Before anyone accuses me of flogging a dead horse over Sky’s approach towards Chelsea, let me say that, unless this topic is raised once more, flailed to within an inch of its sorry, but obvious, existence and some notice taken, we the viewers and current subscribers might as well call it a day. In short, the Sky build up, commentary, and post match analysis on any game in which Chelsea participates these days has become nothing more than an apathetic and disinterested trawl through blanket negativity, punctuated only by a thinly disguised attempt at enthusiasm when we score. Last night’s game was no exception and was for all but those too blind or biased to see it an encouraging performance by the Blues which ended up being spoilt by the same old group of curmudgeons sitting on stools in a studio, or in a box at the Bridge, a place, they all too obviously, didn’t really want to be.

If spoiling the enjoyment of the game for the English home team’s viewing public, as opposed to overseas subscribers in Germany, was the intention then Sky achieved their objective from the moment they majored on Michael Ballack’s return, giving him the sort of over-the-top praise and recognition that was sadly lacking during his time with us - unless, of course, they were referring to his midfield tackling whilst in a blue shirt. Indeed, Ray Wilkins, now fully recovered from a bout of Chels-itis contracted on his initial return to Sky punditry, couldn’t help but single out the German for a post match enthusing session that went over, above and at the expense of, his eulogising on any Chelsea player. However, I’m rather jumping the gun on the comments front, as pride of place must go to Rob Hawthorne and Alan Smith because, heaven knows why, they were our match commentators yet again.

I suppose it must be the Chelsea fan’s lot in life to have to listen to these two every time the Champions League comes around, but if they truly are the best Sky can offer us in terms of commentators displaying unity of purpose [let’s all get together and hope Chelsea win, especially against foreign opposition] we might as well have all sung the Deutschlandlied official national anthem from the word go in this match and be done with it. Hawthorne couldn’t wait to get started with his usual Chels negatives, strung together like the links in a depressing choker chain placed around our open-mindedness, periodically pulling against any optimistic momentum, the pessimistic knots tightening at every turn or lull in the play. He is becoming almost as bad as Clive Tyldesley and that, in anyone’s language, surely has to be a concern for his employers. Given a sidekick with Alan Smith’s undoubted open apathy towards us, the partnership should have been strangled at birth, but Sky allowed it to fester last season and now it’s become a plague on our house, even when we are at home.

Torres, naturally enough, took the brunt of the criticism last night and didn’t help his own cause that much by sliding into an early tackle that missed everything except the Sky cameraman’s attention to overkill and Alan Smith’s description of it that had it bordering on attempted road kill. In his eyes, this was a yellow card offence at the very least, but Alan’s peepers had let him down moments before, when he displayed a certain amount of desperation trying to rule out the Torres ‘goal’ by seeing a Meireles back heel touch where none existed. Back then, the forensic slow-mo search for some sign of touching proof failed, leaving poor Smithy no alternative but to dig out the officials behind the goal for missing something he’d totally misjudged only moments earlier. Of course, no atonement from him that we were, with hindsight, unlucky and no acknowledgement of our superiority throughout the first half from either of them - according to Glum and Glummer, halftime arrived as an oasis of calm amidst AVB’s mounting sea of troubles, whilst Bayer Leverkusen’s boss was bound to be the happier - such fun for them, not much for us.

Nor did the studio threesome of Wilkins, Hoddle and Souness offer much by way of encouragement, as they soon meandered [predictably] into Torres-trashing territory too, the most ridiculous remark falling from the sneering lips of Souness who, in somewhat cryptic fashion, described the ex-Liverpool striker as someone who is ’a good player, or was a good player’ - as Shakespeare might have said, parting has clearly been such sweet and sour sorrow for Souey. Anyway, on to the second half and back to an eagle-eyed old Smudger, who must have been listening in to the studio conversation because it wasn’t long before he was highlighting bad Chelsea tackles once again, this time a David Luiz lunge that brought immediate Hawthorne recall of the Brazilian’s past misdemeanours and repeated playbacks of the tackle.

I have to say that I found this particularly galling, especially when Phil Bardsley can apparently stamp away on Mata’s back to his heart’s content without Sky showing the slightest interest (the BBC can even ignore it altogether on MoTD), whereas, if it had been one of our own with similar intent (Michael Essien springs to mind) the incident would have been on our screens on the hour, every hour, until a governing authority was forced into action. Full marks to the FA for taking Bardsley to task and shame on the Media as a whole for turning a blind eye, for reasons known only to themselves and to Chelsea fans well-versed in this type of selective outrage. I suppose it is best summed up by Sky’s handling of the Luiz substitution, accompanied as it was by a repeat showing of his goal AND ‘that’ tackle they found so offensive, just so we knew he was lucky to have stayed on the pitch to score it.

Perish the thought that someone should look for positives, but perhaps we can take some comfort from AVB’s post match interview with Geoff Shreeves and the fact that his opening question virtually accused the Boas of gambling with his team selection. Understandably miffed at the implication, he dismissed it by saying that he couldn't understand why Shreeves should begin his questioning with negativity after a match full of positives for his team. He then went on at length to cover each and every one of them, knowing full well that, unlike every other club manager in the country, he wasn’t going to be offered the sops Shreeves usually dishes out to the likes of Ferguson and Co after a heartening 2-0 win at home in the Champions League. Back in the studio Jeff Stelling seemed genuinely affronted by Andre’s attitude - well he shouldn’t be and once he steps back and looks at the bigger picture that is Sky’s coverage of our games perhaps he will appreciate why AVB had every right to mark their card and why I have every right to describe their coverage as I do in the title of this piece.

Good read once again, Dorset!

And I agree, im just fortunate enough to have a swedish commentator team/studio most of the time. Alan Smith can stick something up his arse.

I suppose I'm so used to the Sky coverage of Chelsea that I didn't really notice too much out of the ordinary. However I was a bit startled by Geoff Shreeves' first question too, he isn't generally like that either to be fair (not to us at least). I can't stand Graeme Souness in general because of how biased he is. Ray is a legend but even he wasn't quite as full of praise for our players as he usually is. Hoddle...meh.

It wasn't as bad as the ITV coverage whenever we played Liverpool between 2005-2009. They may have aswell become LFCTV for those broadcasts.

Edited September 14, 201113 yr by Celery1989

Dorset you beat me to it, I am reading through the article as I type, but I can hazard a guess as to what you are going to say.

If I have to listen to Alan Smith comment another Chelsea game again I'm listening to music whilst watching our games in future.

The anti-Chelsea sentiment in Sky was appalling, you get the sense they root for every English team in Europe apart from Chelsea.

I'd still like to know why Luiz was "lucky" to be on the pitch? Or is every foul a yellow card for a Chelsea player? I'd also like to know how were fortunate, Bayer only created 2 clear cut chances, thats football, Man Utd get goals against the run of play all the time yet it is a sign of Champions etc.

Disgrace.

Same here. I've become so used to negativity towards Chelsea FC from the media in general that nothing about last night's coverage stood out. Alan Smith and the other bloke droned on. After the match I switched over to Chelsea TV who are at least objective.

The tone for the anti-Chelsea in Europe was set a few years ago, the low point surely being Adrian Durham and co's insistence that a victory for Barcelona against us would be a victory for football. Now you can say what you like about a victim mentality, or you can claim that every supporter of every other team thinks his club are hard done by in the media, but I can not for one minute imagine that those kind of sentiments would be expressed towards any other English club playing against continental opposition, let alone so loudly and so often.

It'll never happen with Man U or Liverpool, it didn't happen with Tottenham's solitary season of Champions League involvement, and you can bet your life it won't happen with Man City.

We might as well face facts, the f**kers don't like us.

Edited September 14, 201113 yr by Hutch

A good read and I fully agree. (Or should I say GR;FA )

Sadly however, it is just something we will have to live with as it will never change.

Must also say that the pre half time and post match stuff doesn't bother so much me as a rarely watch any of it in the knowledge that it will likely wind me up.

That sounds ridiculous.

Not that I want to defend the man, because he is a prick basically every time I see him on air, but Souness is the one who suggested there was a conspiracy to screw us over after the Ovrebo game. He went out on a limb there and said something that couldve cost him personally, but spoke his mind because he felt we were robbed. I dont know what that is worth in the long run, but it altered my opnion of him slightly.

Some things never change I suppose...Dorset once more gives us a great read, and the media still slant us at every single opportunity they get. The game commentary was beyond comical at some point, it was the same old same old: Torres can't score, how didn't Luiz get sent off (remember last years game against United?), this Chelsea team is old (although our starting line-up included only two players over 30), etc. If we would have won 4-0, with 7 under-21 in our line-up, they still would have found something to complain about! They are just unable to give us credit, where credit is due.

Lampard, Terry, Drogba, Anelka, Malouda = Old

Ferdinand, Giggs, Vidic, Evra, Park = Experienced

That is one of the few things I have never understood with the media.

I don't mind the anti-Chelsea digs coming from people like Phil Thompson, Jamie Redknapp etc who are open and honest about where there loyalties lie, what I hate is ex-players like Alan Smith, Charlie Nicholas and Tony Gale etc who pass themselves off as impartial when they are anything but.

I stopped listening to the media drivel years ago, but 2009 was the final straw for me over Barca-gate when they said the club and Drogba should be banned from the CL, I'm willing to bet my house if that had happened to United or Liverpool they would be up in arms and talking about the injustice to this day and how Rooney/Gerrard had every right to shout and swear at the ref etc. Kakuta-gate was another thing as well when they took the guilty until proven innocent stance with Chelsea, saying we should be docked points and how FIFA were right to ban us without ever knowing the facts.

Edited September 14, 201113 yr by Myles_91

Can't understand why Sky have never offered a crowd noise only option, be a rocket up the arse for a lot of complacent and ordinary pundits as I'd imagine there'd be a huge uptake.

Can't understand why Sky have never offered a crowd noise only option, be a rocket up the arse for a lot of complacent and ordinary pundits as I'd imagine there'd be a huge uptake.

#

Although it would be great, I don't think they'd give that option because any bad language would be easily heard!

Every fan thinks there is a bias and a conspiracy against their club.

I honestly don't feel we get it any worse than anyone else, we notice comments on Chelsea more because we concentrate more when Chelsea are being talked about or written about. In fact the suggestion to me is so old hat I'm a little tired of it. We get this thread every week don't we ?

Im very aware this post isn't going to go down well but if it bothers you turn the sound down and don't read the newspapers! f**k em all!

Every fan thinks there is a bias and a conspiracy against their club.

I honestly don't feel we get it any worse than anyone else, we notice comments on Chelsea more because we concentrate more when Chelsea are being talked about or written about. In fact the suggestion to me is so old hat I'm a little tired of it. We get this thread every week don't we ?

Answer one question: Have you ever heard the English media take such a negative stance towards any other English club as was widespread when we played Barcelona?

Ok, make that two questions. Can you imagine the English media declaring that for any other English team to be defeated by continental opposition would be a victory for football?

1 I don't pay any attention what the media write about Chelsea. Anything I do read I dont take seriously. Im immune to it and you should be too.

2 I don't know, possibly. Did the whole of the media say that or just one journo ? Are you tarring the whole media with the same brush because someone like Patrick Collins wrote two lines of nonsense?

Not getting into am argument over something so trivial Hutch, it's just how I feel. Ask a Man Utd fan if they think they get favourable reporting and see what they say.

Edited September 14, 201113 yr by bjd

If spoiling the enjoyment of the game for the English home team’s viewing public, as opposed to overseas subscribers in Germany, was the intention then Sky achieved their objective from the moment they majored on Michael Ballack’s return, giving him the sort of over-the-top praise and recognition that was sadly lacking during his time with us - unless, of course, they were referring to his midfield tackling whilst in a blue shirt.

At least they were referring to Ballack as a success at Chelsea. There are two ways of looking at it. I don't see any problems here.

In his eyes, this was a yellow card offence at the very least, but Alan’s peepers had let him down moments before, when he displayed a certain amount of desperation trying to rule out the Torres ‘goal’ by seeing a Meireles back heel touch where none existed.

Again, no problems here. It appeared to me (at the game) Mereiles got a touch, and either way, he was offside and interfering with play.

Of course, no atonement from him that we were, with hindsight, unlucky and no acknowledgement of our superiority throughout the first half from either of them - according to Glum and Glummer, halftime arrived as an oasis of calm amidst AVB’s mounting sea of troubles, whilst Bayer Leverkusen’s boss was bound to be the happier - such fun for them, not much for us.

We were the better team in the first half, but it was a pretty underwhelming performance. Their manager was bound to be happier than AVB at half-time.

Nor did the studio threesome of Wilkins, Hoddle and Souness offer much by way of encouragement, as they soon meandered [predictably] into Torres-trashing territory too, the most ridiculous remark falling from the sneering lips of Souness who, in somewhat cryptic fashion, described the ex-Liverpool striker as someone who is ’a good player, or was a good player’ - as Shakespeare might have said, parting has clearly been such sweet and sour sorrow for Souey.

I think that's a pretty fair comment by Sounness. Torres was good. Whether he still is is a moot point. I'm sure if he starts banging them in Sounness will change his stance.

I have to say that I found this particularly galling, especially when Phil Bardsley can apparently stamp away on Mata’s back to his heart’s content without Sky showing the slightest interest (the BBC can even ignore it altogether on MoTD), whereas, if it had been one of our own with similar intent (Michael Essien springs to mind) the incident would have been on our screens on the hour, every hour, until a governing authority was forced into action. Full marks to the FA for taking Bardsley to task and shame on the Media as a whole for turning a blind eye, for reasons known only to themselves and to Chelsea fans well-versed in this type of selective outrage.

The only part of your post I agree with. Definite bias here.

Perish the thought that someone should look for positives, but perhaps we can take some comfort from AVB’s post match interview with Geoff Shreeves and the fact that his opening question virtually accused the Boas of gambling with his team selection.

Virtually accused him of gambling with his team selection? That could easily be seen as a compliment. He did gamble and it paid off.

When I saw the teamsheet I was concerned we might be underestimating them, and a loss would have caused us problems.

No Terry (the first name on the teamsheet for me) and a midfield consisting of Mikel, Malouda and Mereiles.

I don't think the interviewer was out of order.

1 I don't pay any attention what the media write about Chelsea. Anything I do read I dont take seriously. Im immune to it and you should be too.

2 I don't know, possibly. Did the whole of the media say that or just one journo ? Are you tarring the whole media with the same brush because someone like Patrick Collins wrote two lines of nonsense?

Not getting into am argument over something so trivial Hutch, it's just how I feel. Ask a Man Utd fan if they think they get favourable reporting and see what they say.

No not all journalists, merely a wide spectrum. Sky generally give the impression that they'd rather we lost - and I emphasise here that I'm talking about English clubs in Europe, an attitude that would NOT be expressed towards Man U or any other English club. Patrick Collins is just one more example.

If your Man U fan could come up with a single example of Sky or any other prominent English media source stating that a victory over Man U by continental opposition would be a victory for football, then I'll be forced to concede that you may have a point.

I've stated on several occasions that the probability is that the appearance of being anti-Chelsea is actually a reflection of pro-Liverpool and pro-Man U bias. I would no more Liverpool and Man U fans to wish us success in Europe than I would wish for any other English team to be successful.

f**k em all!

I'm with you there, at least.

Edited September 14, 201113 yr by Hutch

I'm with you there, at least.

Thatll do for me!

I watched the match after it had finished with a spanish commentary,haven't a clue whether they were pro or anti us , but Torres is Torres no matter the language.

I watched the match after it had finished with a spanish commentary,haven't a clue whether they were pro or anti us , but Torres is Torres no matter the language.

Sorry for going a little off topic, but I'll just sat that I loved to play the old FIFA games with Spanish commentary. The amount of passion was just off the scale at times. The English commentators just couldn't compete.

I usually catch the games online. I usually find a Spanish language feed. I don't understand Spanish. What does that tell you?

I usually catch the games online. I usually find a Spanish language feed. I don't understand Spanish. What does that tell you?

No idea. I pretty much always find an English stream, but it's usually Fox Sports or something like that. It's rare (for me) to find a stream from a Sky broadcast, but I can always tell when I have by the amount of anti Chelsea crap they come up with.

No idea. I pretty much always find an English stream, but it's usually Fox Sports or something like that. It's rare (for me) to find a stream from a Sky broadcast, but I can always tell when I have by the amount of anti Chelsea crap they come up with.

Sorry, was trying to be dry and witty...obviously I'm a failure. Listening to a game in Spanish beats having to listening to the garbage by the British or American broadcast. And even if I can only understand a few words in Spanish, the commentary is more fun to listen to anyway as they really go with their emotions. Their expressions and reactions can be hilarious. Plus they usually refer to Fernando as El Nino Torres which makes the familiarity rather quaint.

1 I don't pay any attention what the media write about Chelsea. Anything I do read I dont take seriously. Im immune to it and you should be too.

2 I don't know, possibly. Did the whole of the media say that or just one journo ? Are you tarring the whole media with the same brush because someone like Patrick Collins wrote two lines of nonsense?

Not getting into am argument over something so trivial Hutch, it's just how I feel. Ask a Man Utd fan if they think they get favourable reporting and see what they say.

Have to agree with bjd on this one.

I know this thread relates to Sky in particular, but I've seen, read and heard plenty of positive stuff about us not to worry or be bothered by the negative sh*t.

Sorry, was trying to be dry and witty...

I actually understood that and tried to play along with the joke*, but failed to make it obvious enough...

*The "no idea" bit was the "joke", and the rest of it was serious.

I suppose it'll soon be a Man City w**kfest on Sky.