COME ON CHELSEA

By Since66
December 17 2011

Immediately after hearing Chelsea had been drawn with Serie A giants and 'conquerors' of the spoilt little rich kids of the Etihad, my thoughts recalled the wonderful waiters of the Hotel Continental in Sorrento. Why?!? They are all Napoli mad.

On the Saturday before we came home, a couple of young waiters allowed me to watch Chelsea's win away at Sunderland (complete with Italian commentary), in the peace and quiet of one of the hotels conference rooms, which later became the team meeting room for local Serie C side Sorrento, who would be staying at the hotel preparing for their match the following day.

The hotel's dining room is next door to the conference room and divided by sliding glass door partitions and at a dinner that evening one of the waiters explained that Napoli were playing at Cesena and that the game was live on TV.

A lot of the Sorrento players were in the room watching the game when all of a sudden there was a very loud roar and in an instant the waiters had 'dropped' everything (not literally) and rushed to the room to discover that Napoli had taken the lead.

It was the funniest sight. every waiter abandoning their post, leaving a lot of the older guests a little confused and a little befuddled.

Calm and order was restored when the Maitre D decided he had seen enough and got everyone back to work. Napoli went on to win the game and Sorrento were held to a draw the following day.

The revitalised Blues travel to the DW today to face old boy Franco Di Santo and a Wigan team, although in the bottom three, on a high after their win at The Hawthorns last weekend.

In seven previous visits, including one FA Cup tie, Chelsea have won six and scored six on their last visit at the start of last season.

Somehow I cannot see the same score being duplicated, despite the renewed confidence and return to form, a Chelsea victory is more likely to be by the odd goal which has happened on five previous occasions.

Wigan boss, Roberto Martinez says he is not wary of Chelsea's threat but he is going to embrace it.

He said, "I just feel that games like these are great opportunities for us to try to get something where nobody expects us to.

"I don't like to go into a game thinking about it damage limitation or just trying to get through unoticed.

"It is a unique opportunity to go and try to express yourself and test yourself to the maximum.

"That means sometimes that will leave you exposed and you could end up on the end of a difficult scoreline but I think we need to be prepared to do that.

"I think the only way you can get a positive result against the top sides is if you take risks.

"You need to score goals and that is the only way you can do that. I would rather give everything we've got and be heavily challenged and see what the outcome is."

COME ON CHELSEA

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