Grant still unpopular, despite our good form

LONDON prices seem positively reasonable after three days in Norway —although paying over €10 a pint didn’t seem to put the Chelsea faithful off their drink.

Despite the old wallet taking a bit of a hammering, it was just nice to be once again watching football in a relaxed atmosphere, without some meat-head in a painfully bright jacket screaming at you to sit down.

The Norwegian police were even more relaxed than the Germans and again there was no one held in after the match — although this was probably to provide entertainment to the Rosenborg supporters as 1400 Chelsea fans attempted to navigate their way over the pavements of snow and black ice. The result also contributed to a thoroughly enjoyable trip — and I was surprised at how easy that victory was. Rosenborg were a shadow of the team that came to Stamford Bridge.

At the weekend it was West Ham, and it’s always good to beat them; their hatred for us makes it very satisfying.

You’ve got to laugh at them and not just because they are slack-jawed, sovereign ring wearing chavs, but because of how bitter they are. They perceive Lampard as some sort of traitor for leaving them, yet when he was there they wanted him out as the claret and blue geniuses felt that his place in the team was down to nepotism rather than talent.

Joe Cole too was stagnating at the “academy.” Chelsea took him, moulded him and made him an England regular, although there have been glimpses of the show-pony lately.

But he scored for us and a win is a win and three points were very welcome as was keeping our home record intact. We had to endure some pretty dire football again — resorting to hoofing long balls up to Drogba; that and some naive tactics and substitutions, but we got away with it.

It was good, too, to see Carlo Cudicini mark his 200th appearance for the club with a clean sheet. He’s been a good servant and a top-class goalkeeper who had the misfortune to find himself in a squad with the world’s best.

With Christmas looming what’s the state of play? Well, it looks like an open league race to me, with a few clubs in with a shout. Arsenal do seem to be playing with a confidence that I recognise from our championship winning seasons under Mourinho.

Worryingly, Liverpool too keep winning while scoring lots of goal — I don’t like the look of that — I don’t like the look of that at all. Shame that Rafa seems to have backed off the verbal fisticuffs with the Yanks though. That would have been a fun to watch. It was a fight Benitez could have never won — just ask Mourinho. If he had gone though, it would have been interesting to see the backtracking when Liverpool were inevitably linked with Jose.

It’s been amusing enough watching it in terms of the England job — the fan’s choice no less. Ironic isn’t it? Speaking of results, Grant’s have not been bad — in fact all in all, they have been pretty good. However the Chelsea faithful are still finding it very hard to take him to their hearts. My feelings on the whole matter have not changed — I don’t like him, I don’t like the way he got the job and I don’t like the fact that he has no qualification or experience. But it is interesting to get out there and canvas opinion and European trips are a good measurement of the opinion of the hardcore — and Grant is far from popular.

I am a very stubborn individual and had believed that while many supporters would have opposed him in the beginning, that feelings towards him had softened; that does not seem to have been the case, which is interesting as football fans can be very fickle.

If we beat Arsenal perhaps he will win a few more hearts and minds — we shall see.

This weekend we face a team whose league position perhaps isn’t the best indicator of their performances in the Premiership. If you ignore the freak result against Everton, all Sunderland’s other games have been close affairs, and Roy Keane has obviously instilled in them his “never say die” attitude. This match is not the forgone conclusion that many seem to think it is — they will make us work hard for any sort of result.

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