Shed End Blues, a site dedicated to Chelsea fans. With uptodate information on all the gossip with Chelsea Football Club.
THE WORLD CUP
After the first eight games, Chelsea players already stamping their quality on the world cup with goals from Crespo, Drogba and Robben and official FIFA man of the match awards for Lampard and Robben
If we look at the European Table of players' clubs, Chelsea and Werder Bremen top the goal scoring charts with three goals each out of a total eighteen goals in the first eight games.
Chelsea 3 Crespo, Drogba, Robben
Werder Bremen 3 Klose (2), Frings
Bayern Munich 1 Lahm
PSG 1 Pauleta
Sevilla 1 Saviola
With nine goals scored by players from non-european clubs, that rounds out the score sheet. Obviously with Spain, Italy and Brazil yet to play, the Italian and Spanish clubs have had little chance to get off the ground as yet. It is interesting to note that there is at least one national team each day of the First round qualifying to have a Chelsea player in their squad and therefore likely to play.
TRANSFERS & RUMOURS
On the transfer front most of the news is about outgoing players with Lenny Pidgely moving to Millwall. Lenny Pidgely was third choice goalkeeper and only played a handful of games. He will be joining ex-Chelsea midfielder Nigel Spackman who became manager of Millwall two weeks ago.
Robert Huth seems to be on the way to Middlesboro where he can expect to be playing on a more regular basis. Huth has been with Chelsea since he was 16 years old playing in 61 senior team games in six years. With Terry, Carvahlo and Gallas all ahead of him in the team order there was a mutual agreement for him to leave to assist in his further development.
There are rumours that Gudjohnsen has agreed terms with Barcelona and that all is left is for the clubs to agree a fee with Chelsea wanting ₤10m and Barcelona offering ₤6m. Gudjohnsen was also linked with Newcastle, Man Utd and Valencia.
Jiri Jarosik has met with Celtic and after a good season out on loan at Birmingham, where he was definately their best player, I expect him to make a very positive impact north of the border if the deal is sealed.
Crespo still wants away but no rumours are circulating about him despite his consistency at international levels - teams must be put off by his large wage requirements. Glen Johnson and Carlton Cole rumours have also quietened down but are likely to follow.
Drogba apparently is being offered a contract extension and rumours in the press would indicate that Gallas may yet negotiate a new deal with Chelsea.
Other rumours have Duff being chased by a host of clubs including Liverpool but the most persistant of rumours is that associating Frank Lampard with Barcelona. Before Chelsea got Shevchenko, they wanted Eto'o and with Ballack moving to Chelsea - the powers may have felt that losing Lampard for a twenty five goal a year striker was a necessary evil.
Barcelona issued a press release saying that the rumours that Deco was coming to Chelsea in a swap for Lampard was untrue and Chelsea even mentioned it on their website as well. The fact that Lampard's wife is from Catalonia helps to fuel this rumour as well. Personally I would hate to see Lampard go as he has been an ever present and a key to Chelsea's success over the past few years.
It would seem that we will have to wait until after the World Cup to see whether it will be Ashley Cole or Roberto Carlos at Stamford Bridge next year.
Anyway back to the World Cup - Come on Essien & Ghana !! It's a good time to upset the Italians - they traditionally start the world cup slowly. Also lets hope Shevchenko is available so Ukraine can upset the Spaniards.
Our Father, whose heart’s in Football,
Hallowed be thy game.
Thy England come,
Thy will be won,
In Berlin as it was in Wembley.
Give us these weeks our seven wins.
And prevent us from injuries,
As we save from those, who take penalties against us.
And lead us not out of the tournament,
But deliver us from Brazil.
For thine is the Lampard,
The Gerrard and the Terry,
For Beckham and Rooney,
Owen
If you're interested in the odds for the World Cup, click here
They've got all the teams with the 'Stages of Elimination'.
But don't be like the Spurs fan a couple of years back:
He's in the pub with is girlfriend and Spurs are beating Man U 3-0 at half time.
The boy's showing off now, so he nips into the bookie's nextdoor and bets his house on a Spurs win. Given the odds, he'll win enough to buy them a decent dinner.
Man U go on to win 5-3
With the weekend World Cup friendlies completed, even a hat-trick from Peter Crouch could not keep Chelsea from the top of the goal scoring charts
With Ballack (Germany), Lampard (England), Drogba 2(Ivory Coast) and Essien (Ghana) all scoring for their respective countries, Chelsea lead both the Premiership and Euro standing for goals scored in friendlies this weekend.
| Chelsea | 5 | Ballack, Lampard, Essien, Drogba(2) |
Liverpool | 3 | Crouch (3) |
Real Madrid | 2 | Raul, Ronaldo |
Inter | 2 | Adriano, Figo |
AC Milan | 1 | Kaka |
Man Utd | 1 | Van Nistelroy |
Barcelona | 1 | Larsson |
Arsenal | 1 | Reyes |
Juventus | 1 | Nedved |
Other Chelsea players who played this weekend were Terry, Cole and Bridge (England), Carvahlo (Portugal, Robben (Holland) and Petr Cech (Czech Republic) who also kept a clean sheet. With France and Argentina not in action Gallas, Makalele and Crespo were not in action and Ferreira(Portugal) and Huth (Germany) spent their time on the bench. Shevchenko (Ukriane) is in action tomorrow.
According the the Chelsea website www.chelseafc.com, John Terry has stated that he will be fit for England's opener against Paraguay on Saturday. He came off half way through the 6-0 thrashing of the Reggae Boyz as a precaution after twisting his knee.
Didier Drogba has fired warning shots to his Chelsea teammate Hernan Crespo and in his usual frankness:
 Crespo is scared of me and scared of playing us at the World Cup. Hernan told me before we came out to Germany that he is afraid of playing me and my country. He said Argentinians don't like playing African sides, as they have had bad experiences. They lost to Cameroon at the 1990 World Cup and Nigeria in the Olympics in 1996. I'm not worried if we beat them and it causes bad blood. I want to score the goals that put Argentina out of the tournament. This is not a time for club team-mates to worry about each other - and I certainly won't be, whoever I play against. 
I can not wait for the World Cup to start and the Groups of Death - Group C and Group E - looking particulary tasty. Both Ivory Coast and Ghana are coming into the World Cup in good form in two very difficult groups there are going to be some cracking games and some unexpected results - its just impossible to predict these groups with any degree of certainty - and yet Argentina, Holland, Czech Republic and Italy, if they scrape out of their groups should go a long way - but they might not even get out of their groups with the two African nations, USA and the miserly Serbs to navigate past first.
Roll on June 9 - looking forward to a footballing feast from which we will all get withdrawal symptoms in a months time, and lets see if Chelsea can win the goalscoring table against the other giants of Europe.
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