Well it was definitely coming and John Terry has now been stripped of the England captaincy by head honcho Fabio Capello after a 30 minute meeting at the Wembley offices. After all that has been said and done, I think that it might actually be good for the player, our club Chelsea and England as a whole. Capello definitely took a sound decision (I'm sure it was wholly his to make since Terry really has no control over it and to be honest, deserves to lose it). Terry should also take responsibility, issue an apology and now concentrate on winning the English Premier League title for Chelsea to make up for all the distractions he has caused us. He must then go to South Africa and help the team out as wel by leading England to the World Cup final at least. It has been obvious that the scandal has seen his game affected adversely with his mistakes against Hull and the lad will never learn given his gestures towards the fans after the equaliser. It is well known within the circles that John Terry is quite the prat and despite a well oiled publicity machine, if you keep having all sorts of dirty little secrets behind you, they'll fill up the closet and come tumbling out when the doors cannot be shut tight anymore. This is what happened and the only saving grace for Chelsea is that Bridge isn't around with us anymore. Who knows, he might have left because of this incident that time (although I am not sure of the timeframe in which the whole scandal happened).
Don't really want to talk about England fortunes on a Chelsea blog but hard not to do so when John Terry is part of the club. Anyway, I'm sure Capello know has a real problem on his hands. He might be the dictator in the setup and everybody has to abide by his decisions but there is one thing he cannot control and that's the emotions of the players. The only way out of this now is if either Terry or Bridge lose their form or get injured and either one or the other then are not selected for the England World Cup squad. If both play well enough to be selected, it is impossible to avoid friction in the team later on in South Africa. If results go their way they might be able to keep one eye closed but the moment problems occur, who knows we might see Bridge vs Terry on the field. Don't forget these two are defenders and are intricately linked if they play together. Another saving grace which I forgot though is that Bridge is hardly first choice in the England defence so we might still see Capello avoiding too much of a public spat between the two.
So the first game right after this whole John Terry incident losing his England captaincy is a big one and that is Chelsea v Arsenal this Sunday at Stamford Bridge. Obviously I think we will win and really beat on the poor young Gunners. There is no question about this. Even their Russian missile Arshavin has admitted to being put in a hopeless situation as a small targetman upfront. There is really nothing much they can do with Van Persie out and Bendtner still yet to acquire a gloss that really qualifies him as a classic striker of the Arsenal mold. Meanwhile we at Chelsea are a well oiled machine and as long as Terry can maintain his concentration and avoid anymore slips during set pieces, we should avoid another setback. We'll probably start the game in second since I really do not expect any shocks at Old Trafford the day before. United will beat up on Pompey easily. The ball would then be back in our court and that might be the only problem. We have shown some nerves this season and Ancelotti will need to shore us up mentally. Drogba seems to have come back sulking again and hopefully he is not feeling pissed off after Ivory Coast again flopped at the African Cup of Nations. Really they must all now focus on the English Premier League title as that is what we need to win in order to break our recent barren spell (the domestic cups don't count - nobody's really interested in them anymore sorry). Then the Champions League. Unfortunately for Ancelotti I think he is really only judged on whether he can win the latter but that's too bad for him. Well what is a post on the game without a prediction so here is mine - Chelsea 3 Arsenal 1. Probably we will be rattled early on as the Gunners come out fighting after last week's shame, but Terry will ironically galvanise the lads and come back later on to kick the Gunners off the pitch.
One piece of great news for Chelsea this week is the quashing of the transfer ban by CAS. It's really easy now to predict what will happen by looking at Ancelotti's actions. The guy is well informed and what he has implied has been happening. No buying of striker in January and that's what happened. Obviously he was aware that the ban would be overturned on sound grounds and the squad would be strengthened in the summer and now I'm excited about who we will sign. Will it be Ribery? We need someone capable of causing some excitement on the pitch with sublime skills and dribbling. Also happy for the young lad Kakuta - this would definitely be a weight off his shoulders and hope to see him overcome his injury and fitness problems and make it all worthwhile for him and the club.
