OhForAGreavsie

March fixture list update

Women's Champions League Quarter-Final First leg, Lyon vs Chelsea. Live HT: Lyon 0-1 Chelsea, (Guro Reiten) FT: Lyon 0-1 Chelsea.

I'm really not sold on Noni, but Hakim and Chris have got to go. They are serving no purpose in the squad, and being here is serving no purpose for them.

🙂🙂 Was a perfect introduction to The Blues; away at Highbury, in the boys section, FA Cup quarter-final replay, 63,000 in the ground, 40,000 locked out according to the police. Chelsea go one up. I'm ecstatic, rubbing my blue silk scarf in their faces till one of 'em, who had to be over the age limit, turned and said, "Ok, you've had your fun that's enough now." I didn't argue! They get a stonewall penalty that the ref refuses to give at first but they surround him and some how persuade him that it was a free kick outside the box. That just makes their protests louder, and even more of 'em get in his face so he talks to the lino who explains to him that it was in fact miles inside. Alan Ball slots it away and they go on to win 2-1. The biggest memory though was right at the end. I was absolutely crushed, just devastated that we lost. The Chelsea players just walked off though, and that really hurt. I wanted them to look as gutted as I was feeling but they just strolled away like it was another day at the office. I suppose it was for them, but that was hard for me to take.

Happy anniversary to me! Tomorrow, 20th March, will be the 50th anniversary of my first Chelsea game. If you happen to be going to Reading I might treat you to some chocolate and ask you to celebrate with me. If not, I wasn't really in a celebratory mood yesterday, but here's to another 50 years eh?

What will be the market for Osihmen? Can any Italian club fork out that kind of money, and will Osihmen want to continue in Serie A anyway? Bayern could afford that type of fee, but will they bin their anti-big fee philosophy? Real have every reason to renew Benzema but, in any case, is Osihmen their man? Will they spend big for him and for Bellingham in 2023? Can Barca afford an Osihmen sized outlay, even with a return to the Champions League? City are sorted, and Liverpool are committed to Nunez. Paris could only come to the party if they move Neymar, and who is going to pick up €38m a season for his contract? Arsenal could be interested but Jesus's returns before his injury might tempt them to stick rather than twist. Newcastle have the money but do they have the pull yet? I think Utd will be interested but who else will be, other than us?

My cards have been on the table about Joao from the start but if the club want to buy him anyway, surely they won't pay £80m. I said when the loan was being rumoured that, in my opinion, he had never shown returns to justify the money Atleti paid. Well, I don't think he has justified £80m either. The quality is there, but quality matters only in as much as it helps a player to be effective. In what we've seen across his career so far, Joao has not been effective enough, often enough.

The 'hard pass' is a) but, in any case, b) we have a buyback so, if we choose to trigger it, Jose has no say. He could of course try to persuade Tammy to stay in Rome, but he would not have a veto over the move.

Let's hope that you are wrong.

That draw didn't go so well. 😞 In the same half as, probably, the three best teams in Europe. At least we have the second leg at home against Real. Small crumbs.

I was! Along with a lot of other Blues. The game was played at Brisbane Road where they only open one stand for Tottenham Women's games. Trouble is it's the one where the cameras are, so you don't see the fans on screen. I went there to watch The Blues take on Spurs twice in 12 days recently. First time I've been to Orient's ground since a Men's FA Cup game in 1978. P.S. Lauren's goal against Spurs won the club's goal of the month award for February. After never having topped the poll before, this makes two consecutive goal of the month wins for CFCW players following Sam Kerr's win in January.

And don't forget the expanded Champions League. Another upping of the workload for top players. With 12 European sides spread across 8 groups in the club world cup, it's entirely possible that all 12 will progress to the last 16. That would mean a minimum of four games for us over 11 days in June, At least it's only once every 4 years.

Oops

I don't believe this. As I've said all along, I believe that Nkunku has been our player since September.

Updated CFCW fixture info

I always make this point, and I'll take the opportunity to do so again. Being a top quality shot-stopper is an entry level requirement. It doesn't make you a good keeper, it just gives you a chance to be one.

Think there is bad blood between him and Leicester fans.

It did cross my mind, but who knows?

Maybe I 'heard' it elsewhere then but, since I don't read newspapers or follow twitter, most of the Chelsea rumours I 'hear' come from here.

What happened to the rumours about TT having had an affair with a female staff member at the club? I'm pretty sure I initially heard that rumour when someone mentioned it here.

Ah, I get you. I can't say I've noticed that. Maybe officials have taken their eyes off this because keepers don't kick from hands anywhere near as often as they used to. These days it should actually be easier for the linos to monitor this. In the old days they would jockey level with the front edge of the penalty area watching to see that keepers didn't carry the ball out of the area, then sprint hell for leather after the kick to get in line with the last defender who had pushed up towards halfway. Nowadays, the last defender is usually standing next to the goalkeeper. 🙂

I must be misunderstanding you here because I don't see why a keeper shouldn't be allowed to play the ball outside the penalty area. He has the same 'rights' as any other player. It's just that he has special rights when he in his own penalty area. When he's doing a drop kick from the edge of his penalty area, as long as he doesn't handle the ball outside the area, why can't he can drop it wherever he likes?

Aside from the fact that the old law, which required the ball to be fully within the quadrant, made taking the kick harder, it was incompatible with the way the laws treat other lines on the pitch. A ball which is almost entirely outside the pitch, but which overhangs the outer edge of the touchline by even a millimetre, is deemed to be 'in' the field of play. A foul which occurs on the outer edge of a line marking out the penalty area would be penalised with the award of a penalty, not a free kick. If those lines are a part of the area they contain, then it follows that the arc which marks the edge of the corner quadrant should also be regarded as being 'in' that quadrant. Hence the 'new' law deems that as long as some part of the ball overhangs some part of the corner quadrant's arc, the ball is 'in' the quadrant.

I used to be a referee so you need only ask. 🙂 In that connection, I once met Sir Stanley Rous. Literally once. He ran football as head of fifa for over ten years, played, refereed at top level, was chairman of The FA, and single-handedly wrote the first modern version of the laws of Association football. (This was in the days when The FA was responsible for the laws of the game.) Rous lost the top job at fifa partly because the rest of the world was fed up with England trying to run the sport, and partly because he was a man of his era who saw nothing wrong with apartheid South Africa so he resisted attempts to isolate them from the international game. Hint: The centre circle is also the metric equivalent of ten yards in radius. 🙂

He is encroaching. He is in the D. Remember a penalty kick is just a glorified free kick, opposing players are not allowed within 9 point whatever metres of the ball until it is kicked. That's why the D is there. It traces out the arc which is 9+ metres from the penalty spot. The one thing I would like to believe, in the interest of fairness, is that a retake would also have been ordered if Kai had scored with his initial effort. Ben is clearly also is the box.