[Lord Snooty]

Huddersfield Town v Chelsea
The Premier League
Tuesday December 12th - 20:00 ko
at the John Smith's Stadium

Huddersfield Town welcome the current Premier League champions Chelsea to the John Smith's Stadium on Tuesday evening, in a match live on BT Sport.  

Well they say you're only as good as your last game. If so, we're absolutely fantastic and Chelsea are a bunch of southern softies who's subs pass a hot water bottle around because it's cold.            

Thanks theo for that link.  

A brief history of Chelsea: formed in 1905 after Fulham rejected an offer from the owner of Stamford Bridge athletics stadium to build them a new football stadium on the site, so decided to form a new club instead, called Chelsea, the name of the neighbouring borough. Unusually, they were given instant entry to the Football League and won the 2nd division in their second season, so as a three year old club played in the top flight of English football.
Success wasn't a guaranteed though and the club became a yoyo club for the next few years, the highlight being reaching the 1915 FA Cup final, losing to Sheffield Utd in that. It would be 40 years after this before they actually won anything significant, winning their first league title in 1955. This didn't trigger further success though and it was another ten years before they won anything else, the League Cup in 1965, beating Leicester City 3-2 on aggregate. And then in 1970 they won their first FA Cup, a famous win over Leeds United in a replay at Old Trafford. The first match finished 2-2 after extra time, so before penalty shoot outs had been introduced, off they went for a replay. It was the Blues who won it 2-1 with David Webb getting the winner after Peter Osgood had equalised.

They followed that up in the next season by lifting their first European trophy, the Cup Winners Cup, beating Real Madrid, again after a replay. The first match finished 1-1, Ignacio Zoco equalising in the last minute after Osgood had given Chelsea the lead. The replay took place two days later in a half empty stadium and the Blues won it 2-1. Osgood again scoring to give them a two goal cushion after John Dempsey had opened the scoring.

This didn't spark further success though and by the end of the decade the club were in financial turmoil, eventually being sold to Ken Bates for the princely sum of one pound. They suffered relegation twice in the 1980s, bouncing back each time by winning the 2nd division title. It would be 1997 before they won another major trophy, the FA Cup, beating Middlesbrough 2-0 in the final. That was followed in the next season with the League Cup and again it was another 2-0 win over Middlesbrough, with future Town star Frank Sinclair netting the first goal.
This time, success did come thick and fast. They won the Cup Winners Cup again, Gianfranco Zola scoring in a 1-0 win over Stuttgart. Then the FA Cup in 2000, beating Aston Villa in the final 1-0 with Roberto Di Matteo getting the goal there. They made the final again in 2002 but lost to Arsenal.
Also in that season, they made it to the Champions League, which was significant as it made them very marketable and a huge prospect for investment. Did Mr Bates cash in on his one pound investment? You betcha! He sold out to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich for £140m, money he would later fritter away on a vanity project called Leeds United.
And the rest is, how you say, history. Loads of silverware followed. They won their second league title in 2005, now the Premier League of course. Took them a hundred years to get to two titles, when we only took 17. They got their third in the following season. Last year's Premier league title took them to 6 all together, having previously won in 2010 and 2015. Still no three in a row though.
So to sum up the Abramovich years to date, they have 5 Premier League titles, 4 FA Cups, 3 League Cups, 1 Europa League and the biggest prize of all came in 2012 when they won the Champions League, beating Bayern Munich on penalties after a 1-1 draw. Didier Drogba scored a late equaliser and then netted the winning penalty.

Head to Head



Chelsea narrowly lead in the overall head to head with 28 wins to Town's 27, with 9 draws. We're in front in league games though by 25 wins to 23.

Unfortunately, we don't particularly have any rivalry or history with Chelsea, despite those 64 meetings. Only 12 of those meetings have taken place in the last 50 years since I started going and I think only the win down there against them in the League Cup of 1999/00 is worthy of a mention. It was known as the Worthington Cup back then and Town, under the leadership of Steve Bruce went to Stamford Bridge as a 2nd division team (Championship) to play a 3rd round match against a Chelsea team, managed by Gianluca Vialli, who had just beaten Manchester Utd 5-0. Fair enough, Chelsea did field a different team from the previous, but it was still a team full of internationals. Town had ex Chelsea defender Ken Monkou in the line up and quite frankly we battered them and but for goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini it would've been a bigger win than the 1-0 scoreline we ended up with. George Donis and Craig Armstrong both had shots saved spectacularly by the keeper before Kenny Irons launched one from 35 yards that flew into the net to send us all barmy.

The last meeting was in the FA Cup in 2008. We got beat 3-1 with Michael Collins getting our goal and a couple of years earlier we lost down there 2-1 with Gary Taylor-Fletcher netting for Town.

The last time we beat them in the league was when we did the double over them in 1962/63, beating them 1-0 at home and 2-1 away.






So what's happening at Stamford Bridge?  Managed nowadays by Antonio Conte, the former manager of the Italian national team. As a player he captained Juventus to the Champions League title as well as 5 Serie A titles. He played for Italy in the 1994 World Cup and Euro 2000, getting a runners up medal at both.
Then as a manager, he won promotion with Bari before taking over at Juventus and winning three more Serie A titles. He then took over the national team and took then to Euro 2016 before joining Chelsea last summer. In his first season, they won the Premier League. After Saturday's defeat at West Ham, he conceded the title. They're 14 points behind already and knowing they'll be playing us on Tuesday, he thinks it's all over.

Notable players in their squad:- Danny Drinkwater, is probably the most talented of their squad. And that talent was all crafted in his one season loan from Manchester Utd to Huddersfield Town, under the tutorship of Lee Clark. So much so that he scored within 5 minutes of his home debut, coming on as a sub and scoring in the 7-1 win over Brighton. He made 33 appearances in a Town shirt that season, but didn't score his second goal until April, another big win, 6-0 at Stockport. Unfortunately his last game for Town was at Millwall in the Play Offs when Town wimped out, which led a lot of Town fans to say he wasn't good enough and it was with a collective apathetic shrug of the shoulders when he was let go at the end of the season back to Man Utd.
He then had loans at Cardiff, Watford and Barnsley before in 2012 he signed for Leicester City. He was a permanent fixture in the Leicester side and they won promotion to the Premier League in 2014. Then to everybody's amazement, that lad Drinkwater, who wasn't good enough for Town, had himself a Premier League title winner's medal in 2016.
He signed for Chelsea on the last day of the most recent transfer window, got injured and has only just got into the team.

There are others in their squad who you may have heard of - David Luiz, the Brazilian central defender and cartoon character from The Simpsons.

Recent form: Town are 12th in the Premier League with 18 points, Chelsea are 3rd with 32 points.

Last 6 matches:

Town 1-0 West Brom (van La Parra)
Bournemouth 4-0 Town
Town 1-2 Manchester City (Otamendi og)
Arsenal 5-0 Town
Everton 2-0 Town
Town 2-0 Brighton (Mounié 2)

FK Qarabag 0-4 Chelsea (CL) (Hazard pen, Willian 2, Fàbregas  pen)
Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea (Willian)
Chelsea 1-0 Swansea (Rüdiger)
Chelsea 3-1 Newcastle (Hazard [2, 1 pen], Morata)
Chelsea 1-1 Atlético Madrid (CL) (Savic og)
West Ham 1-0 Chelsea


Chelsea's line up at West Ham on Saturday:

13 Thibaut Courtois - Belgian international keeper
28 César Azpilicueta - Spanish international full back
27 Andreas Christensen - Danish international defender, in the team ahead of Zanka
24 Gary Cahill - Club captain and England international
21 Davide Zappacosta - Italian international full back
4 Cesc Fàbregas - He says Huddersfield is shit
7 N'Golo Kanté - Premier League winners medal with two different clubs
14 Tiémoué Bakayoko - Summer signing from Monaco for £40m
3 Marcos Alonso - ex Bolton and Sunderland defender
10 Eden Hazard - He bullies ball boys
9 Álvaro Morata - Signed from Real Madrid for more money than our entire squad is worth

Substitutes
1 Willy Caballero - signed on a free from Man City in the summer
2 Antonio Rüdiger - German defender with 22 more international caps than Christopher Schindler
11 Pedro - Spanish international winger
15 Victor Moses - was found in the reed bushes by Pharaoh's daughter and brought up in the Crystal Palace
22 Willian - Signed for Chelsea from the Black Eyed Peas in 2013
23 Michy Batshuayi - Took a hot water bottle to West Ham
44 Ethan Ampadu - Son of Kwame Ampadu who played against us in the Autoglass final

[Lord Snooty]

Andre Marriner will be the referee for this one. He last reffed us on a famous night at Hillsbrough. You know, the one where Forestieri missed a penalty.

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Chelsea have been drawn to play Barcelona in the Champions League. Handy for them then that they're playing the Yorkshire Barcelona tomorrow night.

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VLP back in the squad. Palmer not, obviously. No explanation for his absence on Saturday yet.
The Hef is back in full training with the first team squad.

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Some fucknuckle has just asked Wagz about the Borussia Dortmund job.

[jjamez]

Forestifairy missed a penalty? When did that happen?

[Lord Snooty]

Forestifairy missed a penalty? When did that happen?

I suppose Danny Ward saved it if we're being picky.

[theo_luddite]

He fell over, he fell over.

Nice one Snoots, thanks for the mention.
Hard decision picking one of those 3 pics

Soft Southern Shandy supping wimps. It will be a balmy 2°C tomorrow night with the possibilty of rain for the 2nd half. Bring it on. Mind you - the Beeb weather forecasters have been wrong before. That heavy snow fall you were all promised oop Noooerth at the weekend was nowt but a light dusting in Halifax and bugger all in HD1. It was deep enough down here to use as a natural beer cooler. Almost up to the neck of a 500ml bottle of Yorkshire Terrier - bostin ower kid.

It kept the bloody teachers off the roads this morning too. Work and back in 50 minutes each way today instead of being stuck behind the leather elbow patched cardigan wearers for no bloody reason wot-so-ever (other than they can't find their accelerators and keep standing on their brakes).

Taking another day off for this one, so I'm hoping for another Seagulls type 90 minute effort and not a second half at Everton one.

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PS - hopefully Chelski bottle it again

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Does that 1000 carat plonker normally report on L666s by any chance Snoots?

[Lord Snooty]

Chelsea are running scared. No Morata tonight. He's "tired".

[WakeyTerrier]

Yorkshire Terrier beer....brewed just over the road from my work place...Bosuns?

[theo_luddite]

York Brewery.

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I think they sell this stuff in the Peacock

http://www.bosunsbrewery.co.uk/project/h...ld-terrier

[Lord Snooty]

One change. Williams in for Quaner. Van La Parra on the bench instead of Lolley.

[themaclad]

Poor goal to concede Chelsea slightly dominating play