By
April 20 2007

Well here we go again! Again 6 points behind and again with a game in hand and again we must win to have any hope of retaining our premiership crown. Can ANYONE explain to me why on earth it’s nearly always Chelsea that have to play after Man Utd?

There’s no doubt that the Old Trafford side always have the psychological advantage as they can never go into games being level on points – do TV demand that they have this advantage?  What is going on?

Anyway, rant over……..

This is going to be another tough fixture.  The east end side need every point possible to have even a slim hope of avoiding relegation so we can be sure they will fight tooth and nail tonight.  For added spice this will be the first time that Joe Cole has played in front of the Upton Park crowd and with Lampard sure to receive his traditional stick, both players will have to channel any resentment into winning energy.

I’m a bit worried that IF we go ahead in tonight’s game West Ham might get frustrated and start lashing out – we don’t need any injuries please – we’ve had more than our fair share this season.

Talking of energy, we looked a bit jaded in the 2^nd half against Blackburn (although we did crank back up into life during extra-time).  Still, with our current schedule and the exertions at Valencia, I shouldn’t be too surprised and Lampard did reveal that he played through with a virus on Sunday.

West Ham have no recent injuries but Davenport still has a foot injury and Upson and Gabbidon are still on the treatment table.

Neil Barnett did his normal plum duff “but I’m not going to tell you who it is!”  revelation that we will be missing someone tonight due to a fresh injury – Seeing as Shevchenko went off after bizarrely injuring himself during that cringing miss against Blackburn (What did he do?  Catch a heel in the turf?) We (and Alan Curbishley) can guess who it is Neil!

Drogba should be fit again and of course Robben will still be missing with a knee injury - the good news on the Dutchman is that he should be fit in 10 days (hopefully in time for the Anfield leg of the CL semi-final).

Today’s statement on “the bleeding obvious” is that we will have to keep close tags on Tevez.  The Argentinean has been in good form of late and I would like to see Carvalho marshall him as much as possible.

Some players should be rested – but can we afford to risk dropping points in tonight’s game but have the investment of fitter players for forthcoming encounters?  Jose will need to have his judgement honed to perfection from now until the end of the season and make slight rotations as intelligently as possible ("stating the bleeding obvious" statement nº 2!).

West Ham (from): Green, Neill, Collins, Ferdinand, McCartney, Bowyer, Reo-Coker, Noble, Etherington, Harewood, Tevez, Carroll, Walker, Benayoun, Konchesky, Dailly, Cole, Spector, Mullins, Zamora, Boa Morte, Sheringham.

Chelsea (from): Cech, Cudicini, Hilario, Ferreira, Geremi, Diarra, Carvalho, Terry, A Cole, Boulahrouz, J Cole, Lampard, Ballack, Essien, Makelele, Kalou, Obi, Shevchenko, Drogba, Wright-Phillips.

I’m going for 4-4-2 to start:  Cech, Geremi, Carvalho, Terry, A Cole, Mikel, Lampard, Ballack, J Cole, Kalou and Drogba.

 

Prediction?  1-3 and the required 3 points.