Nike’s Assimilation of Chelsea FC is complete

Want to buy some Spurs merchandise? Just head over to ChelseaMegastore.com. No seriously.

[Ed. Note: Not everyone cares about brand and design issues the way I do, and some people really like Nike stuff. But keep reading, because it gets worse toward the end.]

A few days ago I posted some thoughts on what to expect from Chelsea FC’s new kits from Nike. Those unis dropped this morning (two of the three, anyway), so let’s have a look.

Relatively inoffensive at first glance. Very minimalist (which with Nike is a nice way of saying they have no ideas.) And as always, they’re Nike first and the club second. Stay tuned – more on this in a minute.

Here are closer looks.

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Land of Hope… and Expectation.

So we’ve had a few weeks to find our feet, get used to Antonio Conte’s passion and now it looks like the squad has settled into his approach to the game and at least one formation, something we haven’t really seen in Blue at the Bridge since the days of Glenn Hoddle and Ruud Gullit. That’s right, the 3-5-2 is back at Chelsea. Let’s see how Conte’s 3-5-2 compares to Chelsea of the Hoddle era in the wake of our demolition of Jose Mourinho’s  Manchester United.

Days of hope

Defence:

Dimitri Kharine

Courtois seems to have come out of a bit of a slump with a commanding display, showing the promise of his previously shown ability.

Dimitri Kharine is a good comparison, even though Kevin Hitchcock is my favourite Chelsea goal keeper. Kharine was one of the first continental goalies in the Premiership. He was tall, lean and brought a new style of goal keeping that we commonly see in the Premiership today.

Racist thugs on Paris subway platform do not represent Chelsea FC supporters: #ktbffh

Pick a football site, any football site. Right now the raging topic of discussion is the abominably racist behavior of some Chelsea fans on a Paris subway platform in advance of the club’s Champions League Round of 16 match vs. Paris St. Germaine yesterday. What the heck, try The Guardian.

If you know football, you know that the Blues have a history. Their legendary hooligans, the Headhunters, rated their own chapter in How Soccer Explains the World, and if you go back a few decades you’ll learn that once upon a time the racism infesting the club’s fan culture was so vile that they abused their own black player.

RMB On Tour: Indianapolis – The Flight

Michael Leaves and I are embarking on a pseudo pilgrimage to see our beloved Blues. Unfortunately we’re not headed to Stamford Bridge, but we will see them play Inter Milan at the Lucas Oil Stadium, home of The NFL’s Indianapolis Colts.

We have plenty in common with our Chelsea history up until the mid ’90s when Michael moved over the Colorado and I joined the British Army. Lots of games down the Bridge either in the Shed or on the benches from a young age in the sun and rain. So let’s compare some of our firsts, favorites and most memorables…

The Rooney Post

Julian, aka: The Application, thought it would be a great idea to get together and combine our oft disagreeing brains to look at Chelsea target Wayne Rooney. Let’s see how our thoughts compare on the interesting topic of Manchester United selling one of its biggest names to major rival Chelsea…

Out with New, in with the Old (season review part 2)

So, let’s pick up where we left off in part 1.

We’ll start with taking a look at my…

Predictions:

Said we’d beat Spurs 2-1 and that was the score at half time, but we couldn’t hang on to it and drew 2-2. You idiot, Higgins, but we did score from a corner and it was an assist from Cahill, so I was almost right in a tenuous manner.

Jose 2.0 – One of Us

Jose Mourinho has returned to Stamford Bridge. The second coming. As the euphemism dictates – Splooge.

My Blue Heaven!

With a possible new trophy in the making here it is, a brief guide to my pre-Abramovich Chelsea cup finals. I’m focusing on the pre-Abramovic era as many of the RMB crowd  like a story from the good old days when we were shit. Well, it wasn’t all bad, even if there were some low points for us at the Bridge.

203 Not out

Frank’s 203rd record breaking goal vs Aston Villa. 5/11/2013

As nearly everyone reading this knows, Kerry Dixon was my hero when I was a kid. I thought he would be the man to break Bobby Tambling’s record of 202 goals in Royal Blue. But he was sold to Southampton before he got the chance and finished a mere nine goals short of cementing his place as Chelsea’s top goal scorer, which was set in 1970.

65 games done, 4 to go (Season Review Part 1)

Sixty nine games. Since the reformation of the English game in 1992, no other English team has played as many games in a single season as we have this year. That’s what happens when you reach two domestic semi finals and two finals in the same year. Not bad for a transitional or rebuilding year with a manager sacking part way through and the hiring of another manager that almost all of the fans can’t stand.

Let’s look at this season as it comes to a close, and in this part, break it down into three sections: