Here we bloody go again. 

The unwritten rule that suggests we must face Liverpool somewhere along the line in the Champions League has been brought into play for the fifth year running.  In fact, I don’t know why they bother having a draw in the first place seeing as it appears to be no more than a PR exercise anyway. It’s not as if nobody could have predicted it is it?

I mean seriously, as I said when Lampard suggested he didn’t fancy getting this tie again, hasn’t this one been done to death already? How many more bloody times do we have to watch this in a season? I couldn’t hate a team more than I hate that lot and we have to listen to their repetitive bullshit all over again.  Yet again, we have to put up with the fat waiter spouting off to the press about diving, cheating, etc simply because his angels – as we know – are paragons of virtue. And talking of the press, it goes without saying they’ll have their faces firmly wedged against certain backsides – and needless to say they won’t be blue.

Obviously Hiddink feels a lot less weary about this fixture than the rest of us but then he hasn’t had to endure it on an annual basis. The Chelsea boss says “It’s getting very exciting at the end of the Champions League season.   When you see all the teams of course you are thinking ‘We would like to have this one or that one’. But I said before this draw that we have to play them all.  If you have the great desire to go to the end in May then you have to play them all, whether it’s Liverpool or Manchester United or Barcelona – you have to play them. So I’m okay with the draw.” 

As for Rafa, well naturally he’s off already, stating “We need to make sure we don’t make a mistake in the first leg like we did in last year’s semi-final.  They will be two tough games but we are playing well and clearly we are confident we can win.” Probably because it’s their year eh?

Of course it won’t help matters that they’ve already done the double over us this season, so they’ll be even more arrogant than usual this time. Mind you, at least from our point of view, it won’t be Scolari facing them!

Filed under: Europe, Rants, Rivals