The amazing Chipolopolos scored the winning goal in the 77th minute as substitute Emmanuel Mayuka found space and on the turn curled a right footed shot past Adam Kwarsey in goal. It was probably the second chance for the Zambians and very much against the run of play.

The Black Stars should have gone ahead early as Asamoah Gyan missed out on a golden chance when his penalty was stopped by Kennedy Mweene (bringing back painful memories of his World Cup PK miss against Uruguay).

After my piece in defence of Aaron Ramsey on Sunday, it seemed only fitting that whoscored.com would publish this piece today, which looks at the Premier League's most creative players since 2007.
It divides the number of minutes played by the chances that a player created from open play, producing a mixture of expected and surprising results.

By Alan Duffy

In the past 12 months or so, the global nature of football has become all the more apparent, as the UAE, India and China have suddenly become legitimate destinations for some of the game's bigger (and mostly older) stars.

Didier Drogba could not be denied as he made up for a missed penalty by pouring in a brace. Ivory Coast added another through Yaya Toure as they send Equatorial Guinea, the co-hosts, out of the ACN. The Taranga Lions are through to the semi-finals.

Drogba will be missing today's huge showdown with Man Utd, and in his absence, Chelsea is hoping that misfiring Fernando Torres and Daniel Sturridge, take up the goalscoring slack.

Two goals from Didier Drogba and a fine free kick from Yaya Toure gave Ivory Coast a comfortable 3-0 win over Co-host Equatorial Guinea to send the Elephants through to the Semi final where they will face either Gabon or Mali.

In the day's earlier match Zambia beat 10 man Sudan with a scoreline to make it through to the semis for the first time since 1996.

Didier Drogba to the Chicago Fire. I'm not sure how it even started but now we are really getting into absurdity.

Chicago Fire confirm talks with Chelsea's Drogba

Thanks for the big headline Tribal Football. On yesterday's conference call, Chicago Fire head coach Frank Klopas did say all of the following: "Drogba?

Manchester United's best chance of beating Chelsea - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

With the Manchester clubs tied on points at the top of the table and only Tottenham with an outside chance at the title, this year's Premier League is almost guaranteed to be Manchester-bound.

But it's not an easy road Manchester United still have City, Tottenham and Chelsea (this weekend) away, plus Liverpool home.

Stamford Bridge hasn't been a pay hunting ground in the league for United in recent years, but they look overpriced at 2.9 with Betfred to beat their arch rivals Chelsea and bag a vital three points to maintain their title challenge.

Having played Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool in quick succession, and with Liverpool coming up again, United are now at a crucial stage of their season having hauled themselves level on points with Roberto Mancini's men at the top of the Premiership.

It's a massive game on Sunday and two sides in contrasting situations. Chelsea are not playing as well as we would like to see them playing and are still struggling to create chances and feed Fernando Torres. We find ourselves 12 points behind United.
United, with plenty of injuries are still picking up vital wins and are now back on level par with City.

Tonight Chelsea travel to the Liberty Stadium to take on the impressive Swansea side under Brendan Rogers. We all saw how well they played when they beat Arsenal the other week and once again for Chelsea, this is no easy game.
Imagine a Chelsea side without three of the four players that have been part of the core of our side for the last five or six years.

Chelsea have completed the signing of 20 year old Kevin De Bruyne from Belgian side FC Genk. A 5 year, £6.7 million deal has been agreed by both parties after which Bruyne will be loaned back to Genk for the rest of the season.

De Bruyne who underwent a medical yesterday at Chelsea's training grounds becomes Chelsea's second signing in this transfer window after Gary Cahill completed his move from Bolton earlier this month.

We've got to post a quick recap of what we watched this past weekend but first, very briefly, here are two games today that you could tune in for, in case you're looking for something to watch this afternoon/evening (depending on your timezone):

African Cup of Nations, Côte d'Ivoire vs Angola (1pmET, Al-Jazeera Sports / Eurosport International): The group stage of AfCON2012 wraps up over the next couple days.

Another editorial meeting has sadly ended in a fist fight, but never fear, folks! Before the riot vans arrived and broke up the scratching, hissing, potty mouthed messed rolling around the office floor, we managed to agree on bringing you intermittent news of the Africa Cup Of Nations.

This will include, but not be limited to, pictures of semi-naked players, breaking short tent news, and, if the bail money can be collected in time, the occasional result too.

The African Cup of Nations is underway, but does it feel like we are missing a few people? - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

The 2012 African Cup of Nations kicked off on Saturday, with co-hosts and debutants Equatorial Guinea getting a last-gasp, dramatic 1-0 win over Libya. The likes of Didier Drogba, Yaya Toure and Demba Ba are chomping at the bit to showcase the quality of football in the African continent, but this year's edition has a number of recognisable absentees.

The Ivory Coast scraped through their first Group B game in the African Cup of Nations last night with a narrow 1-0 win over outsiders Sudan. Cheick Tiote - Newcatsle's star midfielder played 80 minutes last night It was Chelsea striker Didier Drogba who scored the only goal of the game after 39 minutes, when [.

Over the Sunday afternoon's match between Sudan and Ivory Coast was the third match in succession where one of the goalkeeper's had sported a kit in a horrific shade of purple, making goalkeeper's look like blueberries and in need of an Oompa Loompa escort to Willie Wonka's juicing room. It was a lacklustre performance from the Ivory Coast.

Super Sunday is one again upon us with a couple of high profile fixtures worth watching. Manchester United travel to London to face Arsenal in the return fixture of the match they won 8-2 at Old Trafford earlier in the season.

The other big fixture of the day sees league leaders Manchester City host 3rd place Tottenham at the Etihad stadium in a day that could see their lead atop the EPL table extended or cut.

By Alan Duffy

Norwich City 0-0 Chelsea Premier League 21 January 2012

Chelsea failed to make much ground on third-placed Tottenham at Carrow Road on Saturday, after playing out a rather disappointing goalless draw with Norwich City.

Sky Sports understands Swedish teenager Abdul Aziz has been forced to cut short his trial with Liverpool because of a heavy bout of flu.
Sky Sports revealed earlier this week how the 14-year-old from ISK Norkopping had been handed a two-week trial with the Reds.
Their scouts had sent back glowing reports to the Premier League club about Aziz's scoring exploits with his club and Under-15 national team.

Click Here to get a Free £50 with Paddy Power Norwich v Chelsea The Canaries have been this season's Blackpool, impressing with their battling spirit and attacking style in the first half of the season. The big difference being that Norwich are actually good. There's a whole lot more substance and depth to Paul Lambert's [.

It appears likely that Didier Drogba is set to move to Shanghai Shenua. It is not quite clear whether the move is scheduled to take place during the January transfer window or in the summer of 2012 but it has become quite clear that Didier Drogba is set to move away from Stamford Bridge and Chelsea.

The buzz is Didier Drogba will be joining his Chelsea compatriot Nicholas Anelka in the Chinese Super League this summer for a whopping £270,000 a week. That kind of money for three years will amount to a nice retirement nest egg. Drogba has become an after thought with Roman Abramovich rooting for Fernando Torres to succeed so he can justify spending an £50m giveaway, the largest in sporting history.

It seems in recent days that speculation surrounding the future of Didier Drogba has intensified as the same club who have signed Nicolas Anelka this month, have Didier Drogba in their sights too!.
Shanghai Shenhua signed Anelka on a reported £200,000 per week and if reports are to be believed, Didier Drogba could follow the Frenchman on even more money!

Prior to Bob Bradley being appointed as its head coach, Egypt failed to qualify for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. The Pharoahs' failure is the rest of Africa's success, as for the first time in six years a new champion will be crowned.

The 28th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations is set to get underway on Saturday, with 16 teams competing in the host nations of Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

By Andrew Crawford, writing from Shanghai

Despite the city starting to slow down for the Chinese New Year, Shanghai Shenhua's PR machine remains as busy as ever. The club's website is more brightly coloured than usual and images of the new manager, Jean Tigana, and his star player, Nicolas Anelka, flicker across the screen whilst behind them, four silhouetted figures stand in the background.

Didier Drogba against Aston Villa on 30th December 2011 scored his 150th goal for the club which is a truly amazing record. With rumour and suggestion a plenty around the man from the Ivory Coast, this could be his last season with the club.
QuickFireGoals on You Tube has posted this fantastic video of every single one of his 150 goals for Chelsea.

Didier Drogba against Aston Villa on 30th December 2011 scored his 150th goal for the club which is a truly amazing record. With rumour and suggestion a plenty around the man from the Ivory Coast, this could be his last season with the club.
QuickFireGoals on You Tube has posted this fantastic video of every single one of his 150 goals for Chelsea.

Fernando Torres has certainly been putting in the hard work on the training pitch for Chelsea, with this hard graft appearing to pay dividends in recent games during which he has almost been able to capitalise upon the absence of Didier Drogba by displaying a few good performances up front, but Torres has still failed to win over the Chelsea fans by doing the one job that is expected of him: scoring goals.

Fascinating comments in the Mirror from former Chelsea boss, and new Paris Saint-Germain boss Carlo Ancelotti about Fernando Torres.

PSG is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority and have money to spend. They are in the market for a center forward and Ancelotti says that he has been offered many of Europe's top strikers including Torres:

"I have received hundreds of phone calls from agents offering me players ever since I signed with PSG.

It's official Chelsea have completed the signing of Bolton Wanderers defender Gary Cahill. Cahill was repotedly bought for a fee believed to be in the region of £7 million and is set to be presented at Stamford Bridge sometime this week.

It is still not clear whether Chelsea gave into Cahill's obscene demands of a £100,000 weekly wage in addition to a £4 million signing on fee as the fine details of the deal are yet to be revealed, however, what is certain is that Cahill is happy with the deal.

It has indeed happened. We have reached the magical plateau of 40 points, and are thus unlikely to be relegated. Three cheers. As for this fixture, it was a right odd one, with the Chels looking equal parts sterling and benumb, particularly in defense. Chances, there were a fair few for both sides.

So AVB speaks of Cahill and one possible other signing, dependant on value for money in this window which leads me to ask "Who is the second signing?".
You do have to wonder who it would be coming into the club as we have to consider the players who are due to be leaving or reported as doing so as early as this month or the end of the season when their contracts expire.

Mail: Didier Drogba caption competition: January 6, 2011

Each week, Sportsmail has a caption competition for you to battle it out for a brilliant prize of a £100 Sportsbook bet with our friends at Paddy Power. This week's picture features Didier Drogba and Stephen Warnock.

I think right now as a Chelsea fan we want two things from today. First and foremost we want and desperately need three points and secondly, a performance would be nice!.
No one would have imagined that we would find ourselves in the position we are in at the moment and no one would have predicted the result on Saturday against Aston Villa.

Let's not beat around the bush here and let's tell it like it is. We've seen two managers, drama, controversy, speculation, excitement, frustration and find ourselves at the turn of this year in the exact same position as we did a year ago. Isn't it strange how things have turned out!
This is my review of 2011 and a year on my blog as written by me, a lifelong Chelsea fan giving you my take on everything that happened.

Chelsea striker Fernando Torres has been handed a stern warning by his national team coach Vicente Del Bosque to shape up or suffer missing an inclusion in his Euro 2012 squad.

Torres has struggled to replicate his Liverpool form since his record £50 million move last January having managed to score only 3 goals in all appearances.

Scorers:
Drogba (Chel) 23′ pen
Ireland (Ast) 28′
Petrov (Ast) 83′
Bent (Ast) 86′

Chelsea vs Aston Villa 1-3 Highlights 2011 Goals Drogba penalty Ireland Bent Video is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter

Chelsea vs Aston Villa 1-3 Highlights 2011 Goals Drogba penalty Ireland Bent Video is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter Chelsea vs Aston Villa 2011 ( Chelsea v Aston Villa video below) Final score and result:- Chelsea vs Aston Villa 1-3 ( Drogba penalty/ Ireland, Petrov, Bent) Stamford Bridge, London- 31 [.

Half-time round-up: Spurs in front, Wigan winnig and Drogba bags 150th Blues goal

All the action from this afternoon's 3pm kick-offs

View the full story here: The Mirror

A news article on 2011-12-31 16:06:41 from: The Mirror

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Let's not beat around the bush here and let's tell it like it is. We've seen two managers, drama, controversy, speculation, excitement, frustration and find ourselves at the turn of this year in the exact same position as we did a year ago. Isn't it strange how things have turned out!
This is my review of 2011 and a year on my blog as written by me, a lifelong Chelsea fan giving you my take on everything that happened.