Chelsea

Evening Standard

Trevor Birch was the man who welcomed Roman Abramovich into Stamford Bridge but he did not last long under the billionaire.

In fact, it was little over a month after the £140million takeover at Chelsea in 2003 that the Russian decided to replace Birch with Peter Kenyon as chief executive.

But then Birch sensed early on that he was not on same wavelength as the oligarch.

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Evening Standard

Managers the length and breadth of the country insist they are only thinking about the next game but Gus Poyet’s mind is already on challenging and, possibly, managing Brighton’s FA Cup fourth-round opponents, Arsenal.

The Uruguayan has the small matter of a 600-mile round trip to Blackburn in atrocious conditions for tonight’s Championship clash while Arsenal entertain West Ham in the Premier League tomorrow night.

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Having been told by West Ham he was ‘too soft’ the Italian is thriving in his second spell as a manager

Evening Standard

There was a revealing moment after Watford’s FA Cup defeat at Manchester City on ­Saturday. The home fans booed Mario Balotelli when he came on as a substitute while Watford supporters shouted “fight, fight” as they taunted him over his ­training ground wrestling match with manager Roberto Mancini.

However, Gianfranco Zola broke ranks and embraced the maverick striker. The Watford manager’s ­gesture showed he felt his fellow Italian deserved understanding not condemnation.

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Bruce Buck explains why club accused referee of racial abuse, says reaction to it has been ‘very unfair’ and insists they’re not hypocrites despite supporting skipper

Evening Standard

Bruce Buck normally has a dreadful feeling in the pit of his stomach when Chelsea lose. “I feel horrible and I can’t sleep that night but I didn’t feel that way at all on Sunday,” says the club’s chairman referring to the home defeat by Manchester United two weeks ago.

In the decade since helping Roman Abramovich buy Chelsea, Buck has rarely spoken publicly, let alone about his turmoil over losing. But now, as we meet in a private club in the West End, he is willing to talk for the first time about, arguably, the most explosive event in this colourful club’s history.

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Cover-up fear plus employee law were behind the decision to proceed with complaint against referee Mark Clattenburg

The Independent

Chelsea are well aware that should the FA and police investigations show that Mark Clattenburg did not racially abuse John Obi Mikel in last Sunday’s match against Manchester United, the club would face an enormous backlash. Referees are already threatening to boycott the club as a result of the allegation.

However, the club felt that they had to make the complaint because otherwise they would have faced the even more explosive charge of trying to cover up alleged racial abuse. More so as Mikel, who was allegedly called a monkey, and Ramires, who also claims to have heard it, felt very strongly on this issue.

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