Welcome, and if you were hoping for a week in which Chelsea Football Club might offer its supporters something resembling encouragement, I am afraid you have come to the wrong place. Joining me today is Lloyd Canfield, Chelsea reporter for The Sun, a man whose professional obligation it is to watch this club at close quarters and report back with a straight face, which in the current climate must require a fortitude bordering on the heroic. Together we shall be picking through the bones of yet another dispiriting chapter in what is becoming an exhaustingly long novel of institutional underperformance.
The defeat to Nottingham Forest was, to put it with characteristic restraint, abysmal. Not merely a loss but the kind of performance that leaves you questioning whether the players on the pitch share any common understanding of what they are supposed to be doing out there. We dissect where it went wrong, which frankly does not take long because the answer is more or less everywhere, and we examine the latest managerial rumours that continue to swirl around Stamford Bridge like fog around a lighthouse. There is also a touch of transfer talk, because Chelsea’s appetite for squad upheaval shows no sign of diminishing regardless of who happens to be sitting in the dugout.
Finally, and with a degree of trepidation that borders on dread, we look ahead to Chelsea’s trip to Anfield to face Liverpool. Neither Lloyd nor I, it must be said, are approaching this fixture with anything one might generously describe as confidence, and we shall explain precisely why. If you enjoy the sound of two men trying to locate reasons for optimism and finding the cupboard almost entirely bare, then this is very much the episode for you.
Jai
