JustChelsea.com

Tottenham Hotspur started their pre-season with a lesson from Villarreal at White Hart Lane this week. Guiseppe Rossi, the ex-Man Utd striker scored twice and only a consolation from Giovanni Dos Santos made the score halfway respectable.

Spurs have got a Champions League Qualifier coming up very soon but they will need to improve drastically on this performance to get through to the Group Stages.

The Celtic manager Neil Lennon is not too upset about having to play Portugal’s Braga in the Champions League Qualifiers, but admits that they are unlikely to be pushovers. He thinks there are a few factors that have worked in Celtic’s favour: “They had a decent run in the UEFA Cup in the last few years and had some decent results,” Lennon said.

The ex-Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho may have just won the Champions League for the second time with Inter Milan, but he is already looking forward to winning it for a third time with Real Madrid!

He was asked if he had a choice of big clubs to choose from for his next job, but he replied: “No, I don’t have a choice. But Real Madrid is Real Madrid. Everyone knows English football is my passion and I will go back to England one day.

Lyon have done extremely well to reach the Champions League semi-final, but the German league leaders Bayern Munich definitely stamped their authority on this game.

Many people will say that Lyon were unlucky to have players sent off, but the facts speak for themselves. Ivaca Olic was the hero for Munich, scoring all three goals, and he thinks that may have been the best game of his career so far, but then again he hasn’t played in the final yet!.

The Porto coach Jusus Ferreira believes that his team played well at Stamford Bridge in the 1-0 defeat to Chelsea, and can improve on that at home and overtake Chelsea at the top of the group.

Porto are not doing well domestically, but they lie only one point behind the Blues in Europe, and both teams are guaranteed to make the knockout rounds, but Ferreira believes that Porto will go through as group winners.

The Chelsea striker Didier Drogba has been talking about the scenes at the end of last season’s Champions League semi-final when he felt that Chelsea had been robbed by the referee, and he went a little crazy.

He says he is not like that in his private life but he just gets very emotional, and he gets filled with “passion” when he’s playing.

Peter Kenyon’s replacement as Chief Executive at Chelsea, Ron Gourlay, reckons Chelsea are ready to dominate Europe, and forecasts at least two Champions League trophies in the next five years.

“In our ten-year plan there were two Champions Leagues in there and we’ve been very unlucky,” Gourlay said.

“Over the next five years we’ve still got to shoot for the stars.

The Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka scored the only goal of Chelsea’s 1-0 win over Porto in the first Group Stage match on Tuesday night, and believes that his team have the quality to go all the way to final again this year, but they need just that little bit of luck to go with the quality of the side.

Chelsea will play Porto tomorrow without their star striker Didier Derogba, who is banned for the first four games in the Champions League, and Jose Bosingwa, who is banned for three matches.

Also he is still waiting on Yuri Zhirkov to recover from his injury and make his Blues debut, but it is not likely to be tomorrow.
Deco is also still recovering from an injury sustained while on international duty.

Chelsea’s Brazilian star Juliano Belletti was at the Champions League draw in Monaco, and he thinks that the Blues have drawn some good opponents in Atletico Madrid and Porto, but still thinks that this could be the year that Chelsea win the competition at last.

But the first thing he said was: “Some nice trips for the fans!”