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Final Day: Chelsea v Bolton – Winners or losers?

So, at the end of today it’ll all be over, the final day of the season with all its highs and lows. There’ll be sorrows drowned, celebrations slept off in gutters, hearts sung out, tears cried and of course, there’ll be winners and losers. But which one will we be?

It’s certainly been an eventful season for us with plenty of ups and downs. Obviously the biggest down – or so it seemed at the time anyway – was Mourinho’s departure, with probably the majority of us assuming our season was over when it’d barely started. And just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse, they introduced the resident cone man as the man who would ‘take Chelsea forward’. The fact that he didn’t seem capable of stringing a sentence together during the press conference appeared to have been overlooked by Kenyon & co. So, as our new ‘manager’ dribbled his way through the introductions and the opposition laughed themselves stupid at our expense, the only way looked anything but up.

Then we had the injuries, which seem to be custom and practice now from a poorly used squad, plus the ACON to contend with, depleting us even further. Not forgetting some of the performances we’ve had to endure, with the odd loss to Barnsley and Carling Cup final defeat to Spurs thrown in and all in all, everything in the Stamford Bridge garden was definitely not rosy.

And yet, not only have we got ourselves into the first Champions League final in the club’s history but we also find ourselves neck and neck with one of the best Utd sides ever, on the final day of the season. Yes, that’s right, amid all the verbal handbag swinging in the press this week, the fact that there’s a couple of games underlying the tantrums seems to have passed everyone by.

We know Utd have Wigan, because Grant’s chosen to insult them all week, suggesting their prostrate forms could be due to the workings of the ‘old boy network’. Personally if we do see them laying face down for Utd’s visit I think it’ll be more in an attempt to hide the many flaws in the playing surface, but we’ll see.

Anyway, whatever happens in their game happens and all we can do is concentrate on finishing the season as strongly as we can. After talking ourselves up (and Wigan down) in the press all week, how predictable would a draw at home to Bolton be? Fergie’s certainly done his part in making sure Megson’s lot turn up against us as well, which Bolton usually do anyway and rightly so. Megson himself, in sharp contrast to Keegan’s “boring” rant earlier in the week, seems pretty excited at so many things being undecided going into the final day – make no mistake about it, he’d like nothing better than Bolton having a say in the matter and taking all 3 points from their final game.

Team news-wise, Kalou’s been carrying an ankle injury but could feature, which is just as well seeing as Anelka’s ineligible to play against his former club. Carvalho faces a late fitness test having injured his back against Newcastle and Cudicini won’t be taking his usual place on the bench for this one either due to a dodgy hamstring. For Megson, midfield duo O’Brien and Campo should be available again despite missing last weekends win over Sunderland.

I’m in no doubt at all that the pressure going into the final day is all on Utd – they’ve got the advantage, they’ve got the ‘top’ manager, they’ve certainly got the players, and they’re expected to win – all we’re expected to do is turn up and play to give the journalists something to fill their column inches with on Monday morning. How many of them column inches we’ll fill remains to be seen, because as Cech quite rightly pointed out this week “history recognises the winners”. Harsh that in a season which seemed destined to see our downfall and actually saw our resilient determination bypass a ‘pretty’ Arsenal side and drag ourselves into a title race with the ‘best ever’ Utd, we could be regarded as a mere by-product, but that brings us back to the question of whether we’ll be winners or losers at the end of the day. And for me, irrespective of what happens this afternoon, to come out of this particular season with my pride as a Chelsea supporter intact, then there’s only one answer to that question….

 

KTBFFH

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