Chelsea vs Leeds Review: Lime bikes and padded seats

It’s 6:15pm…

I have quickly eaten a plate of steak and potatoes. I’m off to Stamford Bridge for an tasty looking F.A Cup Tie. A Chelsea team off the back of a morle sapping League Cup final defeat vs Leeds, a Premier League side in waiting. I’m meet a friend of mine at Wimbledon station at 6:30. As I’ve been working at home all day I opt to take on the slightly chilly Wednesday evening drizzle, by grabbing a rental electric bike. I weirdly end up cycling past my girlfriend and then neighbour who were both heading home after work. I greet one with a kiss and one with a handshake, I’ll let you hazard a guess who got what.

I arrived at Wimbledon station at 6:25pm. Feeling slightly queasy, I definitely hadn’t let my food get down as momentarily my dinner threatened to make a reappearance. I power through and wander through the station down to the underground and meet my friend. We spoke about how he had been campaigning in his local area to get the resident parking fee reduced in his area. He had managed to get 200 signatures and now a breakthrough was imminent, a potential £1,000 a year reduction was on the cards- power to the people!

We arrive at the ground with the irritating drizzle getting in my eyes. I go for the hood up option, to protect my ever thinning collection of hair. We navigate a small queue to get inside the ground, where we’re greeted by carpeted staircases to get up to our position. I can’t say I’ve seen such a thing in a football ground before. My lack of experience in Premier League grounds was starting to show, walking past various food options, a circle bar with seating options and tables. Luxuries that I have never had at my beloved Portman Road. A quick purchase of a bottle of Oasis each (for the cost of £8.50!) and it was game time.

We made our seats just as the teams were coming out, The addition of a padded seat was nice, they’re a lot kinder on the prostate. Atmosphere inside the ground was as expected, aside from the traditional chant of clap clap clap clap Chelsea! It was flat. All the noise was made by the entire end of Leeds fans to our right. Not long into the game and the noise from the travelling fans exploded into life. As the Leeds front line pressed a loose Chelsea pass out of the back, young forward Joseph smashed his finish past the helpless Sanchez for his first ever senior goal. At this point a rowdy Leeds fan behind us was escorted out of the ground by the stewards, a long way to travel for 9 minutes of football.

Chelsea looked every bit of a side who had played 120 minutes just 72 hours earlier, leggy, careless and devoid of any confidence. Blue Billion Pound Bottle Jobs FC do still have talent though, and at points it shined through. With their first real move of any quality they equalised, a quick triangle of passes released Jackson, who finished well in between Meslier’s legs. A classy goal which had come out of nowhere. For the rest of the second half Chelsea controlled the ball better and with 8 minutes to go before half time took the lead. Raheem Sterling switched sides and produced a lovely cut back to Mykhailo Mudryk (yep, I copy and pasted his name off the BBC Sport website) who produced another lovely finish into the far corner.

With that it was half time. Even though we had both already eaten, we both agreed to share a pizza. 5:30pm dinners are dangerous and will very rarely see you through until dawn. I did also find a rouge crème egg in my pocket, but now thought I would save for a later date. By the time the pizza was ‘cooked’ it was time for the second half. Pizza doesn’t really have a place for a stadium snack and now I see why, trying to delicately balance a box on our laps whilst tearing poorly cut slices is not an easy job. We mustered through and both thought the pizza lacked any kind of flavour, cardboard base and lacked any kind of tomato sauce. Still it offered more quality than Chelsea did in the second half, and after young Joseph cushioned a lovely header to equalise for Leeds, it looked like the game was drifting to extra time again. A more experienced Leeds fan in front of me, blew his cover. With his long sighted huge font glaring from his phone screen. I could make out the words “GET INNN!!” in a WhatsApp sent. Kindly I didn’t rat him out.

From a selfish Ipswich fan perspective I really wanted extra time. Leeds have a Yorkshire derby to play on Saturday lunchtime, so would’ve loved another energy sapping 30minutes. It wasn’t to be though and Conor Gallaghers cool, turn and finish meant that BBPBJ (I’m not sure that’s catching on) scrapped through into the Quarter Finals. In truth it was a poor performance from Chelsea and arguably Leeds deserved the win. It’s interesting to see what will happen with Chelsea in the summer, it seems like they are miles off the top four in terms of quality and management. Do the board have the patience to stick with the plan of youth? There is promise in the ranks, but rarely these days do we see long term plans followed through. From a Leeds side of things, I really struggle to understand how this team got relegated from The Premier League last season. I would be very surprised if they don’t get promoted this season, fingers crossed alongside Ipswich.

Post game, we saw a little bit of pushing and shoving amongst some real tough men, before heading to a local bar to have a drink so the crowds could settle down. I ended up with a J20, orange and passionfruit, not bad. Meanwhile in the toilets, some Chelsea fans were celebrating the win with a good smell of their keys, they seemed very happy afterwards!

And with that I headed home, as a blue sided netural is was a enjoyable game. Lots of questions for this Chelsea club to answer at the minute. But I am one who certainly doesn’t have the answers. I’m just a man with a melted Crème Egg in his pocket.

Sport Rating 7/10

Pizza Rating 3/10

VAR vs DRS: A look into how a post AI world could look.

It’s 3:22pm…

This morning, I woke up a little too late to catch the full drama of what unfolded over in Ranchi, India. By the time I had gotten up India were just 40 runs shy of their target. And the madness of a 5 wicket collapse had been and gone.

England lost, India won. It was a fantastic test match. It ebbed and flowed each way until India managed to- in the end- comfortably get over the line. It’s a case of what could have been for England , who will feel they let India get 50 too many in their first innings. Then subsequently, England fell at least 50 short for their second.

It was the match for youth though, with inexperienced Bashir, Jaiswal and Jurel the stars of the show. India go to show just how much depth they really have in their ranks, promising signs for the future of Indian cricket, ominous for the rest of the world watching on. For England though, this is why it’s so important to play cricket on the sub continent. The likes of the heroic Hartley and the brilliant Bashir, wouldn’t ever get a look in English conditions. With number 1 spinner Jack Leach again having fitness worries, both will feel they have a great chance of taking over the mantle, for the summer.

Speaking of youngsters, plenty of fresh faced talent was on show for The League Cup Final yesterday. I thought it was a fantastic game, with both teams gunning for a win from the kick off. Chelsea, desperate to get a result for the ever under pressure boss Poch the Pooch. Liverpool, wanting to get another piece of silverware for their departing legendary Turkey Teeth Klopp. It finished 0-0 after 90, with Chelsea arguably having the better chances and how they will rue those. Van Dijk eventually (for the second time) broke the deadlock with another brilliant header, cue wonderful scenes from behind that goal. So Liverpool lift the cup, but the game wasn’t without it’s controversy.

Yet again VAR, was in the headlines. Liverpool’s opener in normal time, chalked off for an alleged foul by the offside positioned Endo. I’ve seen every referee come out and defend the decision, saying that the rules have been followed. I have to say that that final statement I agree with, the rules of VAR have been followed. However, at what cost? Every single goal now seemingly has a check, just to make sure that someone’s toenail isn’t offside. But we all wanted this didn’t we? When bad decisions were being made, ‘we have the technology, why not use it!’

Likewise in the cricket, when Joe Root was given out LBW in the early hours of Sunday morning. Conspiracy theories were being chucked around Twitter about how the BCCI we’re manipulating DRS in India’s favour. In fact, what had happened is the pretty little graphic hadn’t lined up properly with the technology, making it seem that the ball had pitched outside leg stump. There have been arguments (mostly from the England side) regarding the DRS’ ‘umpires call’ all series, blaming the technology seems to be becoming the norm.

VAR and DRS in that respect have it’s similarities. Both have had huge question marks over them the last few weeks and how they are used. Both were originally brought in to take away the howler from the lowly human that made the said decision. But now, it has taken over. Marginal calls being sent ‘upstairs’ so another human can watch multiple replays, over and over again, until they have to make the call. Now we have let technology into our sports it’s here to stay. We have let the bear out of the cage, and good luck to the brave soul who’s going to try and shepherd it back in there!

Like Artificial Intelligence, we saw the benefits of introducing it into our everyday lives. Oh look, it can finish my sentence on an email! But the more we use it, the more we let it have control.

It’s like feeding next doors cat, it’s fun for a little while, giving it strokes, a nice bit of company. But then it shits on your doorstep.

Sport Rating 9/10

Technology in Sport Rating 3/10