Yesterday I saw a headline about a protest outside our training ground – well ok, so it wasn’t exactly a mass rally, more one man (without his dog spot) and a couple of home-made banners but I don’t really see what all the fuss was about. I mean, if he wants to air his bed linen publicly, along with his opinion, that’s up to him isn’t it?
It’s what we all do on here anyway isn’t it? We give our opinion whether it’s wanted or not – and that’s all he was doing. We don’t have to agree with him – although I do to a point – and we won’t ever necessarily get ourselves in the headlines, but we’ll certainly put our views out there.
So, if we ignore the fact he looked a bit daft and his missus has probably left him (more through shame than a pair of sheets that’ll never be whiter than white again), surely we can at least agree he’s entitled to feel a bit aggrieved right now?
Ok, so standing outside the ground on your own like a lemon having your own one-man protest won’t carry a lot of weight, in fact I understand Ancelotti pissed himself laughing, but it must’ve touched a nerve somewhere? Will every one of our players read that they’re ‘not fit to wear the shirt’ and shrug it off? I’d hope not really because there are a few grains of truth in that sentiment.
Realistically, how many of them have put their heart and soul into a game for 90 minutes lately (or more to the point, 90 minutes plus time added on)? How many of them have shown us they’ll sweat blood and guts for the club if that’s what it takes to turn our form round? And how many of them have had the decency to stand and face their supporters at the end of each game? Can every one of them say they’ve done all of the above? Of course they can’t, we know it and they know it. And now they’ve had it waved under their noses.
I guess our players could assume Cobham’s picket is a lone voice, a dissident who doesn’t represent the majority, Ancelott certainly seems to have, suggesting “With one, we can manage. If it’s only one, there’s no problem.” But is he on his own though? – I mean, obviously he didn’t have an army behind him at the time but 15 minutes of fame aside, what’s the general consensus agreed over a pint, who’s saying what on the blogs? Is there an affinity on the forums?
To be honest, I’m not arsed either way. I’ve never been one to go along with the herd and whilst I’m not about to rip any of my sheets up and get my marker pen out, I’ll say hand on heart our players need to at least acknowledge it’s time to start showing some pride in the shirts they’re given. So, as far as sheet number one is concerned, daft demonstration or not, he wasn’t exactly a rebel without a cause.
As for sheet 2 though – ‘Ancelotti and Abramovich out’ – I’m going to beg to differ with the ‘Cobham Complainer’. Looking at Abramovich first, all too often I hear calls for Roman’s head and whilst at times he’s like a helicopter parent, hovering over manager’s allegedly interfering in first team affairs, considering his money saved us from footballing obscurity, you’d have to think he can permit himself the odd bit of indulgence here and there.
I’m not suggesting it’s in our best interests, in fact it’s probably done us more harm than good on several occasions but on the other hand, his departure wouldn’t exactly do us any favours either – unless of course we fancy a load of Arabs coming in who genuinely do regard us as a plaything? Because whilst our Russian owner may have started off like a kid in a sweet shop, I don’t hold with all this nonsense that Chelsea are just another one of his toys to be discarded when he becomes bored – if that was the case he either wouldn’t be at Stamford Bridge now or like any other spoilt brat he’d have continued to throw his millions at us until he got what he wanted.
As for Ancelotti, I’m a bit on the fence if I’m honest. I didn’t particularly want him at Chelsea but like the majority I assume, I get bored stupid entering into the ‘next Chelsea manager’ debate season after season. Of course the double last season was extremely welcome – and if I’m honest, a bit of a surprise – but in light of events since Wilkins’ departure, you have to wonder exactly how that double was achieved.
So there we have it, The Chelsea Blog’s very own sit-in without a set of bed-linen in sight. Oh, and can I just say in defence of the ‘Cobham Complainer’ that whilst the content might be regarded as ‘a bit iffy’, at least it was grammatically correct, so we won’t have everyone outside of Chelsea taking the piss that our supporters are thick eh? Hmmm
