Retro Chelsea a joy to watch

What a total s***hole

There is always a massive clamour for days gone by. Football fans are, by nature, a nostalgic bunch. There is nothing better than looking back on the good times from the past (especially if you're a Liverpool or a Spurs fan, such is the lack of modern things to celebrate) and everyone genuinely believes that football today is not the experience it was in their youth. The clubs themselves have tapped in to this and Arsenal now sell a variety of retro shirts so that we can all pretend we're back in the 70s or 80s. What I didn't expect was that one club in particular would totally immerse itself in what might well be termed the "Ken Bates era".

When I was growing up in the 1980s (and I'm reliably informed it was the same long before that) Chelsea were utter rubbish. They seemed to spend as much time out of Division One as they did in it. The only threat they carried was on the terraces. Their stadium and their team reflected the fans - empty, vacant and pretty awful. How many grounds can you name where there was parking behind the goal? Move forward to the modern Chelsea and they play in a glorified meccano set, albeit a modern stadium where you can actually see the pitch from some angles, and enjoy the trappings that only a shady Russian oil baron can bring. They've won a few FA Cup's, a few League Title's and (gallingly) the European Cup. They've gained many "fans" all of whom seem totally oblivious to Chelsea's past - particularly the middle-aged black men who apparently have no idea of the reputation of those who stood on The Shed for overt racism. 

What a joy it is to see Mourinho taking Chelsea back to the 1980's in the grand manner this season. It couldn't really happen to a nicer bunch of people. The sight of Mourinho on the touchline watching his little empire implode before his eyes is one of the most wonderful images of the decade. The absolute best thing about it is that he seems to have no idea how to stop it from happening. I am convinced he has fallen out badly with John Terry. Eden Hazard couldn't look more disinterested. Diego Costa gets more and more like a Shed regular with every passing snarl. And Cesc Fabregas used to be a footballer once upon a time. To top it all off we had Mourinho virtually begging not to be sacked, David Brent style, following Monday's defeat at Leicester City. If it wasn't for Mike Dean accepting his share of the roubles against Arsenal they would actually be in the relegation zone. At the moment that is the only difference between Chelsea of 2015 and Chelsea of the 1980's. It's good of them to go back to their roots like this.

I must just share with you something that I saw yesterday - the car in front of me at traffic lights was carrying a Mickey Mouse car sticker next to a Tottenham Hotspur one. I couldn't agree more.