The definitive word on Chelsea's defeat to Everton with the Athletic's Liam Twomey, Simon Johnson and Dom Fifield. The latest on Frank's January transfer targets and a look back on the career of blues 'cult hero' Jose Bosingwa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
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Hello and welcome to Straight out of Cobham, a reasonably new Chelsea focused podcast from the Athletic. Each week we bring you the latest news, previews and reviews as regards the Blues. I'm Matt Davis Adams, a football commentator and podcaster in my ninth season covering the club for Chelsea tv. And for every show I'm joined by the Athletic's Chelsea experts. Make sure you subscribe to the Athletic to read great articles and get access to all 11 of our brand new podcasts. And just by listening to this show, you can subscribe now with a 40% discount by going to TheAthletic.com and using the code CHELSEPOD. So we're recording this on Monday afternoon just after Frank Lampard has given his press conferen ahead of the crunch game with Lille in the Champions League. Simon Johnson's been there for us and he'll be joining us via the miracle that is Internet communication later.
He really is going to be straight out of Cobham with me in the studio today. Straight out of Cobham via Walthamstow. Please join me in saying hello to Liam Toomey.
What comes after the difficult second pod? Is it the experimental third one? We'll see, we'll see. Maybe play some electro music to lead in this week or something.
Yes, I did have that in mind. Yeah, we will be doing that later alongside Liam straight out of Cobham. Crazy mother flipper named Fifield from the gang called the Athletics. Hugely impressive stable of top level football writers. It's Dom Fifield.
I'm not sure I'm in the right place, if that's the intro.
I thought you liked your old school hip hop.
Yeah, I'll take that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Right, we'll get to Lille. The transfer ban being lifted and a new feature we like to call Cult Heroes. You'll never guess what that's about. But I'm afraid for the second week in a row we have to kick things off by analyzing a Chelsea defeat against a struggling team. Yeah, it was Everton 3, Chelsea 1 at Goodison Park. Why, oh why could Everton not have offered a bit more resistance in the Merseyside Derby? Maybe if they had, Marco Silva would have clung onto his job for a little while longer and the Blues could have faced a manky stuck to the bottom of the tin toffees rather than the sprightly, feisty, full of flavour, fresh pack of Weather's original version that turned up at Goodison park on Saturday. I'm trying to give it a bit of punch is what I'm doing, Dom. With due respect to Everton, big dunk and that raucous home crowd. Chelsea didn't half shoot themselves in the. In this game, Dom.
Yeah, it was a shambles defensively and, and now we're sort of into the area where, as Lampard said post match, you can make mistakes, you can be young and inexperienced, you can even be naive to a certain extent, but these are pretty basic errors that are being made at the moment and they're costing Chelsea dearly. I mean, they, they couldn't cope with the old school Aggression that Everton put out there. Look, it was a performance from Everton that sort of personified the. Their manager for the afternoo, Duncan Ferguson and, and well, Chelsea just couldn't cope with it too upfront. Very basic 442, wasn't it? And yeah, Richarlison bossing people, that should not happen. Kurt Zuma had a bit of a horror show and he's a player that knows these guys firsthand, having trained and played with them all last season. So a bit of a wake up call again and the type of performance that makes you pine for Antonio Rudiger.
Liam Grant James has been on speaking to Kurt Zuma he says why has Lampard put Zouma back to left centre back where he looks so uncomfortable and is too easily drawn out of the middle when he can't defend crosses. Why is Christensen keeping Tomori out of the side? I think on that latter one we've had a bit of a reveal into it with the news that Tomori's been carrying an injury. But the Zuma one's a head scratcher.
Yeah, I think it's something that a lot of people overlook with centre backs in particular the difference between the right and the left hand side but it makes a drastic difference to the way they play the game. The angles are all different. The danger comes at you from different, different places and you know, you can remember John Terry always played on the left and he, and he made that his own throughout his Chelsea career. And Zuma is clearly more comfortable on the right. He's been complemented quite well by, by Tomori this season and, and the fact that they both have pace means that the mistakes they make they can generally get away from. But. Well, I think Lampard's been forced into this combination a little bit, as we say by Tomori's injury. But I think it's more down to individual mistakes really. You're not necessarily looking at the overall performance.
You're looking at moments where Zuma shanks clearances or he actually got physically out muscled by Dominic Calvert Lewin at times in this game, which was maybe the most surprising thing. And I think there have been questions about Christensen's lack of physicality for a little while now and he did nothing to address those concerns at Goodison Park. And I think when Lampard spoke afterwards and since about Chelsea showing a lack of personality, Christensen wasn't the only one, but I think he was maybe one of the players that he was referring.
To Dom in front of them. Obviously the defence was poor but they didn't have Jorginho ahead of them. For the second game in a row he sat on the bench against Aston Villa. That was only the second time he'd been available for a Premier League game and wasn't selected. I was surprised that he didn't start against Everton. Do you have a theory as to why he was left out again?
Well, I guess there's a. A big game Tuesday night potentially. I'd expect him to be playing in that match against, against Lille. I'm not sure Jorginho would have necessarily been able to combat the, the physicality of. Of Everton on, on this particular occasion as well. So it wasn't something I looked at and thought, you know him, his absence is not. He's not exactly a shield defensive shield in the, in the old school sort of muscular midfield defensive midfielder Mold and Kante Conte. Sorry, would.
Would.
Can easily sit in there. It's also a way of incorporating, incorporating Mason Mount in the side and offering a bit more of an attacking threat. But we've all been. We've all sort of taken to Kovacic's recent revival and he's obviously scored a couple of goals now and he's. He looks more confident going forward. But I guess what, what would be their first choice midfield and, and you know, would we. Are we now still thinking that Jorginho sits in there? I mean, presumably he has to pick his first choice midfield against Lille in midweek. So does Georgin. Do they play Conte and Kovacic now? Does that mean that Mount doesn't start that match?
I still get the impression that for the big games against dangerous opponents, Lampard's first choice midfield will be those three. Ironically, the Sarri midfield maybe organized slightly differently, but still Jorginho deepest and maybe playing Mason Mount off the left depending obviously on the form of Pulisic and Hudson Odoi at any given time. But that seems to be his most cautious configuration. It's the way they played Liverpool, very similar to the way they played City. And I think Jorginho's absence was purely down to the number of minutes he's already played. As of a couple of weeks ago, he'd played even more minutes than Kepa and everyone else in the Chelsea squad. And obviously Kante's injury has overexposed him. It's now beginning to overexpose Kovacic I think because he looked tired towards the end of that game as well.
And maybe the one thing Chelsea missed with no Jorginho there was was the sort of variation of trying to escape Pressure, because Kovacic and Kante both look to try and carry the ball upfield and when you've got two or three guys coming at you. And I thought Everton's creative line worked incredibly hard to close Chelsea down. Maybe you need that little bit of variation of someone who just plays a simple five yard pass.
Does this team, is it knitted together without a Jorginho? Does it need him to prompt them from that base of the midfield? I mean, in midweek against Aston Villa, they perform well, albeit against a newly promoted. But I just wonder. He seems to add something to them. It's not the conventional destructive defensive midfielder at all. He's never going to offer you that, albeit he's got a foul in him, but it's just the way that he keeps the possession and keeps things ticking over in there. And there are times when you're facing an onslaught from a team like Everton on a high, all physical, imposing and, and energy that actually that could possibly be an asset. And maybe that was an oversight from Lampa.
So it's three defeats in four for Chelsea in the Premier League. Luckily they've got what looks like a gimme on Saturday when Bournemouth visit the bridge. We'll reflect on that game on next week's show, but up next today it's our look ahead to Lille. Now then, dear listener, hopefully you're one of the hardcore straight out of Cobham enthusiasts who hits play as soon as the show drops on your device of choice. If so, this Lille preview we're about to start will be utterly relevant. If you're listening post match, well, you can see just how right we were with our predictions as we record. The tape machines and cameras have just been switched off in the press room at Cobham where Frank Lampard has been addressing the world's media. Our friend and your favorite, Simon Johnson was among the press pack in attendance and joins us now from his studio apartment. Firstly, Simon, how was Lampard's demeanor today? He was understandably pretty cross.
After the match on Saturday. He cheered up a bit.
I thought it was a classic Lampard performance actually, in that as always, he, he, he spoke very well, very measured, looked sort of for the more positive answers, but, but behind his eyes you can sort of see the a man that's sort of just feeling a little bit of tension and understandably so because this is a game that, who knows, could make or break the season in many ways. In that, of course, the difference of going through to the knockout stages of the Champions League will really lift the mood after a Bit of a bad run of form, but dropping back into the Europa League will inevitably cause a lot of disappointment and concern of how results are going. So, yeah, I just sort of detected, as you have been recently with the results, that Lampard is just understandably showing a little bit of the stroke.
You've been to a fair few of these press conferences of his. Now, you called it a classic Lampard presser. Does he have a very defined style with the way that he deals with the media, do you think? And is he one of those, a bit like Mourinho who uses it as a chance to get messages across to his players?
Yeah, I mean, he does have a style in that he will break, he will drop the odd joke in there, the odd smile to perhaps give off this impression that everything is fine, but then. Then he instantly goes back into serious mode and I think that's sort of the, the more the picture that you should take from. From one of his press conferences, that, that that's what he's really thinking as far as sending out messages. Yeah, I think he does send messages out to his players. I thought it was very key that he was talking about, in light of what happened against Everton, talking about the, the lack of fight, the sort of the. The lack of personality that he saw on the pitch. And he was asked, he was asked about whether this changed his mind about January. And on one hand he was sort of saying, well, no, but on the other hand he was kind of saying, look, I do sort of.
My opinion is very fluid and I think it did send out that message that perhaps players need to be aware that he, he does have the checkbook available to him now and that they will have to raise their game because he will do something about it if they don't.
Simon, when you called it a classic Lampard performance, I thought you were going to say he arrived late. He's clearly not very happy with the way things are going at the moment. What sort of sense did you get from Kurt Zuma when he spoke? Because obviously he was one of the people at fault for, for the Everton goals at the weekend and he's, I'd say, regarded as one of the better talkers in this, in this Chelsea group, particularly among the younger lads. So how do you think he sort of conducted himself today?
I think it came across very well, actually. It's quite notable. I've not really spoken to him since he's been back. I, I spoke to him on a few occasions in his, you know, pre. His loan spells and you could tell he was very much one of the younger members of the dressing room and was. Couldn't sort of believe his luck a little bit. Well, while things have changed now, you do get the feeling that he considers himself to be sort of. Well, it's not a leader in the dressing room. Certainly one of the more bigger voices in the dressing room. And I thought he spoke very well. He was sort of saying how, how this game is key to the season. This big one must not lose. You might have thought that he'd feel a little bit of tension about the fact that Rudiger is available again, because you could argue that Zuma's played as much as he has because of Rudiger's absence.
But he was like, it's great that he's back and he was giving an even more upbeat report on Rudiger's state of mind than perhaps Lampard did and sort of saying, yeah, he's good, he's ready to go, etc, etc. So I, I thought he came across really well. But Chelsea will be looking for him to show this kind of personality more on the pitch. I thought on Saturday against Everton, he was as guilty of being weak, surprisingly, in the physical battle as Andreas Christensen. The two of them were out muscled far too much. And I think he's got a point to prove if he is the one selected to play alongside Rudiger against Lille. Because I'd imagine that Rudiger, given the. The feedback Lampard gave, will be the one that starts in the back four.
And just on Rudiger, how do you. How much of a risk do you think that is? Because he's played so little football this season? It says quite a bit about where Chelsea are, doesn't it?
Defensively it does, but Frank made a point. He was actually asked this question directly, you know, will people be expecting too much given the lack of football? He's had 45 minutes in eight months. But no, he was very keen to stress that they've gone through rigorous training with him, which involves some sort of match style training where, you know, he's obviously put in a match kind of situation, real sort of intense football. Of course, that doesn't replicate what will be a very tense fixture and real higher standard of football, you'd imagine, in front of a crowd and with the pressure on. But I got the impression that Lampard thinks that, that he's ready now. He's been very, very wary about, about playing him. I've been aware that Rudiger's been fit for a while, but Lampard has deliberately taken his time but with tomorrow he's basically got no choice to bring him in.
So I was intrigued in the piece you wrote this morning on the Athletic explaining that another source had come to you and suggested that there may have been an attitude problem that prevented Rudiger getting back in. What is your understanding of that? Are we talking about attitude around the training ground? I mean, what would that be?
Yeah, it caused some surprise to me, I must admit. But yeah, there's basically an indication that Frank's not been totally enamored with Rudiger and his personality a little bit which, and perhaps that indicates obviously mainly around training because that's where only Rudiger's been around this season. But no, he, Lampard in the press conference couldn't have been any more different when speaking about Rudiger who's very glowing about him. But I think what Frank Lampard says publicly and perhaps what he thinks privately isn't always the same. But of course Rudiger has now got a chance to, to show. I. I'd imagine, I think that Lampard's just a little bit frustrated about just how long Rudiger's been been out and perhaps this is one of the reasons why this kind of information's come to light.
Simon, you'll be at the bridge on Tuesday night. What are you going to be writing about this week? I guess it depends what happens in that game largely.
Very much so for me it's, it's focusing on basically where. Where Lampard sits in terms of the season after the result because there's no doubt about it if Chelsea lose or, or draw and are knocked out into the Europa League then not, not sort of saying that his job's on the line or anything sort of as dramatic as that. But, but clearly the first sort of questions of Frank will, will be asked and I think the piece will be very much sort of looking at how Frank and, and where whether the honeymoon period is over or whether it's going to continue. Also you have to sort of say it would be the first real. It'd be interest to see the test and, and, and sort of how he's going to manage this test. This first sort of question marks being asked of his reign. I actually Zuma in the pre match press conference about how what he's been like especially after defeats, whether his moods change etc and, and Kurt sort of made out that he's.
He's calm at the moment but I think the calm exterior may sort of may not last much longer especially if results aren't going so well in December.
Simon Johnson there, he'll be back in the studio with us next week. Dom, how key is it for this group and their development that they reach the last 16 of the champions League? Or would they be better served having a longer run in the Europa League?
Possibly I don't think anyone's better served for having that. That run, especially given that they won it last season. This represents progress for Chelsea and they'll learn more playing Champions League football and against better opponents. I suspect, as a group, if they continue in the competition, look, it's. Psychologically, it's very significant. They have to get through. This was the first target of the season. Qualification for the knockout phase would be a feather in Lampard's cap. It would be. Yeah, it would be something for the. For the younger kids to. To cling on to and aspire to. And. And let's be honest, if they've been offered beating the. The group's whipping boys in the final game at home to get through, to guarantee progress, they probably would have taken that. I mean, it's been. It's been a bit of a roller coaster ride getting to this stage, but they're not playing against a side that have anything to play for themselves.
They're not prolific. Lille, I think they've scored more than once in a game, only once since the first week in October. They've just lost their backroom staff to Tottenham Hotspur, which isn't great preparation for this. They should be there for the taking. My only concern is that Chelsea defensively are so frail, they're relying a lot upon Rudiger. Now he has to make an immediate impact. And this is a player with 45 minutes of football under his belt since last season. So it will have its own difficulties.
If you look at the highlights of the Lille games, I mean, I haven't watched any of them in full, but just looking at the highlights, they've created two or three good chances in every single game. I know they've only got one point, but they've been very much live opponents for Valencia and Ajax. And of course, they were for Chelsea in France as well. So I think it's the situation Chelsea wanted, making sure they didn't lose at the Mestalla. And they have everything in their own hands on their own pitch. But it's certainly not a gimme. And I think this result actually can change the entire way we look back at this Champions League campaign, because if they do win it and they do get through, I think it's a Big step for what is essentially a new Chelsea team with so many young players. And if they lose it, I think they've got no one else to blame but themselves. You lost the game, you shouldn't have lost against Valencia at home.
And I think they'll look back on it and say, this was very much a group that we could have qualified from and it was our own fault that we didn't.
There is a psychological barrier to be hurdled here as well. A first home win in the Champions League for Lampard at Stamford Bridge. I mean, that in itself is quite significant. They've come up against cagey teams. Well, Valencia were cagey. Ajax written to pieces while they had 11 on the pitch. And now they're coming up against a side who probably will hit them on the break. I imagine they'll play on the counter, which will pose its own problems. You know, first goal could be critical. Let's hope that Chelsea score it.
So Chelsea need to beat Lille to be certain of qualification. They would also progress with a draw if Valencia lose to Ajax. Okay, we should talk about the big off field news of the last seven days, which is that the Blues transfer window ban has been halved on appeal, meaning the club are free to sign players in January. Liam, were you surprised at that outcome?
Not entirely. I mean, we've been hearing noises for a month or two now that Chelsea have been talking to agents and continuing their recruitment work. I mean, you'd kind of expect them to be doing that anyway. For a big club with a global recruitment system, you know, it never really stops. But at the same time, they were clearly planning for the. For the option of being able to buy in January and now they've got it. I think they were always confident in the case that their legal team would make to Cass. They were confident that in their interpretation that FIFA had overstepped their bounds with the initial judgment. And they view this as an unqualified victory, even though it was presented as partially upholding the punishment. Chelsea definitely see this as a victory. And everything Lampard said publicly suggests that he will be actively interested in strengthening this Chelsea squad in the new year, if business can be done.
And we know Marina Granovskaia will always be looking for value, because she always does. And I think recent results have probably only strengthened that resolve to do something if it's there.
Dom, were you surprised at the strength of the statement released by the club? Very critical of FIFA making unfavourable comparisons with their handling of the cases of Chelsea and then naming Manchester City quite strong Stuff.
Yeah. And a lot of their statements have been strong around this. They, they have an emotional air to them. They, they, they feel that way. And the City gripe has been ongoing for a while. The rules changed and City were given the chance to say, basically admit culpability with what they'd done and they got a much lesser, they got a small fine and they basically got, got to nominate the punishment that they would receive. And so Chelsea, I suspect that's come into the cast thinking that, you know, the rules changed overnight and in the previous system, Chelsea actually got quite a, quite a hefty punishment by having a transfer ban at all. So the City think that there is resentment between the two clubs in terms of youth recruitment. I mean, that has been a recurring theme for the last few years.
They're probably the two biggest rivals for youth recruitment in England now. They've both put so many resources into their academies.
I, I'm, I'm intrigued to see what happens next because I wrote a piece a while back, I mean, Liam remembers it was about whether this might actually disrupt Chelsea in some way. And that's not to say that, you know, they add a pedigree player, a properly good young player like a Ben Chilwell. If they manage to get someone like him, of course it would benefit Chelsea's first team because their options at left back are pretty scant and, and they're not going to be able to do that in January. They may struggle to do that in the summer. And I just wonder whether the temptation to add for adding's sake might be detrimental. It might start blocking pathways into the team that these young kids have seized largely over the course of this season. I'm intrigued by the constant linking to Wilfrid Zaha and the noises we hear. I mean, I don't see how Zaha joining Chelsea at 26 for what would be a club record fee. Where would Callum Hudson Odoi see that?
Where would Christian Pulisic look at that and think, well, this is Ruben Loftus cheek, Reuben Loftus cheek. Well, if he's fully fit, we'll walk into the Chelsea first team anywhere and yeah, they should. I, I can see the, you know, buying a center half. There's a logic to that. If they can get one. So the Nathan AI link makes sense, particularly if they can get in for, for less than rivals could give him a part of a deal that took him to Bournemouth in the first place. Buying a left back, yes, buying a center forward, of course it makes sense. There's obviously a lack of faith In Mishy Bachuay, we can all see that Olivier Giroud is on his last entering the last seven months of his contract. He's not going to be there next season. There's a logic in adding another striker in there, but the wide players. Pedro we know is on his way out, but Pedro and Willian will get you by and you'll get a better deal on someone in the summer.
Monte Diani's Tweeted me ATT DavisAdams if you have a question for the panel, you can either reach out to me or Dom, Liam or Simon. On Twitter he says Liam. At what point does goalkeeper become the transfer priority for Chelsea? I would argue there we're there already. Someone experienced like Sommer from Gladbach could come in. Kepa was a world record fee for a goalkeeper. He's 25. Surely they ain't going to be changing him anytime soon because for one thing, they're not going to get anywhere near £71 million back for him. And they made a long term investment in him.
They've made a massive long term investment in him as a club. And even if Lampard has his doubts about the way Kepa's performing right now, I think there will be conversations at club level saying, look, this guy needs to play and he needs to play well. That's the only real option that Chelsea have, is to work with Kepa at least until next summer and then maybe reassess when you've got a little bit more time. But it's a really difficult one for Chelsea because if they were to bring in another experienced goalkeeper, it's not like any other position on the pitch. If you're second choice goalkeeper, you may as well be sitting in the stand. You don't play. So if Kepa were to get dropped at any stage, his value would just go through the floor. And that's not typically the way Chelsea like to operate. They don't like to sell low on anyone.
So I think their priority, at least for the foreseeable future, is on trying to make sure Kepa produces his best. But there have been clear signs in the last few weeks and months that he's not doing that. There have been high profile errors.
I do think that Kepa probably suffers from the fact that the centre halves in front of him change virtually every week at the moment and that is difficult for a goalkeeper to to come to terms with. And you could even argue that the full backs are changing every week as well. And now the defensive midfielder is changing. So it's a bit harsh. I know he should not be immune to criticism and there have been mistakes creeping into his game, but we need a sense of realism as well. They obviously see an awful lot of talent in him to have invested that much money and his best years are definitely ahead to frustrate his pathway, as you say, to deny him first team games would make no sense to Chelsea's long term strategy at all.
Well, look, collectively Chelsea aren't a good defensive team, but Kepa individually doesn't seem to fill the defenders in front of him with a lot of confidence. You don't see him particularly command his area and I think that, you know, that's been a repeated criticism not just of him, but of David De Gea as well, who's a similar style of goalkeeper. Maybe he can learn that, maybe he can add things to his game. And so much of being a goalkeeper at a top club is mental. So maybe he's improves in, in those aspects as well. But he, he certainly has work to do.
Yeah, De Gea is a good comparison. He had a really rotten time first few seasons in England, didn't he? And then he became indispensable. All right, we're nearly at the final whistle, but before we go, it's time for a new feature with a cracking name. It's called Colt Hero. The title of the podcast is brilliant. So, you know, we could be a bit more, a bit more lax with the features anyway, Cult Hero. Each week we'll chat about someone who's played for Chelsea that maybe doesn't get the props that they deserve. This week we've chosen Jose Basingua. Liam, there's a reason we've gone for the Portuguese fallback with the chunky eyebrows, isn't there?
The chunky eyebrow?
Yeah, good point.
Yeah. I mean I missed the Chelsea game live on Saturday because I was on what I would think is the most Alan Partridge assignment of my journalism career at a Nissan car dealership in St. Auburn's waiting for which is the natural.
Place to find Joseph Bison.
Of course. Of course to, to get 10 to 15 minutes with with Jose Basingwa. He was, he was following the Champions League trophy around which I think anyone familiar with Chelsea's triumph in 2012 and the pictures around that will, will know that nothing has really changed since then. And, and he's, he's quite a good talker. He's one of the more sort of colorful characters in Chelsea's recent history. So it was a surreal day but, but quite an interesting one.
You always think back to 201112 donw with basingua. And the more you think about it, the more extraordinary that semi final second leg against Barcelona was because he played centre half for the vast majority of that game and managed to keep Lionel Messi and co relatively quiet. If nothing else, that was a massive contribution to Chelsea history.
Yeah, and he played 120 minutes in the final in Munich as well. That semi final in Barcelona was one of the most remarkable matches I've ever had the privilege of covering. It was ridiculous the way, I mean, the way it all played out with Cahill went over 12 minutes injured and then Terry gets sent off after 37. I mean for Chelsea to have emerged with anything from that, from that fixture was. Was incredible. And Basingo did play his part. He was, he had done it before. He had this incredible record against Messi. We were talking about it before he got the goalless draw and played, I think left back for the suspended ashley Cole in 2009 in the goalless draw over there in the semi final.
He does like to mention his record against Messi. Five games for club and country.
You would to be fair, wouldn't you?
I mean, I would remember that Champions League trip and it's slightly going off piste, but we used to travel with the team back then in European games. And so after Barcelona we came back on the plane and as journalists who'd been working late after a 7:45 kickoff. And was it extra time? I can't remember. It was actually. Didn't go extra time, did he? Because he equalised in the last minute. We were the last people onto the plane and we went in halfway, halfway along the cabin and John Terry and Frank Lampard always used to take the first two seats just inside the door so they had the extra leg room on the aisle. And of course there's always a queue because people are putting their bags up. So I got there with.
I won't mention the journalist concern, but as we entered the plane we had this awkward two minute phase where we were standing in front of a delighted Frank Lampard who had a Champions League final to look forward to and a distraught John Terry who didn't have a Champions League final to look forward to. And in the awkward silence my colleague turned to John Terry who had kicked Alexis Sanchez in the game to get sent home and just said to him, just almost to fill the silence, so what were you thinking? Did not go down well at all with anybody on that plane. There were a few. There was a delegation sent down to the back of the plane after we'd taken off to Ask what He had been thinking to ask that.
What did Terry say in response? Something expletive.
He muttered and looked at the floor. And Frank's look said it all. Really. What are you doing asking the captain that at this point? No. That was a difficult moment for John Terry. But he did get to lift the trophy, obviously with the chin pads on in the final.
And a few weeks later, the other.
Memory I've got of Jose Busingua, you might remember 10 minutes or so ago we were talking about him.
Sorry, sorry.
He scored a great goal at West Brom in 08. He's kind of cut across into the far corner. Chelsea wearing the yellow kit.
I do remember that.
Yeah. I'm kind of scratching my head for Basingua memories.
Was that his only goal for Chelsea? I think it might have been. We probably should have looked this up before we spoke about him, shouldn't we?
Me?
It's all gone quiet.
He's probably not going to get into the cult heroes section of any QPR podcasts anytime.
I can't imagine so, no.
He got three goals for Chelsea, apparently, all in the Premier League. £16.2 million. Well done, Jose Busing, where he left with a Champions League medal in his back pocket. He also won the FA Cup. Two in fact. He won the FA cup twice, didn't he? Not a bad career.
You win the Premier League under Carlo as well. You would have done one.
Yeah, he was from 08 to 2012.
Yeah. So he did pretty well for himself. He won a Champions League at Porto technically as well.
Yeah, he definitely counts that. Two time Champions League winner Jose Basingwa.
He didn't get his full name. Yeah, he didn't get a free car. But you did get a free football from that trip. So it wasn't.
Yeah, free little mini football. There was a little game that they made us do while I was waiting to speak to him, which was trying to dink footballs into the boot of a Nissan, funnily enough. And it didn't seem to matter how many you actually got in. You got a free football anyway, so.
Okay.
All good.
You would have hoped for a free Nissan, I suppose. I mean, we should get one because we keep saying Nissan, but. So when's that? Is that what you're working on this week? Is that what's going to be coming out?
Well, there'll be things to come from that, I think in the coming weeks. I spoke to him about a couple of different things and some about his memory, some about players he's played with and against and so there should be things coming from that.
And you'll be at Lidl, you'll be at Chelsea tomorrow night, Tuesday night, me.
And Simon working together. He'll probably. I think he'll be writing and I'll be trying to speak to players, which could go well, could go extremely badly depending on the result.
Dom, where are you this week?
Well, I'm hoping I'm not getting involved in Chelsea because I suspect I will only get involved if they get knocked out. I've got some strange ones. I've interviewed three people in football who are turning 50 in the next couple of weeks, so talking to them about midlife crises or impending midlife crises, but none of them Chelsea related.
Sounds good. Well, that's just about it for today. Remember to make sure you subscribe to the Athletic to read great articles and get access to all 11 of our brand new podcasts. And just by listening to this show, you can subscribe now with a 40% discount by going to TheAthletic.com and using the code CHELSEAPOD. Do join us same time, same place next week. Bye for now.
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