2005-2006 Season Review
I think I've given up on being a good lj friend. I don't have time to post or comment these days so whenever I'm online I basically just do a quick troll for picspams. Oh, well.
I should have done this weeks ago, but at least I'll have it on record in my memories.
The Good
It should go without saying that I am immensely proud of my Chelsea boyos for defending their title. Although the football this year wasn't always as gorgeous as last year, for a variety of reasons, the lads really dug deep and managed to pull it off rather comfortably in the end, despite the fact that everyone (or so it seemed) had jumped on the anti-Chelsea bandwagon. I'm not one to ignore my team's faults, but even without blue-tinted glasses I can truthfully say that the so-called "dire" performances were pretty decent on the whole and on quite a few occasions rather magnificent (Man U at home springs to mind). And having watched each and every match, I can also say that even in the dullest performances there were always at least a few moments of brilliance--a well-timed tackle or pinpont cross or effortless take-down--that showed the team's class. Sometimes I enjoyed those get-it-done-somehow games more than the easy victories, because they showed how much the boys fought for each other and their manager.
So all in all I'm very pleased with their season, although it would have been nice to break some more points records and such. And I could do without the over-the-top ABC attitude of so many fans and "journos." I know that English culture loves to knock a winner, but I really feel that most of the criticisms were undeserved and sometimes laughable in the extent to which they entailed double standards. As someone who has access to full press conferences online, it's both amusing and frustrating to see how Jose's comments get carefully "edited" to suit the press agenda of portraying us as the enemies of football. Jose is no saint, but he is also a lot more gracious, humourous, and respectful than the media would have us believe. When we lose to a better team Jose will say as much. If there is a dodgy decision at fault, Jose is entitled to question it, and he is certainly not the only manager to do so. It just seems he is the only one blasted for that, even though he will also praise referees and blame poor decisions on the difficult nature of the job. I'm just glad the 5 penalties we should have gotten in the last 2 games were not relevant to the title race, because we certainly have not been awarded the traditional champions' luck decisions this season!
I'm not going to bother rebuffing those "they bought the title" arguments because there really isn't any point. People who choose to believe that will not be convinced otherwise by anything I could say, no matter how truthful or logical, so I'll just leave it there. I hope we can train, prepare, and battle our way to a third next season, and if we do I hope all the haters will start to give some credit where it's due. I'm not overly optimistic. XP
So, highlights: Captain Fantastic JT, pretty much all season. Monkey Joey Cole. Lampsy's midfield goal tally. Sparkling runs by Duffa and Robbie and the promise of SWP. Didier's performances when he turns on the character. Hernan's random Matrix-esque goals. Maka. Willy Gallas' goal against Tottenham. Emergence of Michael Essien. Team performances against Liverpool, West Ham, Bolton, etc.
Lowlights: Didier's handball incidents. Robben's tackling skills. : P Del Boy's lack of confidence. Loaning Bridgey away. Unequal press treatment (Essien, Robben, etc.). Lack of spark in the FA Cup and Champions League in key games, plus unfortunate reffing decisions to compound the issue. Selling Eidah to Barcelona over the summer. (Nooooooooooo! ;_; )
I'm reserving comment on the other summer moves until the season gets underway. I was happy to note that the team's attractiveness quotient has not been negatively impacted, though. O.O
The rest: Well done to Tottenham, West Ham, Wigan, and Pompey. I found it very easy to root for them, unlike some others I could mention. *cough*
The Bad
Arsenal and Liverpool managing to hang onto Champions League qualifying spots. If there is a bigger collection of egomaniacs, whingers, and hypocritical cheaters in the EPL then I have not found it. I so wanted Wigan and Tottenham to get those spots instead.
The Champions League. I particularly enjoyed how vilified Chelsea got what they deserved in "crashing out" to Barcelona with 10 men, while heroic defending champions Liverpool's tame and embarrassing defeat to Benfica (no disrespect to them) was quickly swept under the rug. And then the final itself was such a poor match. I'm no Barca fan, but overall they did deserve the victory, and Arsenal's whining after the fact just confirmed what I already knew. Of course did Thierry "holier than thou" Henry get slammed for criticising the ref quite rudely and with less justification than Jose has ever had? Like hell.
The Ugly
The FA Cup Final. I still have rage blackouts whenever I think about it. West Ham played Liverpool off the park and only lost due to a combination of incredibly bad luck, gullible referees, and unbelievably poor gamesmanship by their supposedly superior opponents. I actually have a page-long list of all the dodgy calls and "clever" antics of Liverpool players during this match, but I'm too angry to summarize them all now. I think _backpages_ said it best here. I've also been saving this letter from the football365 website which summarizes my feelings on Stevie G. in relation to this match as well as his "performance" during England v. Hungary:
"Well congratulations to James Woodhead and Brian from London for spotting the antics of Gerrard the Cheat. Whilst I would not dispute that the guy is a fantastic player because he is, but despite this, him and his team (Liverpool that is) are nonetheless a bunch of diving cheats. What makes this worse is that our 'independent panel of experts' (and I use that description extremely loosely) have their tongues so far up his crack that the whole incident was just glossed over by the ever useless Lawrenson and then 'justified' by the moronic Wright.
These guys are the same people who criticise (quite rightly) the likes of Drogba and Robben etc. for flinging themselves to the ground at every opportunity and collapsing like they have been hit by a car whenever anyone comes near them. If this type of cheating behaviour is to be eradicated from our game then we should not shy away when 'one of our own' does it!
I was at the cup final and whilst the rest of you were shown the heroics of Gerrard's wonder strike, those of us there had to watch him falling over whenever he got near the box as they were being so outplayed by the un-fancied Hammers that they knew their best chance was from a set play! I mean even his marvel goal came from a feigning of injury by Sissy followed by some extremely un-sporting behavior by Carragher and Hamann and let's not forget the very feminine Garcia in the league match before the final that earned Mullins a red card.
I can’t abide cheats, if you are that f*cking good then you shouldn’t need to cheat and so called other professionals condoning/ignoring it is only ever going to make matters worse." - L. Roberts, London
And all I can say to that is WERD.
So there you have it, my season in a nutshell. I think next year is going to be even tougher, with Liverpool and Man U really challenging. I don't have a problem with that, as long as whatever success they achieve is gained fairly. Same goes for Chelsea, naturally. Bring on the EPL!
I should have done this weeks ago, but at least I'll have it on record in my memories.
The Good
It should go without saying that I am immensely proud of my Chelsea boyos for defending their title. Although the football this year wasn't always as gorgeous as last year, for a variety of reasons, the lads really dug deep and managed to pull it off rather comfortably in the end, despite the fact that everyone (or so it seemed) had jumped on the anti-Chelsea bandwagon. I'm not one to ignore my team's faults, but even without blue-tinted glasses I can truthfully say that the so-called "dire" performances were pretty decent on the whole and on quite a few occasions rather magnificent (Man U at home springs to mind). And having watched each and every match, I can also say that even in the dullest performances there were always at least a few moments of brilliance--a well-timed tackle or pinpont cross or effortless take-down--that showed the team's class. Sometimes I enjoyed those get-it-done-somehow games more than the easy victories, because they showed how much the boys fought for each other and their manager.
So all in all I'm very pleased with their season, although it would have been nice to break some more points records and such. And I could do without the over-the-top ABC attitude of so many fans and "journos." I know that English culture loves to knock a winner, but I really feel that most of the criticisms were undeserved and sometimes laughable in the extent to which they entailed double standards. As someone who has access to full press conferences online, it's both amusing and frustrating to see how Jose's comments get carefully "edited" to suit the press agenda of portraying us as the enemies of football. Jose is no saint, but he is also a lot more gracious, humourous, and respectful than the media would have us believe. When we lose to a better team Jose will say as much. If there is a dodgy decision at fault, Jose is entitled to question it, and he is certainly not the only manager to do so. It just seems he is the only one blasted for that, even though he will also praise referees and blame poor decisions on the difficult nature of the job. I'm just glad the 5 penalties we should have gotten in the last 2 games were not relevant to the title race, because we certainly have not been awarded the traditional champions' luck decisions this season!
I'm not going to bother rebuffing those "they bought the title" arguments because there really isn't any point. People who choose to believe that will not be convinced otherwise by anything I could say, no matter how truthful or logical, so I'll just leave it there. I hope we can train, prepare, and battle our way to a third next season, and if we do I hope all the haters will start to give some credit where it's due. I'm not overly optimistic. XP
So, highlights: Captain Fantastic JT, pretty much all season. Monkey Joey Cole. Lampsy's midfield goal tally. Sparkling runs by Duffa and Robbie and the promise of SWP. Didier's performances when he turns on the character. Hernan's random Matrix-esque goals. Maka. Willy Gallas' goal against Tottenham. Emergence of Michael Essien. Team performances against Liverpool, West Ham, Bolton, etc.
Lowlights: Didier's handball incidents. Robben's tackling skills. : P Del Boy's lack of confidence. Loaning Bridgey away. Unequal press treatment (Essien, Robben, etc.). Lack of spark in the FA Cup and Champions League in key games, plus unfortunate reffing decisions to compound the issue. Selling Eidah to Barcelona over the summer. (Nooooooooooo! ;_; )
I'm reserving comment on the other summer moves until the season gets underway. I was happy to note that the team's attractiveness quotient has not been negatively impacted, though. O.O
The rest: Well done to Tottenham, West Ham, Wigan, and Pompey. I found it very easy to root for them, unlike some others I could mention. *cough*
The Bad
Arsenal and Liverpool managing to hang onto Champions League qualifying spots. If there is a bigger collection of egomaniacs, whingers, and hypocritical cheaters in the EPL then I have not found it. I so wanted Wigan and Tottenham to get those spots instead.
The Champions League. I particularly enjoyed how vilified Chelsea got what they deserved in "crashing out" to Barcelona with 10 men, while heroic defending champions Liverpool's tame and embarrassing defeat to Benfica (no disrespect to them) was quickly swept under the rug. And then the final itself was such a poor match. I'm no Barca fan, but overall they did deserve the victory, and Arsenal's whining after the fact just confirmed what I already knew. Of course did Thierry "holier than thou" Henry get slammed for criticising the ref quite rudely and with less justification than Jose has ever had? Like hell.
The Ugly
The FA Cup Final. I still have rage blackouts whenever I think about it. West Ham played Liverpool off the park and only lost due to a combination of incredibly bad luck, gullible referees, and unbelievably poor gamesmanship by their supposedly superior opponents. I actually have a page-long list of all the dodgy calls and "clever" antics of Liverpool players during this match, but I'm too angry to summarize them all now. I think _backpages_ said it best here. I've also been saving this letter from the football365 website which summarizes my feelings on Stevie G. in relation to this match as well as his "performance" during England v. Hungary:
"Well congratulations to James Woodhead and Brian from London for spotting the antics of Gerrard the Cheat. Whilst I would not dispute that the guy is a fantastic player because he is, but despite this, him and his team (Liverpool that is) are nonetheless a bunch of diving cheats. What makes this worse is that our 'independent panel of experts' (and I use that description extremely loosely) have their tongues so far up his crack that the whole incident was just glossed over by the ever useless Lawrenson and then 'justified' by the moronic Wright.
These guys are the same people who criticise (quite rightly) the likes of Drogba and Robben etc. for flinging themselves to the ground at every opportunity and collapsing like they have been hit by a car whenever anyone comes near them. If this type of cheating behaviour is to be eradicated from our game then we should not shy away when 'one of our own' does it!
I was at the cup final and whilst the rest of you were shown the heroics of Gerrard's wonder strike, those of us there had to watch him falling over whenever he got near the box as they were being so outplayed by the un-fancied Hammers that they knew their best chance was from a set play! I mean even his marvel goal came from a feigning of injury by Sissy followed by some extremely un-sporting behavior by Carragher and Hamann and let's not forget the very feminine Garcia in the league match before the final that earned Mullins a red card.
I can’t abide cheats, if you are that f*cking good then you shouldn’t need to cheat and so called other professionals condoning/ignoring it is only ever going to make matters worse." - L. Roberts, London
And all I can say to that is WERD.
So there you have it, my season in a nutshell. I think next year is going to be even tougher, with Liverpool and Man U really challenging. I don't have a problem with that, as long as whatever success they achieve is gained fairly. Same goes for Chelsea, naturally. Bring on the EPL!