Can Chelsea Right The Cech?

Some people think your Teessider is a gruff mean-spirited bastard who dodges his rounds and breathes through a ventilator. Unfair, I reckon. Most of us get by with an inhaler. Plus, we have a footy team that never stops giving. Ask your average Palace fan.

Again, I had to rely on the Premier League to soften the blow.

The goal glut helped. 41 reminders on Saturday of what one of them elusive things looks like. And certainly the Chelsea-Liverpool game was a vintage bit of schadenfraude.

(I know! Get me! Tony Thompson introduced us to this word on Sunday - I thought it was that Austrian psychiatrist who thought that every time you dreamt it had summat to do with shagging your mother).


"No, Robbo, I am Sigmund, you must mean my brother Schaden."

Anyway, first off, didn't Torres look really weird in blue? The wife, a Nando groupie in waiting, reckoned it wasn't his colour. Ta, love. There are times when Andy Gray and Richard Keys make sense.

Secondly, on MOTD2 I heard Shearer (and by the way, Al, cuffs are for wiping your nose, son - they can't possibly be white) feeling a bit sorry for Torres. Yeah, me too. £170 grand a week, swanky pad in Chelsea if you want it, Drogba to play off... a right sodding burden, poor lamb.

Apparently it's hard being up against your old pals. Especially that Carragher, who was back to his best. You get the impression Jamie couldn't wait to get out there on the pitch and feel a number nine shirt in his clenched fist again. But Torres wasn't prepared to stick with them blokes cos he wanted to win trophies. After Sunday it just looks like Torres has chosen a different wind to piss into.

Ancelottery reckons it'll take the Spaniard a while to settle in. True enough. In which case, leave him on the bench for a bit. Lord knows it's taken the Queens of Strop Anelka and Drogba long enough to find some common ground. You don't need three mopers up there jostling with one another like three teenage lasses after the same fella.

King Kenny meanwhile goes from strength to strength. Of course the irony is that Dalglish's reds went into that game with a mindset that would've sat well happily with Roy Hodgson.

Little Clockwork Kuyt gives you a bit more energy than a narked Nando as the front man, and Meireles did well to support but essentially it was one of them team selections that began with the mantra 'It's 0-0. Let's hold what we've got.'

Having said that, Liverpool had the best chances.

Which begs questions about Chelsea's deficiencies. For a while now, their failings have started from the Number 1. Cech, headguard, notwithstanding, still plays like he's got a Stephen Hunt kneebone heading for his bonce.

When he turns out the light at night, this is what the big Czech sees.

It's understandable. I'm sure we've all had nightmares about Stephen Hunt (and there is summat instinctively really bloody annoying about the hairy little tick - he looks for all the world like some manic gnome who gets two hours off the toadstool a week and intends to make the most of it) but you can't have a keeper who's afraid to get hurt.

A good keeper is, by definition, fearless. In a successful club, it's the goalie who takes on the extra chillies at the Tex Mex; it's the goalie who helps you get back into your house at two in the morning by climbing in through the skylight - without the aid of a ladder; it's the goalie who puts it all on 17 black when everyone else is ready to go home.

Cech (has he put on weight or does he just look like a Heavy Petter?) has lost that recklessness. He keeps making that cardinal sin of keepers and engaging his brain - and Chelsea look flakier than the shoulders of a Geography teacher because of it.

By eck thouh it was a brilliant goalfest was Saturday. Not least the peanlty count - all of which barring a supposed push by Rosicky on Williamson, seemed pretty justified. (Honestly Rosicky couldn't push open a serving hatch in a doll's house).

The Geordies epic comeback was utterly marvellous, mind. The only downside was Wenger's uncharacteristically meek post-match interview. Of course it included the usual dose of myopia (Specsavers must have an option on him as their poster boy when he retires) he was relatively sanguine about the disastrous draw).

If he could avoid saying things like 'Don't listen to that Moyes boy - ooooh, he's a little liar he is!' then we might even be looking at a new Arsene.

Add to that the tardy end to Man U's inexplicable unbeaten run at the top division's David to the Goliaths, then it was a grand weekend all round. Incidentally has anyone else noticed that when United score Fergie stands up and applauds in a way that's reminiscent of either (a) a surprisingly camp Taggart or (b) Leonid Brehnev at a Mayday Parade.

"I want you to kill the soldier who yelled 'Look at the tits on that!' immediately!"

Wolves fans may be smiling ruefully at their boys inability to beat the teams around them but I've one word of warning for 'em: Middlesbrough.

Aye we were pretty topnotch when the moneybags rolled in through the smog but we bollocksed it up against everyone else and still went down. At least you know that Big Bluff Mick McCarthy will still be there by the end of the season.

Unlike Roberto di Matteo, who made the mistake of getting his team off to a good start. Faced with a poor string of results the Baggies Board have thumbed through the Official Guide to Running A Football Club and acted on the one solitary sentence in the manual that states: 'If in doubt, sack the manager.'

If I was the chairman I'd be telling the club shop to buy a job-lot of WBA yo-yos for next year. Before Di Matteo went I still had the Baggies as the best of the woeful W's that prop up the tight bottom.

If you had to pick one to avoid the drop now it'd be Wigan. However given that Tangerines haven't fallen so rapidly since the last Spanish harvest, and Blackpool are looking the likeliest candidates for the drop.

In a perfect world, you'd lose the grinders - your Brums and Blackburns - and keep your grass-is-for-passing outfits like West Brom and Blackpool.

But reality states that them that can Stoke it up will climb clear. So for me it'll be Blackpool, Wests Brom and Ham. And you'll all be welcome at the Riverside. (I hope! But God it's hard trying to write a blog with your crossed fingers grasping on to horseshoes, rabbit's feet and lucky heather while simultaneously clutching at straws!)