Moving south for a bigger stadium would herald a downpour of morons

WIN OR LOSE, the one constant watching Chelsea these last couple of weeks has been the torrential rain.

The deluge in Rome was one of the worst I have seen. By the time we got to the ground we were soaked to the skin, and then to be served up that load of tripe on the pitch just completed a miserable night.

It seems that no matter who the manager is, nor who is in the team — we cannot play away in Europe. As we left the ground I heard we had not won away in Europe for over a year, which for a team of our quality is quite startling. I don’t really understand why we play so differently abroad — if we played our own game we would succeed.

The other thing that has started to niggle me is a nagging doubt that Scolari, for all his attributes seems to struggle to change a game when things aren’t working. The most obvious examples are the Liverpool game, and then last week in Rome. That said, I agree with John Terry that the players need to take their share of responsibility. Football fans will forgive almost anything, but a lack of effort is not one of them.

Perhaps we should have adopted the Gerrard solution — ie when things are just not working and you are looking down the barrel of a potential defeat, swan dive over that invisible boot to earn that last-ditch penalty.

Anelka continues to prove his doubters (including me) wrong with another brace at the weekend and looks happier. Highest scorer in the Premier League and still some fans are not happy. I heard one Chelsea “fan” describe his trio against Sunderland as “the worst hat-trick I have seen” and when he narrowly missed repeating the feat against Blackburn, I heard yet another Einstein say “if he had scored that, it would have been the luckiest hat-trick ever”.

It is increasingly difficult to keep one’s mouth shut as you hear morons slating quality players. I could not keep quiet on the bus away from the Olympic Stadium as one idiot shared his opinion that Mikel not only was “totally rubbish and a waste of money” but should be “shipped out to make way for Ivanovic who could be turned into an excellent defensive midfielder”.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion — but this is not an opinion, it is just plain wrong. Euro ‘96 and radio phone-ins have a lot to answer for. Mikel has been one of our players of the season so far; no one denies he had a horrible game in Rome and that two goals were down to his mistakes, but he is an immense player and is still young.

I enjoyed the Blackburn game and excuse the cliché, but the rain really was a great leveller. If you want to win the title you have to be able to play in any conditions and the boys just got stuck in despite the conditions. Interestingly, that game equalled the record of most consecutive away wins — a record held by Chelsea under Mourinho.

If we play our usual game, and maintain our record as flat-track bullies, I can’t see why that record will not be surpassed this weekend against West Brom.

The other point of note up at Ewood, was that Cech seems to be continuing his return back to the excellent form we enjoyed pre his Reading injury.

So tonight we are playing host to Burnley in the Carling Cup — a competition not usually taken very seriously by our rivals. It heralded the start of a sack full of trophies under Mourinho and Scolari has already expressed his intention to play to win everything. All that said, I still hope we see at least two or three youngsters given their chance. After all, with the club still insisting that the cheque book is closed we may need them should we suffer any more injuries.

I am ignoring, for now, the speculation about the club moving from Stamford Bridge to Battersea (south of the river, that will take a lot of thinking about) because, for the time being it is just that — speculation. But I would be very worried that any increase in capacity would allow in more of those brain-dead types of the kind who think Mikel is rubbish and that Ivanovic is the new Makelele.

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