COME ON DERBY!

Predictably, the charmless Avram Grant didn’t see the tackle, (suffering from the same selective blindness which has blighted Arsene Wenger all these years… Perhaps something wrong with the water in London!?) although he did note that the entire stadium, including everyone on the Spurs bench noticed it. Can you imagine his motivating pre-match team talksZZzzz?

Remember his comment about Michael Essien’s elbow on Kenny Miller? “There are no pockets (In Essiens’ shorts), so what can he do with his hands? He didn’t do anything wrong…”. Genius. Kenny Miller’s nose begs to differ.

If that’s not bad enough… Cole, along with the usual entourage of Chelsea players have to storm over to the referee to complain bitterly and gang up on the ref and for what purpose? Maybe I’m being too harsh – Maybe they weren’t defending Cole – maybe John Terry was arguing to Mike Riley that it should have been a straight red card, not a yellow… but it doesn’t seem that likely really, does it..? I Bet Fabio Capello (who was at the game) was really impressed with the discipline of Englands finest…(!)

Graham Poll commented recently that although Chelsea players are well known for harassing the referee, none of Chelsea’s English players repeat that habit at International level. That can’t be a co-incidence and something needs to be done about it.

Then there’s that whole "turning his back to the referee" incident. As you might have noticed already, I’m not really tempted to give Cole the benefit of the doubt here… but maybe he was turning his back to show the referee his number (*AHEM*) but doesn’t he know the number is on his shorts? Bless. (Maybe “3″ is the magic number, eh Ashley. Nod nod, wink wink).

Also ‘great’ to see Cole "waiving invisible cards" in the air after Huddlestone’s Drogba’esque swallow dive in the Chelsea penalty box. I thought that was an automatic yellow card in itself…

So by this point Ashley should have racked up a straight red (for the ninja kick), a yellow for the “invisible card waiving” and possibly another yellow for dissent to the referee. And ironically, because Mike Riley booked Cole, the FA won’t review the tackle… and to exacerbate things further, as Mike Riley chose not to mention the harassment or verbals – the FA are unable to take any further action.

How can referee’s ask for more respect if they aren’t going to make any effort to make use of the rules in place to protect them? There is an interview with Mike Riley where he said he “did his best to keep 22 players on pitch” – Where in the rule book is that his job? Surely it’s up to the players to ensure they keep /themselves/ on the pitch!

Final comment — Chelsea… Arsenal… Man U… Liverpool… If you think everyone’s out to get you, you should try being bottom of the league. I can promise you don’t get /any/ decisions going your way.

When asked at a recent fans-forum at Pride Park, our Chairman of Football Adam Pearson declared that in line with every other Premier League club, (despite our certain relegation to the Championship) we will be changing our Home & Away (and Third) kits every season for the foreseeable future, even if there is no sponsorship/manufacturer change. His motive for this policy is that it’s a good excuse to make more money off the fans standard procedure for every premier league club.

I’ve always thought there was a rule which stopped this unless manufacturer or sponsors were changed. Up until recently it has always been club policy to change one kit per season. While I’m sure the ‘numbers’ will prove it’s more lucrative to change kits every season are they not just giving in one hand by freezing season ticket prices then taking even more away with new shirts?

Other prem fans, what is your club policy? New shirts every season come what may? How about other sports, surely this can’t be the norm!? Comments welcome…