Leeds 2-0 Chelsea (Woodgate, Milner)

Poor performance at Elland Road. Sloppy play all round, gave away the ball too easily, absolutely no creative sparks at all. Score was a fair reflection of the game. Woodgate scored with a deflected header and Milner, the newest 16-year-old phenomenon, scored his second goal in two games when he beat skipped over a Desailly tackle to slot the ball past Ed De Goey. I fervently hope Cudicini can return for the Arse game. Otherwise we're dead meat.

Manure won so they're back on level points with us, though with an inferior goal difference. Supposedly garguantan clash today between Arse and Pool. If Pool lose this I think we can safely discount them as title contenders. Apart from the fact that they'll be twelve points behind Arse if they lose, the blow to their morale will be huge.

Chelsea 0-0 Southampton

First goalless home draw of the season. Extremely scrappy match mainly due to the horrible pitch, which thankfully will be changed on Jan 11. Poor performance by everyone, and curiously Lampard was "rested". Should have had a penalty with a late Soton handball, but a draw was probably a fair result.

At any rate Manure lost away to Boro and Pool only managed a draw with Blackburn, so all's not dark and gloomy. Arse managed a last-gasp win at West Brom and I still expect them to walk away with the league. They're now 4 points clear of us, and that gap could well increase after the much-anticipated derby clash on New Year's Day. Come to think of it tomorrow's fixture at Elland Road will not be particularly easy for us either.

Chelsea 2-0 Aston Villa (Gudjohnsen, Lampard)

Guddy got a rare start as Zola was surprisingly left out. The old Guddy/Jimmy partnership paid off with JFH feeding Guddy who rifled in the first goal off the far post from a tight angle. However Villa gave us an early scare with a half-volley crashing off the crossbar.

The weather worsened considerably in the second half and, together with the terrible pitch conditions, made for an extremely scrappy game. It was typified by the scrappy goal that practically sealed the game. Lampard attempted a cross to an onrushing Guddy. Villa keeper Enckelmann was distracted by Guddy long enough to fail to catch the ball, so that the cross sailed into the net without hindrance, leaving Enckelmann with his familiar glowing red cheeks. Villa's vain attempts on our goal were rather pathetic until a period near the end when Cudicini was called upon to make two excellent saves, the second of which was simply incredible. Despite having his view blocked by a mass of players, he reacted marvellously fast to dive to his left to block a fierce shot.

Apart from Arse winning at home to a lacklustre Boro, all the other results went our way. The much-hyped Merseyside derby turned into a dour goalless draw, with the "highlight" of the match being a horrifying Gerrard tackle. A supposedly "resurgent" Manure contrived to lose to Blackburn, despite the return of "Keano", who came on as a substitute and contributed absolutely nothing to their efforts to find an equaliser.

As a result we move up to second place. How I enjoy looking at the table right now.

Manchester United 1-0 Chelsea (Forlan)

It is the Worthless Cup. That may explain why I'm not particularly peeved by this loss at one of our favourite grounds. But I should be peeved with a loss to Manure though. Perhaps it's a sign that I'm not that ardent a Chelsea fan yet.

The match looked to be heading towards a goalless draw when Zola (who had been having quite a poor game) gifted them the goal by losing possession in a dangerous situation. A cool finish by Forlan, and it was all over.

Middlesbrough 1-1 Chelsea (Geremi, Terry)

A visit to Boro who are unbeaten at home this season predictably ended in a draw. Geremi with a superb free-kick and Terry scored, amongst a forest of legs, from a corner.

The north London derby ended 1-1 as well, though Spurs were by far the better side. Pool continued their spectacular demise by contriving to lose 1-2 to a team that had not scored for the last 4 matches and had lost their last 3 matches. Incidentally, Sunderland's last point came against Pool at Anfield. This time they could even afford to have a penalty saved. Am enjoying Pool's troubles while I still can.

The 2 points lost means we slip down a notch to third, a point behind Manure.

Classic article by Rodney Marsh from 2 years ago, carefully saved by the denizens of Chelsea Chat for times like this:

RANIERI MUST GO!

If Chelsea's season is to end in anything but failure and embarrassment Ken Bates has to get rid of Claudio Ranieri now. Bates should admit he's made a mistake and cut his losses because Chelsea are in complete disarray. Ranieri does not understand the Premier League, he does not understand our language or the players and he's not getting through to them.

One of the problems is he has a very loose grasp of the English language and communication is critically important. It can be a big problem in training for example. If he sees something he's not happy with he has to stop the game, get hold of Ray Wilkins or his other little interpreter, tell them what he thinks, they translate it and then tell the players, who then pass it on to the other players who don't speak the language. By this time the players are probably freezing cold and the moment is lost. I've always thought that having a manager who doesn't speak the language is a major problem.

He doesn't seem to know what he's doing either. When he arrived he said he didn't believe in a squad rotation system and you could almost hear the players breathe a sigh of relief. But after four games he's already rotating his players. He also said he would buy British, his first signing was Danish and he's since been linked with the likes of Savio (Brazilian), Gustavo Lopez (Argentinean) and Kily Gonzalez (Spanish)and now Kanoute!

Bates should never have sacked Gianluca Vialli in the first place. Although at the beginning of the season I said that Chelsea had more chance of winning the Grand National than the Premier League, I thought they'd still definitely finish in the top five. In my opinion, Vialli will go on to be a top international manager and he was close to making things work at Chelsea.
The club was hardly a picture of harmony when Ranieri arrived but he's completely failed to deal with the player-power situation. It was unrest amongst the players that led to Vialli's dismissal; the players were at each other's throats in training and there was constant sniping. Frank Leboeuf was moaning and then Jimmy Floyd Hasslebaink got the hump when he was subbed early against Bradford. The players were storming round Stamford Bridge like a bunch of bulldogs chewing a wasp. Ken Bates saw this and opted to get rid of Vialli, instead of just removing the players who were causing the trouble.

By bringing in Ranieri everything has been disrupted, the backroom staff who had so successfullly helped Vialli, like Graham Rix are just hanging around until their contracts run out on 30 June and then they'll be out of a job. That can't be good for the atmosphere at the club.

Ranieri has done everything wrong at Chelsea. He made his intentions clear from the start when he loaned the excellent John Harley to Wimbledon. Harley is young and more importantly, he's English. I was astonished at what he did and more astonished that nobody seemed to react to the situation. He'd only been there a couple of weeks, he could have hardly known who Harley was and yet he offloaded him to Wimbledon when he had looked so promising in all his appearances for the club. What's going on?

Since he took charge Chelsea have lost five, drawn two and won only three games, not to mention the humiliating opening-round exits from the Worthington and Uefa Cups. And look how they fell apart at Charlton on Saturday, they lack bottle as well.

They are currently 14th in the league, they've lost their way and I think it'll get worse and worse. And when it does they'll be lucky to hold on to their best player, Marcel Desailly. I can see him getting fed up of it all and if he goes, they'll be in real trouble.

When he arrived I hadn't heard of Claudio Ranieri and I wondered what all the fuss was about. If you look at his track record it's far from impressive and I haven't got a clue what Ken Bates saw in him. Bates has stumped up Colin Hutchinson as his puppet, as if it was Hutchinson who'd sacked Vialli and then appointed Ranieri. What rollocks Ken Bates makes all the decisions at Chelsea, and rightly so, he's the chairman. But he's dropped a diabolical ricket with Claudio Ranieri.

Everton 1-3 Chelsea (Stanic, JFH, Naysmith, Gronkjaer)

Smashing game in terms of entertainment. And steel in the Chelsea side. First half was one-way traffic and we deservedly took the lead with a Stanic header and a JFH follow-up after Wright saved Lampard's stinging shot. Stanic was our best player in the first half, to my surprise. But to their credit the Scousers fought back after the second goal, and we sat back. And they got their reward when Soxy slipped to allow Naysmith to go one-on-one with Cudicini and score.

Second half was again one-way traffic - in the other direction. Got off to an inauspicious start when the referee, who had already made a number of mistakes (though none particularly major so far), failed to notice that Petit was not on the pitch before allowing play to start. Everton proceeded to bombard our goal. Their two best chances came when Soxy cleared a Campbell shot off the line and when Campbell headed from close range against the crossbar. Nail-biting stuff indeed. But the real drama came when Gronk clawed and pulled Unsworth until they both tumbled to the ground. Unsworth then got up by way of pushing Gronk to the ground (conservation of momentum). Gronk reacted by "bucking" and the two got into a silly scuffle which Guddy tried to break up by yanking Unsworth away. Rooney then arrived to take out Guddy, and the thing developed into the familiar melee in which every person is shoving someone else. Even Moyes managed to get himself involved. Referee Eddie Wolstenholme, whose actions may be explained by the fact that this is his debut Premiership season, conluded with the help of the 4th official that Unsworth had punched Gronk, which I highly doubt had happened. Handed out a yellow to Gronk, and when everyone was expecting a similar punishment for Unsworth, fished out a red which sent the stadium into histrionics. That included the Chelsea players, especially Gronk, who were similarly shocked and expressed this to the referee. Gronk expressed his sympathies to Unsworth too who unsurprisingly seemed unimpressed and merely stalked off for his shower. The final act of the drama came when Zola ran clear of a shell-shocked Everton defence. One-on-one with Wright, he elected to pass to the unmarked (due to Unsworth's absence) Gronk who had a simple tap-in.

Referee had further endeared himself to the Everton fans with several doubtful decisions against them. Though he was also rather even-handed in denying us a clear penalty after Yobo handled in the box. But who cares. Arse crashed to Manure and Pool to Charlton, leaving us 2nd in the table, a point above Manure, 2 above Pool and 2 behind the Arse. Lovely.

Chelsea 4-1 Everton (JFH[2], Petit, Stanic)

I'd rather win on Saturday, and wouldn't have complained if we'd put out the reserves and lost. It is the Worthless Cup after all. But the team that ran out comprised all the first-teamers except Le Saux and Desailly. Terry was actually captain, which is a little odd considering his lack of recent first team appearances.

The scoreline was not flattering in the least. We did trounce the much-hyped Toffees. Zola and Petit deserve special mentions for their superb performances. Was very glad to see JFH start scoring for fun again.

Am not overly optimistic though as Everton played a 4-3-3 formation that they did not seem accustomed to and I expect them to be a lot more solid in their usual 4-4-2 on Saturday. Especially since we don't usually enjoy ourselves at Goodison Park. The much-hyped boy wonder did nothing of note except to send a penalty straight into Carlo's arms. He really does bear a striking resemblance to Gascoigne in many respects.

As always, we have drawn the mighty Manure in the quarter-finals. But it's at Old Trafford. So we'll probably not lose to them in normal time. A draw looks extremely likely, if they decide the fixture is worthy of a first-team appearance.

While I was gone:

Chelsea 1-0 Middlesbrough (Babayaro)

followed by

Bolton Wanderers 1-1 Chelsea (Pedersen, Hasselbaink)

And this past weekend:

Chelsea 3-0 Sunderland (Gallas, Desailly, Hasselbaink)

Nice. Pool crashed to Manure, as did Everton to Newky, leaving us 3rd, a point behind Pool. And Gronkjaer actually played well against the mackems. But most memorable moment was probably when Kilbane dropped his pants and actually tried to control the ball with his pants around his ankles. Was then subbed almost immediately, though possibly not for that reason.