No Bridge too far as José creates a little more history

THE history books now show that we have gone 64 home league games undefeated. That’s over three years! What makes it all the sweeter is that it was Liverpool’s record.

Their history is slowly, but surely, being eroded (cue a gazillion e-mails).

As if that isn’t amazing enough, José Mourinho’s record is nothing short of staggering — he has not been defeated at home in the league since Beira Mar beat Porto 3-2 on February 23 2002 — over five years ago! This is history in the making, not ancient history.

I was a tad nervous before our opening game. Birmingham always put up a stubborn resistance. Not only was the record at stake, but also we had the high profile injuries, a number of new players starting and an indifferent pre-season. But what a feast.

All summer we have been reading about how Roman Abramovich has “demanded” attacking, free-flowing, football; what we witnessed was attacking, free-flowing, football. I’m not sure that Mourinho reacts well to threats, but he could have taken the owner’s expectations as a challenge; it could just be a natural progression; it could be down to our new players; whatever the reason, Stamford Bridge crowd was very appreciative.

It was amusing listening to radio stations on the way home who took our one goal margin as some sort of proof of frailty. They obviously had not seen the game — it was a hammering, punctuated only by a freak goal and a piece of lazy defending by Glenn Johnson. In truth we should have scored at least six.

It’s a shame that we are facing Liverpool so early in the season when we do have a couple of key injuries. I’m not making ready my excuses — I would have genuinely liked to see the Reds’ best 11 facing ours as I am very interested in how much the gap has closed following Liverpool’s extensive spending. The pundits seem to think that the Liverpool squad has moved on to such a degree that they will mount a serious challenge.

Personally, I have not at any point thought “damn, wish we had signed him” — although this may change if they do manage to secure the services of Heinze.

Mourinho has proved his mettle — back to back — but how will Benitez fare after contributing to the unabandoned spending which has marked this summer? Liverpool need to win the Premiership. It’s been a mighty long time and they have a shiny new stadium to pay for. It will be interesting to see Rafa under some pressure as I don’t think he has the strength of character for the kind of difficulties Mourinho faced when he was given free rein with Abramovich’s wallet (cue another gazillion e-mails).

The renaissance of Wright Phillips (we’ve heard that phrase before I think!) and the excellent start from Malouda has put the Robben situation on the back burner, but summer just wouldn’t be the same without a protracted Chelsea transfer deal. For all intents and purposes Real Madrid have tapped up our Arjen — but it seems that this is only a heinous crime when committed by us. What we have now is a player committed to leaving, but a club not willing to pay our asking price. How this will be resolved, and what bearing it will have on the potential arrival of another Brazilian — Daniel Alves of Sevilla — to join Alex will be apparent shortly.

Tonight we return to the place where the Premiership was lost last season — Reading.

Rumour has it that all Chelsea keepers will be wearing full body armour. I don’t expect the most thrilling of games — I may take a good book.

I want to win this one very badly indeed — I want an old fashioned tonking (not that I think we’ll get one). Reading fans were disgraceful following Cech and Cudicini’s injuries. The way they went on you would have thought it was Hunt’s knee broken by Cech’s ill-advised head butt!

I want a cricket score — this one’s personal!

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