I think that I've made my opinion on the Charity Shield pretty clear by now. It's not really anything more than a glorified friendly with a shiny plate at the end of it, and I'll stick to that story even if they win against Manchester City today. However, there are obviously some events in the match that can carry over to affect the season proper. Injuries, obviously, are bad. And since this is a match organised by the Football Association, so are red cards.
Which makes this tackle from Branislav Ivanovic really, really dumb:
The Serbian fullback went in on Aleksandar Kolarov studs up and two footed, and despite protests from some rather vocal Chelsea fans, it was a deserved sending off. The fact that Kevin Friend should never have let the play get that far after Stefan Savic elbowed Fernando Torres in the face is annoying, but doesn't excuse Ivanovic's decision to do that.
A straight red for dangerous play normally comes with an automatic three game suspension. Chelsea's next three games are all Premier League matches. This is bad, because we do not yet have a backup right back not named Ramires or Paulo Ferreira. We've been chasing one all summer, and now we're probably going to have to seal a deal within the next few days, and for an inflated price at that.
Bah.