The Interim One wants trophies. Although he's proud of the nine (nueve, or 9-of-10 fingers) that he has already won, he wants more. At least one more. And when he gets that 10th one, and he gets the final stamp on his customer loyalty card at Trofies-R-Us - note hip intentional misspelling - along with the free baseball hat with the TRU logo, he will finally be loved! Loved and adored, even! Universally respected! Nothing will be his fault anymore; he will never ever have to think of another single excuse!
Trophies trophies trophies. More, more, more. He wants them at all cost. Shape, size, girth - it matters not. Gotta have them trophies. And if he has to whip Oliver Twist Juan Mata until his tiny little bitty toes bleed like a ballerina to do it, well, by blessed brand new Messi Pope, he will. The Unsackable One may talk a decent game about rotations and squad depths and three objectives, but we've yet to actually see any of that in action. Instead he laughs in the face of Congestionopocalypse, shoos the kids away, and tells Marko Marin to go fetch another paella. Better take Mikel and JT along, too, to help carry it; it's a big one.
Then again, having made a change that not only worked but even had the fans' universal approval over the weekend, maybe we'll start seeing something sensible. There's a first time for everything after all.
Date/Time: Thursday, March 14th, 20:05 GMT; 4:05 P.M. EDT; Mar.15, 1:35 A.M. IST
Venue: Stamford Bridge, SW6
TV Information: ITV 1 (UK); Fox Soccer (USA); TEN Action (India)
You might expect the preview to continue on at this point - with obvious stuff like Oriol Romeu is out long-term and Demba Ba is cup tied and everybody else is available and I couldn't name you a single player on Steaauaeuaeuauae besides Raul Rusescu who scored the only goal of the first leg - but you know what? SURPRISE!