You can buy classy players, but you can't buy better fans

Chelsea's fans showed themselves in their true colours as missiles rained down on Arsenal players during yesterday's Fizzy-Drink Cup, which by the end made for pretty grim viewing. John Terry's injury sucked all the fun out of the banter in the pub, and a couple of bad decisions handed the game to Chelsea before the last minute free-for-all.

Unlike Arsenal's players I managed to keep my cool - just. The atmosphere in the pub had been great, except for one loud-mouthed Cornish Chelsea fan in the corner - who just kept on and on about how Cesc Fabregas should have been sent off because he had received two yellow cards, long, long, long after the commentators had pointed out that the suggestion, which had apparently come from the Chelsea bench, was simply untrue.

The shabbiest part of the day was the oh-so-predictible hype from the Sky TV team, who felt the competition had "come of age" with a showpiece final featuring two of the biggest clubs in the world. "The League Cup has come a long way since the days when Rochdale and Rotherham could reach the final" crowed Richard Keys.

Indeed it has, Richard, indeed it has.

It appears to have come along to a point where, thanks to the riches of consistently being in the Champions League, and being able to skip a round in order to ease the fixture list of anyone who qualified for Europe, the gap between the haves and have-nots in English football is so great that the reserve team of one of "the big four" can simply waltz into the final.

Comments

[fati]

fabregas is the best