Nobody, least of all the British Press, likes a foreign whinger and when a whole La Liga team of ’em gang up and moan about the way an English team plays its football…well, you kind of expect the worst imaginable [in Johnny Foreigner bashing] to hit the printers running and go right on through for the next seven days. To be fair to many of the hacks, they’ve gone along encouragingly with tongue in cheek quotes from Guardiola to Xavi, Alves to Toure, laced with more considered thoughts from the journos themselves, such as Oliver Kay’s bold, blatant statement of the bleeding obvious in The Times that ’ Football is not a beauty contest’.

However, things are somewhat different on the TV screen, where the bottom has already dropped out of the Barca baiting business and, in truth, never really got started. Sky have shown almost a complete lack of interest, due to not having live coverage of the game in the first place, preferring to continue on their merry way promoting a constant theme of ManU being ‘The Only Show In Town’. No doubt there will be more of the same next week, or at least until their beloved favourites arrive in the final, whereupon we might get a look in as the co-stars performing in Wednesday’s B movie.

And so, switching to Chelsea TV’s Paperview to relieve the monotony, I was hoping Gigi Salmon might start some revivalist debate along said lines for Jason Burt (The Telegraph) and Neil Ashton (The Mail) to pick up on and run with. This she duly did, but whilst Ashton followed the lead with staunch patriotic one liners, Burt took a deep breath, gained his moment in the spotlight of expectation, and revealed that he’d always had a bee in his bonnet about this issue [style of football] and Chelsea. The silence that followed shrieked ‘Tell us more!’ and then he came out with this crass comment -

’If I had spent all the money Mr Abramovich has on this club I would have expected more from it [than he got in that performance]’

The bracketed words I’ve added, as a possible narrowing down of what might otherwise have been generalisation on a massive scale, but hey, maybe I’m wrong on that score, so I’ll broaden my argument in response a little later on, just in case. In the meantime, shocked and searching for an explanation, Gigi offered up two Premiership titles and the odd trophy or three in immediate support of the theory that Roman’s money had been well spent - it’s all about silverware and winning, isn‘t it? - but Master Burt was having none of it.

Putting aside for one moment his implied superiority and tone of voice - ‘Of course, when it comes to football, I have higher standards than Mr Abramovich, don’t you know’ - Burt did, for want of a better phrase, move the goalposts of expectation to a level so high that I doubt anybody could kick a ball through them in a month of Sundays. Clearly, he would have spent his millions, after setting aside annual sums for the Telegraph’s Fund in Support of the Burghley Horse Trials, on trying to get his chosen football team for patronage up to the standard of a Barcelona and beyond, this being achieved by an alternative method to that tried and tested one known as a business plan.

Naturally there would be a need to base this embryonic team abroad, to be untroubled by those nasty footballers from the Premiership, and in that way inferior and debilitating competition could be kept to a minimum during the maturity process which, in Burt World, would probably be about a year and a half. Winning trophies would not be a requirement, as there wouldn’t be any, with the days of them being a yardstick as to progress in Burt World long gone. Pretty soon the finished product would emerge - a team playing the beautiful game without fear of foul or care in the football community. He’d call them Real Red Top Globetrotters and the Reserves would be known as the Broadsheets. They’d win games by wide margins like 12-2 and 8-1 and they’d have players with names like Sweetwater Clifton and Meadowlark Lemon. Yes siree, everybody would feel as if they’d got their money’s worth watching Jason’s team and, what’s more important, Jason would too!

So easy to envisage. So easy to achieve. Wonder why Roman didn’t spot the blueprint for himself, instead of embarking on this harebrained scheme to do well in competitions and try to be the driving force behind the best football team worldwide when 2014 arrives. Huh, silly mistake to make, should’ve listened to Jason - he knows what this game is all about.

If I had spent all the money Mr Abramovich has on this club I would have expected more from it [than he got in that performance]’

do you think he meant like our display at the self named best european side? or was that so long ago hes already forgotten it. its amazing the amount of reaction opinions the media have in this country. one week were far too defensive and naive and even though it was exciting to have a 4-4 result we should be embarassed. 2 weeks later were far too defensive and even though it was an incredible result we should be embarassed. blah blah blah. what a cretin.

when utd/ arse have an off day but get a good result, it's a sign of a good team, BUT we're boring, anti-football...when they get a result playing well it's football of the gods, (whereas we're just physical, powerful, efficient etc)...this has been going on now for six years since roman took over...yawn.

I also saw paperview and snorted in derision at ashton's comments when it came to a style associated with the club...he said chelsea don't know there's but arsenal are known etc for their passing footy etc...wenger arrived in 96...they have tried to play football for 13 years...before that they were dull as dishwater...if anything chelsea have been mopre associated as a proper footballing team in their history...even when blessed with not too many gifted players, we tried tom play the right way...our proble was the lack of character we now show on a regular basis...we were criticised in the past for being too lightweight and now we're criticised for having the steel...you just know we can never win...so f*ck em...let's do it anyway and let them moan when we do

Edited May 1, 200915 yr by The Brit

Patrick Barclay is now the latest to wade in on our performance in a long, rather confused, crusade on behalf of truth tellers everywhere. I’ve given the gist of it below, having cut out a mad ramble near the end where he seems to be suggesting that we should go for Roy Hodgson as our next coach, purely because, and I quote, ’he is ready now’. Truth be told [and that’s exactly what the ever-so-highly principled Patrick wants during every hour of every day] he is desperate to see the back of Guus and any Tom, Dick or Roy will do to make sure he‘s off the premises pronto at the end of the season - no turning back or, I’ll, I’ll…call you a liar, you liar!

Why should their new Chief Football Commentator (the newspaper chose him as replacement for the excellent Martin Samuel - yes they did, they really did!) react in this way? Well, Mr Barclay breezed off to Barcelona for a big pre-match article a week ago and, I’m guessing, was no doubt liberally entertained by the Spanish club, only for Guus to rain all over his parade on his return for the actual game, if he did indeed trouble to go back for a second time. How else can you explain the weird contortion of a final paragraph that wages Moyes, Ferguson and Wenger against our poor Dutchman in a straight talking contest? Pity of it is, Barclay is too priggish to see the funny side of the connivance and only imagines his readership nodding in agreement and with similar high minded righteousness.

Will Guus hoodwink Russia despite promises (Patrick Barclay 2/5/09)

Managers lie for a living. It was Tommy Docherty, one of Guus Hiddink’s predecessors at Chelsea, who cheerfully told a court that - and he told the truth. Mainly they lie in a white way, as we all do out of politeness, or in the interests of practicality (the player dropped because he has lost a fortune on the horses and suddenly cannot kick a ball straight for worrying was “injured in trainingâ€, and so on), but occasionally they come out with a whopper. Like Hiddink’s in Barcelona.

On the eve of the Champions League semi-final, first leg, Chelsea’s interim manager trumpeted an intention to attack. It was no use sitting back and waiting for Barcelona to win; his team would fight fire with fire, or words to that effect. Instead they fought fire with a wet blanket, which was perfectly sensible and instrumental in the scoreless outcome that makes Chelsea favourites to reach the final. So neither the journalists who had dutifully conveyed Hiddink’s remarks - some hailed them as a fascinating insight into the Dutch master’s pre-match thoughts - nor fans who had taken them at face value were in a mood to complain.

Whether Barcelona fell for them we cannot tell. It is unlikely to have affected their approach because, under Pep Guardiola, the technical blitzkrieg appears their only tactic. But the cynicism of Chelsea was also management-led. Hiddink’s players fouled three times as often as Guardiola’s, relying on the indulgence of the German referee to keep Michael Ballack on the field and deny Barcelona a blatant penalty (Wolfgang Stark’s failure to punish José Bosingwa for tugging Thierry Henry’s shirt was as serious as Howard Webb’s judgment against Heurelho Gomes, the Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper, at Old Trafford last weekend).

It worked, though, and now the voices urging Roman Abramovich to persuade Hiddink to stay at Stamford Bridge beyond the end of the season, when he is due to return to Russia for the rest of the World Cup qualification campaign, will be raised for another few days. Should Barcelona be dispatched on Wednesday, they will become deafening. Yet they should not be heard at all. A white lie is acceptable, but Hiddink has given the Russians his solemn word and to break it would be something else; imagine Fabio Capello deserting England for Chelsea and you have an idea of it….

…Meanwhile, Hiddink heads for a glittering farewell. What tripe will he feed us before Barcelona trot out at the Bridge - Petr Cech to play up front? Then, after the probability of Rome, there is his date with Wembley for the FA Cup Final. Hiddink didn’t tell the truth about Wembley, either, did he? Maybe he was clever, too, after the semi-final against Arsenal, praising the pitch to banish an excuse from his players’ heads before the final. In which case you may think he has stolen a march on David Moyes, the Everton manager. But wasn’t it as well, since the pitch was a disgrace, that we had Moyes, Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger around to talk straight?

Quite funny and always the same story. White lies?! When Red Nose does it, it is pure tactic to upset the opponent, when a Chelsea manager does it, it's lies and scheming? I fear the journalists never quite realize that football is a game of chess with each individual playing as much mind games as moves on the board. Or, they do realize it and just put their red sun glasses on to go on a continuous destruction of any club that dares challenge the so-called "gods of football". Also, what idiot would openly play the kind of game Barça wants them to play?! Hiddink is nothing short of a genius after that great defensive performance. He did not fall in the obvious trap set by the media to jump to an attacking game, knowing full well that Barça are stronger at that aspect of the game, they were shown that nothing passes the defense and whoever tries will be punished.

The connection between Ballack being German and the referee as well had an income on decisions?! Great rhetoric to make us pass as cheaters once again. It's only seeing one side of the story or of the pitch I believe. How many dangerous tackles and blatant dives were not called throughout the game? My favorite example is when Drogba get's pushed from behind when heading for the ball and no call, then just a few seconds later, Ivanovic makes a similar challenge and a foul is given. I believe there is a double standard here, and it's getting more and more annoying. So F*** off with the press, they never pictured us for anything more then a Leviathan eating out their old traditions and favorites.