In shocking news, infamous red top the Sun, which would be one of the first targets of my divine fire if I somehow found out that I was Zeus incarnate, has made up a story about Chelsea. Specifically, they've made up a story about Andre Villas-Boas demanding that the team celebrate with him when they score goals. I'm not going to link to them because goodness knows they don't deserve the hits, but that story spread like wildfire and saw Villas-Boas the target of bemused mockery from pundits who really ought to have known better.

Apparently, the boss was as annoyed as I was about all of this, which was probably rather the point, and he made a point of making sure everyone knew the story was a load of nonsense:

I would never ask my players to come and celebrate a goal with me. Goal celebrations are for the players. I told The Sun that they should get the money back from their informant because it is incorrect. What was said to the players is that when they score a goal, they can see that the bench is going through the same emotions as them. It is very unfair that the story was poorly portrayed in that way.

-Source: ChelseaFC.com.

I didn't mention the story when it was first sent my way because I simply couldn't believe that a 33-year-old man who is as good as his job as Villas-Boas is would be so obviously needy - it read far more like an attempted character assassination on the Sun's part than anything else. Surprise! It was. If you believed that... well, you should have known better.

On the face of things, it's difficult to criticise the media for giving Chelsea a hard time over recent weeks. From the outside, losses to Liverpool (twice), Bayer Leverkusen, Arsenal and Queens Park Rangers, combined with being thoroughly outgunned in the Premier League, at risk of crashing out of Europe at the first hurdle and having a new young manager under immense pressure gives you a pretty easy narrative to chase, and what journalist worth their salt wouldn't just give in and milk that story for all it's worth?

The problem for us, of course, is that there was a team in much greater peril of European embarrassment than Chelsea. Leaving Manchester City, who had a legitimately difficult draw, asde, there's absolutely no reason anyone paying close attention wouldn't have reservations over Manchester United's ability to progress against Basel, despite the fact that all last year's runners up only needed to advance was a draw at St. Jakob's Park.

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Things I learned today: The Daily Mirror employs journalists. I don't know why I'd never even thought about this before - possibly my brain decided, for the sake of my faith in humanity, that the Mirror was just the vomit-like outpouring of a horde of malicious computer viruses - but apparently it's true. That doesn't make what they write any less idiotic, but it's always nice to put a name and face to those you hold beneath contempt.

Anyway, a Mirror journalist named Martin Lipton barfed up some drivel about how some Chelsea players wanted Jose Mourinho back, and I've only just found it. Chelsea TV anchor Gigi Salmon then invited Mr. Lipton onto her show and proceeded to give him a rather amusing dressing down:

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I'm not really sure what do make of the Frank Lampard stories that are floating around the internet today. Apparently, Lampard left the bench after Josh McEachran was introduced for Raul Meireles in the 83rd minute of the Swansea City match - the Mail have photos of him going down the tunnel - and, naturally, the media are having a field day with that knowledge.

If you wanted to take the most apocalyptic  view possible, you could say that Frank Lampard is really angry at being benched so often and that his Chelsea days are numbered. Of course, you would only take said view if you had a strong agenda and happened to be looking to stir up the plot. Lampard hasn't shown any signs of discontent, has played the vast majority of Chelsea's time this season.. and, well, he was forced to play more than an hour of football in midweek as the centrepiece of a two-man midfield against Fulham. I would have rested him too.

At the end of the day, it seems to me that turning a man getting up the bench and walking off the pitch into 'Frank Lampard's future at Chelsea could be in doubt' (ESPN Soccernet) is journalistic irresponsibility of the highest order. We don't know why he left the bench, we don't know what he or Andre Villas-Boas is thinking. We know nothing except that he was a substitute and that he didn't stick around once all three subs were deployed.

So until we hear anything definitive from Lampard or Chelsea, can we stop the stupid speculation? Please? I know it's the media's job to essentially peddle utter crap, but this seems even sillier than their usual nonsense.

We have a new champions for the title of 'the worst football article ever written'. Surprise! It's by the Daily Mail:

Kanchelskis claims Zhirkov took easy option in quitting Chelsea for Russia

Andrei Kanchelskis has accused Yury Zhirkov of taking the easy way out by quitting Chelsea for a £13.2million move to Anzhi Makhachkala.

Update: They've since added some content, something like a quarter of an hour after putting it out on Twitter. The article is still pointless.

That's it. That's the entire thing (or was, at the time of writing). The body of the article fits into a normal tweet with four characters to spare, and is basically the headline. Oh, and there's a picture, too. At best, this is a tweet, not an article, and it'd make a pretty terrible tweet at that. What on earth is going on in the Mail offices? Who signed off on this?

I know most journalists are in a bit of a strop over the whole not getting accreditation thing and that sulking takes up a lot of energy, but really? The Mail can't do any better than that? Would a quote or two not go amiss? Analysis? More filler words? Anything? At least it's succinct, I guess.

Christ.

So this is kind of funny: The Guardian has been a little silly with its coverage of the Andre Villas Boas switch to Chelsea, going so far as to swipe translated passages straight from Portuguese websites in their article on the Porto manager's impending arrival at Stamford Bridge. To wit:

Guardian:

Abramovich may leave €45m in the coffers at Porto's Dragão stadium. According to A Bola, the Chelsea owner wants to take Falcao to London as a sweetener for Villas-Boas's signature.

Jornal de Noticias (published prior):

Abramovich poderá deixar 45 milhões de euros no Dragão. Segundo o diário desportivo "A Bola", o patrão do Chelsea quer levar Falcao para Londres, uma espécie de prenda de assinatura para André Villas-Boas.

Google translate:

Abramovich may leave 45 million at the Dragon. According to the sports newspaper "A Bola", the boss wants to take Chelsea to London Falcao, sort of a gift subscription to Andre Villas-Boas.

That's some good old journalistic integrity right there, Guardian. Is it really that hard to write your own words? Your own sentence structure? And, if not, you could probably get away with it if you gave Jornal de Noticias credit, a link, a marker showing that the paragraph has been translated. Something to make it not rampant theft would be good, eh?

Their whole article is essentially a paragraph by paragraph translation. Clearly I missed out on ethics etc. by not going to J-School.

Guus Hiddink. Guus Hiddink. Guus Hiddink. Ok, now that my search engine optimisation obligations are out of the Chelsea FC manager news way Ray Wilkins, let's talk about the latest hot Blues rumour floating around the internet. You can always rely on the Mirror to flat out make things up when they're bored, and they don't disappoint now, conjecturing that Ray Wilkins is on his way back to Chelsea per Guus Hiddink's demands. Some choice* excerpts from their brilliantly insightful piece* are after the jump.

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England's various media outlets and even the official site have their 'stories' today focusing on the fact that Chelsea are happy to have escaped FC Copenhagen's clutches and escaped into the quarter-finals of the Champions League after crushing their opponents in Denmark and then cruising to a blissfully easy 0-0 draw at Stamford Bridge yesterday. This really is the cutting edge of news, you know. After all, it's extremely rare that you'd ever find a manager pleased that his side has advanced in a tournament, or players thrilled to bits that they weren't knocked out at home by a team from Scandinavia.

In solidarity with the media, here's some other breaking, hugely important news from the Chelsea camp:

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