It should come as no surprise but it's being reported that Liverpool will tour the USA this summer and play a match at Fenway Park which is the home of the Boston Red Socks.

New owners are looking to tap into the huge base of American sports fans which would be great for club support and reaching potential sponsors.

Following on from my earlier post featuring John Terry's interview in The Sun, there is another part of that interview I want to focus on and that's our progress in pre-season to where we find ourselves ahead of Stoke in two days time.
When asked about this pre season and how he feels we have prepared, JT responded by saying:

"He has confidence in himself and when he tells you something he firmly believes it and he gets that across in 100 per cent the right way.

I posted the other week about what looked like Chelsea's new pressing game so far this season and watching our two recent performances against Aston Villa and Rangers, this has become more obvious than ever.
Barcelona are known in the game for their work ethic off the ball, to win it back in the opposition half and move it forward quickly and we all know the benefits to their game when they do that.

Here are extended highlights from Chelsea's final pre season game yesterday. Chelsea beat Rangers 3-1 with two goals from Danny Sturridge and the other from Florent Malouda. Jelavic scored for Rangers.
szólj hozzá: Gl1-3Ch[matchhighlight.com]1St
szólj hozzá: Gl1-3Ch[matchhighlight.

Arsenal have named the 19-man squad that have arrived in Portugal, ahead of tomorrow's match with Benfica.

Arsene Wenger and his team landed in Portugal tonight, and are all set to play their last game of this pre-season in Lisbon tomorrow night.

The squad is as follows, in alphabetical order:

Arshavin, Chamakh, Djourou, Fabianski, Frimpong, Gervinho, Jenkinson, Lansbury, Miquel, Miyaichi, Ramsey, Rosicky, Sagna, Song, Squillaci, Szczesny, Traore, Van Persie, Vermaelen.

Hasta El Gol Siempre is back, ladies and gents. I apologise for the long absence of any posts on here since the Copa América final, but I've been just as busy working as I was during the Copa itself, if not ... Continue reading →

Fernando Torres has been featured on Chelsea TV fresh from scoring the second of our two goals against Aston Villa the other day and has spoken of his goal, confidence and how things have been going this pre season.
He said:

"It gives you confidence when you score with the first ball you touch, but especially because with a 2-0 lead we closed the game.

I had a rant a week or so ago at some Chelsea fans with all their negativity about our performances in pre-season. People were moaning about a lack of signings and the way we were playing so I posted an article called "Enough is enough".
In that post, my message was clear, we are in pre season after only being back in training for a couple of weeks and also getting used to the climate in the Far East.

It's always nice to hear from all members of our squad rather than the main established players such as JT, Lamps, Cech and Didier. Don't get me wrong, it's important that these four have their say during pre season and the season, but at times it's nice to hear from the others.
Today I get to blog about comments made by Branislav Ivanovic, John Obi Mikel and Salomon Kalou.

szólj hozzá: Kitchee 0-4 Chelsea

You may have already seen it, but here is a video of the goals from yesterday. Chelsea looked a stage further into their fitness with certain players playing 60 minutes with a view to just playing 30 in Kitchee. The other players who came on are expected to feature for at least an hour in the next game.

I really do get the feeling that AVB is showing real signs of frustration with the media and some sections of the Chelsea fans at the moment. It may just be me, but his comments about the Fernando Torres questions yesterday, and now these comments I am about to post indicate to me that he is almost asking Chelsea fans to allow him and the players time.

Chelsea made a winning start yesterday in Malaysia and looking at Twitter I cannot understand for the life of me the mentality of some Chelsea fans at the moment. People moaning and complaining about the performance, about the way we are playing, what we are lacking and all I can say is just listen to yourselves at the moment.

Great news for the club this afternoon from Ashley Cole stating that he wants to end his career at Chelsea. First of all he was asked about AVB, then about his future and about the club and said:

"We have a young manager who is somewhat on the same wavelength with the players. This is wonderful to the team.

Well it seems that JT has been the one person the media has really focused on in these early stages of our pre season tour to the far east. Yesterday he was quoted talking about Luka Modric and then afterwards about Fernando Torres but now the focus turns to Andre Villas-Boas.
JT was quick to admit that we under achieved last season and it's now up to every single player to prove their worth at Chelsea once again under AVB and so far, the impressions of him as manager has been good.

Fresh from signing a new five year deal with the club (which is fantastic news by the way) Josh McEachran was by far the best player on the pitch yesterday in the 45 minutes he played in the second half.
In the short time that he has been involved in the first team, we have all seen just how good he is.

Here is extended highlights of our 1-0 win against Portsmouth yesterday. Bear in mind this was our first official pre-season game and players only played a maximum of 45 mins each.
Portsmouth v Chelsea by geuzehead
Wasn't exactly inspiring at all but like I said it was our first official game and Portsmouth made a good game of it.

Charlie Adam gets off the mark for Liverpool... It was another game filled with goals for Liverpool in the impressive stadium in Kuala Lumpar. Filled to the rafters with Liverpool fans, i think the Malaysia XI may have felt a bit small. Kenny Dalglish was missing from the sidelines as he's home sorting out the the small matter of Stewart Downing.

I know most of you have either seen it for yourselves or heard about it but I just had to put it on here even though it's late.
I know it's just Wycombe, but it doesn't matter who is playing who when someone does something like this in a game.
Take a look for yourselves:
It's a fantastic finish and as someone said today "Who needs Modric!

Conor Coady's strike gave Liverpool their third goal... Liverpool today got their pre season off to a winning start with a game that had goals galore. It was an action packed match in the far East and Guangdong provided more excitement than most predicted. Kenny Dalglsih had the opportunity to parade several players including youngsters Wisdom and Coady, plus new signing Charlie Adam.

Quote from The Official Wycombe Wanderers website:

World-Cup winning striker Fernando Torres was on the scoresheet as Chelsea recorded a 3-0 victory over the Wanderers in a practice match at Cobham on Tuesday afternoon.
Yossi Benayoun danced through the visiting defence to open the scoring in the early stages and Nikki Bull produced a fine stop to deny Didier Drogba, while Scott Rendell missed Wycombe's best chance of the half from a tight angle.

Today is the day pre season starts for Chelsea (apart from Ramires and David Luiz who are with Brazil) and I have to say after a long summer it will be great to see Chelsea back together and preparing for the new season.
I have had my say on AVB ever since he was appointed and so have you and it's now down to business.

Alejandro Sabella has resigned as manager of Argentine champions Estudiantes de La Plata after almost two years of incredible success with the club. Conflicting opinions are currently circulating on whether this is rumour or fact, and it would help if ... Continue reading →

Since Sergio Batista's Argentina squad list was made official on Monday, it's been strongly hinted that one particular change would be made, and so it has come to pass. In a move that frankly makes one wonder why the Estudiantes ... Continue reading →

Tuesday night saw competitive football finally begin for Argentina's clubs, even though the interminably pointless and boring Torneos De Verano (which HEGS readers may have noticed aren't being covered here this year, because I'm fed up with them) haven't yet ... Continue reading →

It's been a week of big name moves in Argentina's footballing landscape, with three of the deals in particular standing out. On Friday it was confirmed that Diego Buonanotte will move from River Plate to Málaga of the Spanish First ... Continue reading →

With little going on during the summer break, HEGS has been quiet as I've been earning some spending money whilst on my visit to England, and seeing friends. Off the pitch though, some transfer dealing has been happening, and some ... Continue reading →