You’d have thought there wouldn’t be a lot to talk about seeing as our big game against United didn’t go ahead yesterday – not so though because the fact it didn’t go ahead has created plenty of speculation in itself.
From the Republik of Mancunia asking if Chelsea were justified in calling it off, to Caught Offside claiming a conspiracy was afoot, the postponement – or rather the timing of it – has caused plenty of controversy.
To be fair, if it had only been called off yesterday, it wouldn’t have raised quite so many eyebrows but to take the decision a full 30 hours before kick-off is questionable. Don’t get me wrong, I know the snow has been heavy (wouldn’t fancy a trip in my car right now either) and it’s commendable public safety is taken into consideration, I just think it would’ve caused less fuss if it had been taken into consideration a bit later.
The fact that it wasn’t, had the Daily Mail telling us ‘clubs across the country, from Sunderland to Exeter, managed to stage matches in the Premier League and Championship on Saturday afternoon’, although they forgot to balance this with the fact that none of the games in the Capital could actually be played this weekend.
Of course, we’ve had a previous statement thrown at us as a bit of a joke because prior to this weekend’s postponement, the club website had insisted ‘In this day and age, with all the modern technology, it is very rare you get a game called off. The pitch would have to be frozen solid or completely under water to be called off, which shouldn’t happen at Stamford Bridge.’
But then, the club had never suggested it was about the pitch this weekend. In fact, they’d made it clear the pitch was playable because of our under soil heating and suggested the decision had been taken ‘following consultation with police and the local authority’. So, it’s just the fact that the decision was taken so early that’s raised questions then? So, what about those questions?
Well obviously the general consensus seems to be that Chelsea have used it firstly to get out of playing the game when they’re not in particularly good form, and secondly, to put United at a disadvantage later in the season because they’ll have games stacked up. Is that likely to be the case though? I mean, of course, both of those have a basis – we haven’t been in the best form and United will have a couple of extra games to fit it – but on the reverse of that, we now have a game to fit in as well and whilst prior to playing Spurs we were poor, that game itself wasn’t a bad one for us. If anything, we looked in much better form than we had for a while (and could’ve should’ve won it), so would it really do us such a big favour to miss a game when we might actually have got a bit of momentum going? I somehow doubt it.
And as for the suggestions that Chelsea were simply ‘scared’ to play United, you’d have to say our previous record against them at Stamford Bridge doesn’t add much weight to that one!
