesto. More meatheads stood oblivious as he stopped the ball, and touched it on. I’m pretty sure he would have had time to smoke a fag before hitting it past Butlins, he had that much time while they just stared at him bewildered. It seemed to happen in slow motion. Poor Butlins. If he didn’t have such a hilarious bunch of no-hopers in front of him, he might rival Pickford for England. As it is; hung, out, to, dry. By the half hour mark the possession had come up, with Sterk confounding rapidly diminishing expectations and actually stringing some passes together, but they had done literally nothing with it. No shot on or off target. The only anxious person in blue at Stamford Bridge was Morata, who clearly understood that for him not to score in this game would be a tad unacceptable.  

Sacked in the morning? Hardly anyone sang it. Frankly at this point it looked like it would be a miracle if Sparky had a job by half past five. I could see Hughes' grin from the other end of the ground. They had a goal chalked off just before half time. Because the only way they could put it in the net was with a hand. The heat map of our box didn't even show a freezing cold little blue blob where someone fell over. It was an abyss. It was as void as Chequebook Pulis's bowels at full time yesterday. Courtois spent half time warming up because he had done so little. Which left his seat free in the dressing room for Butlins to sit on it and beg Conte to sign him. If you’d have lined up van Gerwyn, Barney and Phil Taylor in front of him he would have had more protection than I witness from Stoke’s makeshift defence in the opening 45 minutes. Shower of sh*t is about the nicest thing I could say about the away side. The match had resembled that scene in Game of Thrones where The Mountain dispensed with Oberon Martell. (Don’t google if you have a weak stomach) 

3-0. Scoreline of death. Where multiple goal bets go to die on your accumulators. We didn’t need to try, and Sterk knew they had no hope of getting back into the game. Damage limitation. The fact that the away fans stayed in the stand drinking piss water (Singha beer) well after the play resumed said it all. 

Berahino had their only shot of the afternoon shortly after play resumed, when he inexplicably managed to turn Gary Cahill, but Courtois made an easy save. The rest of the chances we ours. A right foot shot from Moses was always curling away from the far post, Morata missed another one on one, because he has a habit of hitting them straight at the keeper. Willian could have had more than one. Pesto, basically got away with loitering on the edge of the box and taking potshots at them all afternoon from range completely unmarked.

Just when you thought Sterk’s afternoon couldn’t have got any worse, they managed to bring Willian down in the box seemingly AFTER they had taken the ball off him. Sigh. After that momentary pause where you wondered if Friend would have the audacity to book him for diving (wouldn’t be the first time) we were awarded the penalty. Morata had gone off, Batman wanted it, but Willy deservedly claimed it for himself. Butland didn’t even dive, he just sort of crumpled to the ground, hoping it would swallow him up and end this nightmare. 4-0. 

Refwatch: The only decision he really had to make was the penalty. Because Sterk were rarely close enough to try and foul us. Not even Kevin could have fucking this up, though he managed to book Pesto for diving just to maintain his cockwomble status. He had no help from his lino in front of the West Stand, who never did anything with his flag until after Friend had already made a decision. Which led us to discussing what the job requirements must be? 

“Wanted - football linesmen - must be incapable of making a decision without deferring to somebody else, must enjoy taking dog’s abuse and must be willing to skip sideways for long periods of time. No education requirements.”

4-0 wakes everybody on the winning side up again. I don’t know why, but it does. Maybe it’s because you can smell a tanking. You had to feel for the two lonely photographers left down the Shed End in the second half to anticipate a Sterk goal. I’m pretty sure I heard one of them snoring. I’d forgotten Charlie Adam was even on the pitch until he tried to flatten Willian on 79 minutes. Then he went off. Moving faster than we had seen all afternoon. Never underestimate the motivation when he has a ten minute headstart on the dressing room fridge. Finally on 87 minutes a sh*t header from a meathead fell onto the foot of substitute Zappacosta who did Butlins on his near post to make all of TCW's birthday wishes come true. 5-0. Two minutes added? That’s the pity injury time. Where it should be five but the whole world feels so sorry for you being continually bent over that the officials just decide to put you out of your misery.

So: Hughes got exactly what what he deserved for that team he picked, even allowing for missing personnel. I’ve not seen such an enjoyably pathetic performance at the Bridge from an away side since we trounced CP 4-0. Sterk were that bad, that during the game and in The Cock afterwards we managed to utilise the entire alphabet in coming up with words that described just how terrible they were today: 

A*se
Baffled
Crap
Deflated
Embarrassing 
Flaccid 
Ghastly 
Hapless
Inept 
Joke 
Kaput 
Limp
Miserable 
Nonsense 
Oblivious 
Pounded 
Quagmire (well done Cookie)
Rubbish 
Sad
Tragic 
Useless 
Void of ideas 
Wank 
xecrable (You don’t need the E really)
“You've had your day out now f*ck off home” (Top points from Mowgli)
Zappacosta even scored 

One of our number pointed out a stat (I’m too drunk to bother checking it) that people complain that young British managers don’t get enough of a chance in the Premier League. Fat Sam, Hughes, Real Pulis and Pardew (who I don’t mind so much) have apparently had 28 premier league jobs between them, all of which they have failed miserably at. So if others are not getting a chance it's because the same cycle of sh*te keeps going around and around. About time they got f*cked off then in favour of some new blood then isn’t it? 

Anyway, screw them. Sterk may have been terrible, but we worked hard today. Willian led the way, and was at his absolute best, running everything down, shrugging off multiple meatheads and pulling all of the strings going forward. Two assists and a goal was the least of what he deserved,  along with a fair bit of contrition from the nappy sh*tters who so love getting on his case. Where’s the one that called him a cancer on Chelsea? Rudiger too proved why it will be very difficult to leave him out as he continues to find his feet. The only disappointment today for me was Morata squandering more chances. You could see it on his face every time he missed, but this was just the kind of performance we wanted before a trip to the Emirates midweek, and done with giving key players a rest too. Before that though, in the words of Eddie Murphy, Merry New Year. Second in the table, through to the knockout stages of the CL, still in the Coca-Cola cup even, means that even the most rabid of nappy sh*tters should be able to enjoy it. At least a little bit.

AC
@CFCgwlb

Check out Alex's Blog - "A Girl Who Likes Balls" - HERE