If I hadn’t have seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. Here we are, 60 minutes into the semi-final of the Capital One Cup, and cult-like chants of ‘Dem-ba Ba. Dem-ba Ba’ echo around the stadium, followed by ‘You’re f****** s***’ every time Fernando Torres received the ball.
This is a man with 14 goals in 33 games this season, hardly a paltry amount at all. Yet, at 1-0 down, against the run of play, we decided the best course of action would be to turn on the team, and make the stadium almost impossible to play in.
The hatred of Rafa Benitez is our current scapegoat. The 8-0 and 5-1 victories didn’t change views, they simply dampened down the abuse until a poor result came along next. Oh, not forgetting ending Everton’s unbeaten home record this season either.
Rafa Benitez has won 6 of his 7 away games with Chelsea since the defeat at West Ham, while only winning 2 of the 6 home games. Surprising? Not really. The cauldron of negativity at the Bridge, epitomized by the booing of Torres and Benitez, before, and during matches, is simply sickening. How on earth can we expect performances when we turn the ground into that every week?
We had 24 shots against Aston Villa, and scored 8 goals. Mata, Hazard, Torres, fantastic. That was followed by 47 shots against Swansea and QPR, with no goals. Suddenly, it is Benitez’s fault. Sure, Demba Ba could’ve started against Swansea, but did he start against Aston Villa? Should we have won both games comfortably anyway?
The fans believe they can change things at the club. We wanted Di Matteo to stay, we want Frank Lampard to stay, and we didn’t want Rafa Benitez as our new manager. However, we have to deal with it. The only thing we can influence, is the effort on the pitch, and the way to do that, is to get behind the team for the full 90minutes. Lose? Boo after the game. You have paid your ticket price to do so.
Footballers thrive on confidence. What can be more detrimental to a team than to abuse them during the match? It is almost as if the fans want Fernando Torres to fail, just for the sake of another stake to throw at Rafa Benitez.
In my opinion, we need to take a hard look at ourselves, and start to support this team, and the players on the pitch. We’re not out of the League Cup yet, and we still have the FA Cup and Europa League to come. Lets get behind the lads, and prove to everyone that not only are we Champions of Europe on the pitch, but off it as well.
By Brad Smith
Follow @BrummieBrad
If we take away the goals against Nordsjaelland, Monterrey, Leeds, Aston Villa, Sunderland, Newcastle, Reading, Wolves (all of whom are teams in lower leagues then us, or stuck in a relegation fight), When u also take away a decent at best Norwich side (we beat 4-1 at home). we find we have 3 goals in 21 games. That is most certainly a 'paltry amount'. in short the only good teams he has scored against are Arsenal, Shakhtar, and City. And those we all under RDM. He draw blanks v man united, juventus, spurs, liverpool, everton, and corinthians. Moreover he f**ked the Club World Cup for us, if that was any other player on the pitch or any other striker he would have scored that sitter. Your comparison with the villa game and swansea game is wrong because the latter are a far more dangerous opposition. the former cant beat bradford at the moment. Torres needs to be booed until he is no longer selected, enough is a enough, no player has ever (including opposition) cause me so much frustration and anger as he has. He is more toxic than the fans at the moment. I thought the fans were brilliant against southampton, they combined getting really behind the team, while venting their anger at the board, benitez and torres. thats what we should continue to do. Letting frank go to united will hurt so much, but even more insane is letting the best left back in the world leave, when we cant upgrade. The rafa benitez experience is horrible as a fan, just as i expected, he cant pump the players up for the big games, even if i dont have that much of a problem with his tactics, he just doesnt understand chelsea, or their fans, as evidenced by his disregard for the QPR game. Since RDM left, we are 10 points further behind the top of the table, and lost the most important (to me anyway) competition of the year v Corinthians, and has us on the verge of league cup exit. This is an emergency at the club and the time to start calling for Jose Mourinho, only he cant put us back to where we were 5 years ago. We need him back asap! Abramovich needs to get the message that the torres experiment is well and truly over, i stand by RA because the torres experiment aside (and all the decisions that have come with it) he generally makes the right decisions…so hopefully he will do the right thing and bring back the special one. For now we need to at least not pay to watch fernando torres strop around ineffectively for 80 minutes….as my brother wisely put it the other day, its like going to war with a well made spear, only to have a blunt blade at the end. after 2 years im sick and tired of seeing him play, and so are the majority of the rest of us. Itss a 2 way street, the board have to start doing something for the fans now, and we will stop venting this angers, however as you point out, regardless of the situation we should always get behind the team.