Ok, so we all read the over-opinionated, not even thinly veiled attack from Ian ‘mouthpiece’ Wright yesterday but do agree with anything Mr ‘I’ll have a go at anything as long as I’m on the telly’ Wright has to say? And more to the point, do we actually care less about his opinion?
Well first and foremost, we need to bear in mind Wrighty has always had a bee in his bonnet about us – from his playing days at Arsenal through to his son’s lack of playing days for us – so most of what he has to say has to be taken with a pinch of salt anyway.
I mean, if his point was to criticise the behaviour of Chelsea fans after the draw with Everton, whilst I completely agree that booing a draw is tantamount to spoilt boy syndrome, why lead into the article by saying ‘When my son played for Chelsea…..’? How is that relevant to last weekend? Oh, and before anyone jumps on the fact that he’s relating it to when he used to sit in Stamford Bridge and listen to ‘one bloke complaining’, I’ll ask again – how is that relevant to last weekend? Because if he wants to draw comparisons with the past, I remember seeing him spitting venom in the face of referees and provoking opposing supporters on a regular basis – so does he really think he’s the best person to be talking about appropriate behaviour?
You could almost accept someone taking a dig at any group of supporters who’d turn on their team after so few poor results, any credibility goes out the window when you realise a personal grudge is the motivation for argument. And credibility isn’t a word you could associate with anyone who comes out with arguments like: “Many of their fans saunter to the hospitality areas in their expensive suits and fancy shoes, drink fine champagne and probably think they are too good for prawn sandwiches let alone hot dogs.” Makes you wonder how anyone struggles to get a pint in the pubs if that’s the case doesn’t it?
But hang on, because motormouth goes on “They might have plenty of money but, in football terms, they have no class whatsoever. They have either forgotten where their club has come from or they have no idea about Chelsea’s problems down the years.” Er, and you can generalise about that Mr Wright, because….? How some ex-Arsenal player, who struggles to put a coherent sentence together as a pundit because he can’t get away with the expletives he threw about as a player, can claim to know anything about my bank balance or what I know about the club’s history, is beyond me – and yet he calls us classless!
Oh and on the subject of history, the gooner goes on “People sing ‘Where were you when you were s**t?’ – and never before has a chant been more accurate. Most Chelsea fans then argue that they have always supported the club through thick and thin but, historically, they have not been a big club.” Again, I fail to see what exactly supporting the club through promotion, relegation and back, near bankruptcy and more recently, inheritance, has got to do with the size of the club.
Obviously Mr Wright has issues with us, not least of all because of Roman Abramovich, as he points out “A large number of people hate Chelsea because of the way they have bought their success and, I must admit, some of the fans are not helping the club’s reputation.” So, you’d assume the paragon of footballing virtue would be mortified to see his son at a club with the full intention of ‘buying its success’, right? Oh no wait, because when it was to do with City, his response was actually “It does show that for a lot of players it is all about the money but if they come with the same quality and potential as Robinho, I can’t see the problem.”
Where he really loses his ‘argument’ though, is when he uses Liverpool supporters as the shining example of all that is good, claiming “The Londoners should learn a few lessons from the fans up at Liverpool. Considering the state of their team, they have every right to tear both Rafa Benitez and the team apart but they have stayed loyal. Maybe too loyal, if the truth be known. But this is a club where fans know how to respect not only their own players, but visiting ones and that is something I have always admired.”
Yes Mr Wright, because they respect their own by burning their shirts – which is an altogether more genteel way to show your displeasure isn’t it?
I mean, were we really meant to take this mug’s article seriously??
Blue is the colour
