Yesterday's afternoon stroll saw Chelsea put four past a hapless Wolves, yet never get – or need to get - out of first gear. Essien was the driving force at the core of the Chelsea machine, but his fine showing was rivalled by the 30 minute outing for wonderkid Gael Kakuta.
The first five minutes of the ninety suggested we would witness a spirited performance from Wolves, and Mick McCarthy's men did carve out two or three reasonable chances.

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• Manchester City and Liverpool drew 2 - 2 this morning. Blog buddy Yossi Benayoun's equalizer secured the draw. Benayoun had just flown back at 3:00AM from Serbia, after receiving extensive horse placenta massages on his hamstring. No word on if he ate hay for breakfast. Neither team looked deserving of a win, though City's play improved after the introduction of Carlos Tevez in the second half.

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Rumours are rife as we all know about Chelsea at the moment and there seems to be no stopping the press at the moment. Ashley Cole has said this week:
""Of course every club wants to see new players and at a club like Chelsea you know whoever comes in will be world-class, you would love to see new players but it's not my money they're spending and it's not down to me. Click to continue reading...

After almost three injury-ravaged years, Dean Ashton, as the back pages suggest, will finally hang up his boots and retire. The player who was once seen as a unique cross between the playing styles of Alan Shearer and Teddy Sheringham, will never fully fulfill his potential as a top-class footballer. Click to continue reading...

British newspaper reports say that Chelsea are closing in on a deal for Sergio Aguero from Atletico Madrid which could be worth £50million.

The deal would make the Argentina striker the highest-paid player in the Barclays Premier League at more than £170,000-a-week.

Over the summer Chelsea had a £31m bid for Aguero turned down last summer but are now prepared to increase their offer after seeing Aguero score two stunning goals against Chelsea in the Champions League earlier this month.

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Iker Casillas

Ok. ... Getting sleepy in the press conference. This isn't good. ... Maybe if I just cross my arms and tilt my head back, no one will know I'm slowly losing consciousness. ... Yeah. I think this is working. I look perfectly normal like this. ... Oh no.

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Good piece by Henry Winter in todays Telegraph, about how dangerous a First Round Draw England could get despite the fact that we will almost certainly be seeded (won't be officially announced untill all the teams are through and FIFA has worked out the best way to get the big teams through the fairest way for everyone to play against each other.

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Didier Drogba has had a ridiculous start to the year. Not only has his squad, Chelsea, met their high preseason expectations and remained the top squad despite some tough challenges, but the forward has done a great job shaking off the rust from last year's injury plagued season and has performed up to the peak of his abilities.

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Vote for the African Premier League player who has been the best ambassador for Africa here...The winner will be declared on the 30th of November 2009
Drogba signed a new advertising contract with Pepsi and pledged the entire £3m he earned from the deal to the setting-up of a hospital and orphanage in Ivory Coast.

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A cheat. An embarrassment. A disgrace.

All words used to describe Liverpool's David N'Gog in the aftermath of last Monday's game against Birmingham. Other media outlets demanded a 5 game ban. In a matter of seconds an unremarkable squad player catapulted to being the poster boy for all that's wrong with the modern game.

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Una imagen que dice todo y a la vez nada. Lamentablemente, poco podemos destacar de un Chelsea – Manchester United donde el principal hecho que resaltó por sobre el resto –dejando de lado el gol, claro está- fue nuevamente la muestra del pésimo arbitraje inglés ante la agresión del joven Evans al marfileño Drogba. Click to continue reading...

Just a few short weeks ago, Chelsea appeared the strongest team at least squad-wise in the English top flight. How quickly things can change.

Following this weekend's international break, the list of those on the treatment table has grown exponentially and not simply from lining up for their respective countries.

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What the hell is going on with our injuries at the moment. As reported on here before, Jose Bosingwa is out. Ashley Cole is out and we are yet to have confirmation when he will return. Frank Lampard is out for three weeks. Didier Drogba has now been confirmed as out for three weeks with a rib injury suffered when Jonny Evans peformed his Karate Kick on him and got away with it and John Terry had to pull out of the England v Brazil game with an ankle problem but he hopes to be fit to face Wolves next weekend. Click to continue reading...

Didier Drogba has added to Chelsea's injury woes after a broken rib ruled him out for three weeks.
He sustained the injury in last week's win over Manchester United.
Drogba joins Ashley Cole, Jose Bosingwa and Frank Lampard on the injury list.
And skipper John Terry limped out of England training yesterday with a swollen ankle, making him a doubt for the friendly with Brazil. Click to continue reading...

Hello all. For a friday post, usually, there'd be a match preview of some sort. There are some good international matches over the next few days.

The Irish take on the French in what I see as even a contest as it is in Rugby. Then there are the equally intriguing Bosnia vs Portugal, Algeria vs Egypt, New Zealand vs Bahrain etc etc.

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by CARL ELDRIDGEÂ Not the greatest round-up of Arsenal stories from this morning's papers today but what scant coverage there is is pretty much here. First off we have RVP telling the Sun that he does not believe his game is similar to his Liverpool and Chelsea counterparts Torres and Drogba.

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Lots of fallout from the tragic Robert Enke suicide. Here were the main stories from yesterday.
The guy was depressed, he left a good-bye note and Germany called off its friendly with Chile.
Oh and Goal.com caught up with Clint Mathis, an ex-teammate of the goalkeeper.
Now the links:

• Soccer violence extends to college men now.

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Butt Buddies
Chelsea's captain Frank Lampard picked up a thigh injury while training today and will be out of England's friendly with Brazil this weekend.
Lampard has been a hot topic for us this season - he started off incredibly slow, but then finally scored from open play a few weeks ago and has been on fire ever since. Click to continue reading...

Sickening is how I would describe the Kung Fu kick meted out by Jonny "The Hitman" Evans of Man Utd against Drogba of Chelsea last Sunday. But lets be fair, Man Utd have included Kung Fu in its training ever since Cantona was accused by a Shaolin Master based in Moss side Manchester of having poor technique in his kung fu kick pictured above.

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Sometimes I have Arsenal related dreams. Last night Ray Parlour was working in my local area as a mobile fish and chip shop man. He had a kind of caravan thing which he motored with a tricycle contraption of some sort, and this contraption also heated up the oil for him to fry the fish and the chips.

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In following with this week's pattern of posting hilarious pictures, photoshopped or no, we bring you this marvelous offering from the Sun. Luckily, the accompanying interview is not half bad. Thanks to reader Chelsea for the heads up.

Q: When Nicolas signed did you feel, Didier, you had to prove you were better?

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1. Where's Tottenham at? -- via EPL Talk
2. Tennis spectators are the stars -- via Kickette
3. New kits around the world -- via TOW
4. River Plate museum? -- via Futbolita
5. Inside John Terry -- via The Spoiler
6. UF's Drogba Award -- via Unprofessional Foul
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Definitivamente a pesar de que mantengo que me agrada, despues de ver los jerseys de Japon, Alemania, Sudafrica e Incluso el de Grecia el de mexico es de lo peorcito... 18 meses tardaron en diseñarlo? pues solo que haya ido en un Swwet shop de china...

Vamos viendo los links acumulados en la semana:

• Que quieren naturalizar al Tito Villa?

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The World Cup is almost set in terms of the teams that will qualify and once the play-offs are completed it will be clear whether the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry and Franck Ribery will be present or missing. In the meantime, Sweden's talented forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic will certainly not be going to the World Cup after his country failed to qualify from the same group which saw eventual winners Denmark earn automatic qualification and runners-up Portugal reach the play-offs.

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The most eagerly waited fixture in the EPL so far took place on Sunday 8 November when champions Manchester United took on potential challengers Chelsea at fortress Stamford Bridge. So much talking about Chelsea form lately and the run they are on, Manchester United injury list was a major talking point with world's best centre back partnership in the shape of Vidic & Rio Ferdinand both sidelined, though Vidic was on the bench but unable to start to game.

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Frank Lampard today hailed Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba as the best in the world!. Lampard said: "Nico has been fantastic all season. Along with Didier they are a great partnership," Lampard said. "He (Anelka) has tremendous pace and balance, particularly when he runs at defenders. "He is so cool, so we have two players who for me are the best at what they do in the world. Click to continue reading...

I have to say maybe I was slightly harsh on the boys after the Atletico game the other night as we are sitting pretty at the top of our group with two games to play. Let's face it there are a number of big european sides that are all but comfortable at the moment and will be giving their all to make sure of qualification for the last 16. Click to continue reading...

I think these are our most covered topics. We've discussed it here, here, and here, and provided material for Patrick Barclay. If you read those articles (which I don't suspect for a second you will) you'll see our position is abundantly clear. There were two incidents this weekend that fulled the debate one in the United/Chelsea game, and one in the Liverpool/Birmingham game.

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David N'Gog doing his best Drogba / Eduardo impression


David N'Gog cheats to earn Liverpool a point against Birmingham Click to continue reading...

Darren Fletcher in particular. He was the hatchet man in Utd's win over Arsenal on August 29th and did quite a number on Cesc Fabregas.

Well, after the match Arsene Wenger talked at length about the anti-football display. He did not mention Fletcher's name but everyone can read between the lines.

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If any of you saw the Chelsea v Man United game yesterday, you would have seen another episode of Didier Drogba exaggerating fouls. Example no. 756 below: Click to continue reading...

Q. What exactly happened here?

A. Darren Fletcher won the ball and Ashley Cole jumped up into the air. Martin Atkinson promptly scurried across and awarded Chelsea the 'foul'. The rest, as they say, is the rest of this post.

Q. Was Sir Alex wrong in criticizing the referee?

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The Times: They [United] had been the more assertive team throughout, defending diligently and attacking with purpose when the opportunity arose, and would surely have claimed something from the game, quite possibly a victory, had not the two big refereeing decisions gone in Chelsea's favour.

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I've made it clear in recent weeks that Chelsea's November fixtures against Man Utd and Arsenal will give the clearest indication so far of the strength of Chelsea's challenge this season. As it was, Chelsea came through the first of those tests yesterday – but without flying colours.
To have expected flying colours would have been wishful thinking however.

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