Chelsea have yet to play to full potential

I HAVE to say that come 6pm on Sunday I was very disappointed indeed. I should have expected it — after all the hype, it was always going to be a draw.

But Arsenal were poor; that’s the really annoying thing. The team that Wenger put out was probably one of the worst Arsenal sides I’ve seen in 10 years.

We should have won the game; we had shots cleared off the line, we hit the woodwork three times and outplayed them for huge parts of the game which included 11 shots on target to their three.

But then no one ever said that football was fair.

People keep telling me that United will drop points; oh really? I’ve been hearing these claims for two months now and all that seems to be happening is that they appear to be getting stronger. We have not played once this season to our full potential over 90 minutes in the Premiership and we will not make up the shortfall in points until we start doing so.

José seems to insist on playing this narrow and brutish first half team, which is all well and good to a certain degree because it doesn’t concede many goals — but neither does it score many. We are missing Joe Cole terribly, but I don’t think José would start with him anyway (he certainly wasn’t in José’s list of “untouchable” players) so it looks like we are stuck with effective football for the first 60 minutes and wide attacking football for the last 30 minutes. I’m not convinced. 4-3-3 please José, at least in the Premiership.

Despite the cheerleading by Sky, referee Alan Wiley had a poor game. The bookings were inconsistent and heavily in favour of Arsenal although nothing game-changing so I shouldn’t moan too much. A referee’s job isn’t made any easier with the pantomime antics we witnessed from German serial nutter Lehman and our Didier either.

I think Sunday also saw the end of the road as far as the fans were concerned for Shaun Wright-Phillips. He was awful. All players try moves that don’t come off; the difference with Wright-Phillips is that he doesn’t learn from his mistakes. Last Sunday, he came on and could have been a hero. The groans from the crowd were getting progressively louder, but still Wright-Phillips gave the ball away cheaply. We’d be lucky to get £10 million for him now.

Ashley Cole escaped lightly — a couple of tired old chants and a few photo-shopped bank notes that barely made it onto the pitch. I think if Gallas had found the balls to play, he’d have got bucketloads more. Just a reminder William — we are STILL waiting for that court case against Chelsea for slander/defamation of character. Or even that TV interview.

As we have an Arsenal theme running through this column this week for obvious reasons, I have to ask how on earth Theo Walcott won Young Sports Personality of the Year? What exactly has he won to deserve that? I’ve always believed that Wenger, Dein et al are in league with the Devil and it seems that Walcott is the latest novitiate into the sect.

Being from the fashionable end of the country, Chelsea have always been trendsetters, so it was no surprise that certain other teams have finally caught on to the “must-have” billionaire owner trend. Of course when we got ours we were set up as an example of all that was bad within the English game — so it is with a certain smirk on my face that I have been reading the justifications from other supporters about to win the footballing lottery.

The more billionaires the better — that’s what I say. Level the playing field again. Liverpool’s incoming billionaire is significantly richer than ours so by Scouser logic, put your house on them winning the league at a canter next season.

How many Peter Crouches can you buy with a gazillion pounds anyway?

Eggy, the odd looking Hammer boss billionaire looks the type with short arms and very long pockets and as he peruses his newly acquired Upton Park, he is working out how many starter homes he can cram into the area.

So we face Newcastle tonight, just as they have been stringing some results together. We have to beat them and then have to beat Everton at the weekend to stay within touching distance.

I know I should be basking in the glow of Essien’s fantastic goal and the fact that Wenger has not yet been able to beat Mourinho. But we needed to win on Sunday. I hope I haven’t just witnessed the turning point of the Premiership race.

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