I am unhappy about chelsea FA cup and champions league victory--Romelu Lukaku

The Belgium and Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku said he felt no joy at his club's Champions League and FA Cup triumphs and would rather be loaned out than repeat a season warming the bench. The 19-year-old, who moved to Chelsea from Anderlecht a year ago, started only four times last season and came on as a substitute on eight occasions.

 Lukaku told De Standaard newspaper that he would often leave a match after 70 minutes if he was watching from the stands and said he felt no sense of achievement when Chelsea won the FA Cup, in which he played only a few minutes in the third round. "When [Salomon] Kalou put the cup on my lap in the bus I asked him to take it away immediately. 

I didn't want to touch it because just as with the Champions League I had no part in it at all," he told the newspaper on Thursday. "I don't like people talking to me about the Champions League. It wasn't me, but my team that won the trophy." Lukaku said he had improved in training, was eating far fewer hamburgers and, despite good performances in the matches he had started, had failed to win a regular place in the team.

 "Chelsea really wanted me last summer and paid a lot for me but after a while I thought are you just throwing money around?" he said. Lukaku said he would seek talks with Chelsea's manager, whether that was the incumbent Roberto Di Matteo or a successor. "During the conversation with the manager I will see whether he's serious about me or not. If not, I will go away on loan. I have to play," Lukaku said.

 His fellow Belgian, the goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, joined Chelsea from Racing Genk a year ago, but was immediately loaned out to the Spanish side Atlético Madrid and was part of their Europa League-winning team.

Read More...

Abramovich set to keep Di Matteo

Di Matteo, 41, replaced Andre Villas-Boas in March and led the Blues to triumphs in the FA Cup and European Cup as interim boss. Despite that success, Chelsea owner Abramovich has been unsure of whether to offer the Italian a permanent deal as he was thought to favour a move for departing Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola. 

 However, the Russian billionaire is now set to make a U-turn and offer Di Matteo the position as he is not confident of landing Guardiola and is unconvinced by the alternatives. "I think Di Matteo will stay for one year," an ESPN source said. "It might not be ideal, but I am sure he would take it. "I am sure he wants the job and will go for it, believing he can prove he is worth keeping. 

There is sure to be a decision sooner rather than later." Meanwhile, Chelsea legend Ron Harris believes Di Matteo "transformed a very, very ordinary" side into European champions and would be a worthy long-term manager at Stamford Bridge. "The body language of the players told you that they were not happy under the previous manager, Andre Villas-Boas had clearly upset to many of them," Harris said.

 "A blind man could tell that the players didn't seem happy. "Roberto Di Matteo changed all that. Once he took over certain players found themselves again, they performed under him whereas they were not performing before, so that cannot be a coincidence.

Read More...

Throw bananas and I'll kill you

Mario Balotelli has threatened to walk off the pitch if he is racially abused at Euro 2012 and said he would 'kill' anyone who dares to throw a banana at him. Manchester City's volatile Italian striker spoke out amid increasing concerns that black players will be targeted by racists when the tournament kicks off in Poland and Ukraine next week. 

 The families of England players Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott will not travel to Ukraine because of fears for their safety but Balotelli, of Ghanaian descent, said: 'I will not accept racism at all. It's unacceptable. If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to jail, because I will kill them.'

 Balotelli has been the victim of racist abuse on several occasions - most recently in February when Porto were fined over the behaviour of their supporters in a Europa League tie against City. 'Let's see what happens at the Euros,' added Balotelli. 'I hope it will pass without a problem. I really couldn't deal with that.' 

 Balotelli, 21, was targeted by Juventus and Roma fans while playing for Inter Milan in 2009, which resulted in Juve having to play a match behind closed doors. In June of that year, he was racially abused and pelted with bananas in a Rome bar while out with Italy teammates in the build-up to the European Under-21 Championships. He added: 'It was lucky that the police arrived quickly because, I swear, I would have beaten them. I would have really destroyed them. I hope it never happens again.'

Read More...

DROGBA TO MOVE TO REAL MADRID?

Didier Drogba will move to Real Madrid, according to a report in Tuesday’s papers. The Daily Mail reports that the Ivory Coast striker, who has already confirmed that he is quitting Chelsea this summer, is in talks with former boss Jose Mourinho about a two-year deal to take him to the Bernabeu. 

 Drogba had been widely tipped to link up with former team-mate Nicolas Anelka in a big-money move to China, but internal strife at Shanghai Shenhua (which looks likely to see Anelka fired) and Mourinho’s recent empowerment over transfers at Real means the 34-year-old Drogba looks set to move to the Spanish champions.

Fernando Torres, by contrast, will be sticking around at Stamford Bridge according to a report in the Independent after Roman Abramovich interceded to persuade the unsettled striker to remain at the Blues.

Read More...

Eden Hazard is Roman Abramovich's first step in rebuilding of Chelsea

When Roman Abramovich finally got his hands on the European Cup, after pursuing it with obsessive zeal since 2003, he might reasonably have been expected to bear-hug the manager who delivered it. Instead, as the euphoria coursed through Chelsea veins in the wake of the penalty shootout triumph over Bayern Munich, he composed himself and drew back slightly from Roberto Di Matteo. The handshake and congratulation for Di Matteo was formal and polite. It was also stilted and painfully awkward. 

It was easy to jump to a couple of conclusions and the events of the past week or so have reinforced them. The first was that Abramovich was not exactly falling over himself to salute Di Matteo for his part in arguably the club's finest achievement and to thrust a permanent contract in front of him. It remains one of the greatest curiosities of a tumultuous season that Di Matteo continues to bear the title of Champions League‑winning interim coach. 

 The second, which was closely related, was that Chelsea's owner had not lavished a chunk of his fortune to watch his plaything perform as it had done, digging in obdurately to frustrate Barcelona in the semi-finals and then Bayern, and riding its luck in white-knuckle fashion along the way. This was not how Abramovich had pictured conquering Europe, even as recently as the start of the season, when he had hired the dynamic young coach André Villas‑Boas to instil a swashbuckling brand of passing and pressing football.

 Di Matteo's victory might conceivably have presented Abramovich with the most embarrassing decision of his Chelsea stewardship, even if billionaires are not known to possess the skin to appreciate such positions. Abramovich wants Pep Guardiola as his next manager, although the former Barcelona coach is expected to prove out of his reach in the coming months. 

Guardiola said last Friday before his final match in charge of Barcelona – the Copa del Rey final win against Athletic Bilbao – that he needed "months" to recharge. As things stand, Abramovich has a manager in name only and even then, it is a bit of a stretch. Di Matteo spent the weekend in Barbados, nominally at a legends football tournament but playing a lot of golf with his Chelsea friends Gianfranco Zola, Gus Poyet and Carlo Cudicini. 

Di Matteo's phone was pressed to his ear a good deal and he refused all requests to speak about his future. He remains in the dark. From Barbados he was scheduled to fly to Miami for a holiday. If Abramovich were to turn to Di Matteo for next season, it would feel as though he had done so by default. Yet key decisions regarding the squad continue to be taken at Stamford Bridge. Last Wednesday the club's chief executive, Ron Gourlay, said Fernando Torres would be the team's focal point up front. 

With Didier Drogba having followed Nicolas Anelka out of the club as a free agent, Torres, whose £50m signing Abramovich championed in January of last year, had received a significant vote of confidence. It has now emerged that Chelsea are primed to assert themselves powerfully on the transfer market, most eye-catchingly, with the £32m play for Lille's 21-year-old playmaker Eden Hazard. 

The Porto striker Hulk, who could operate on the right and so complement rather than supplant Torres, is the other principal target. It is a stunning declaration of Abramovich's intent on more than one level. Whoever manages the team, he wants it to be built around Hazard, who is arguably the most exciting young creative talent in Europe and whose next career decision has been the most heavily trailed, certainly by the man himself. 

Abramovich wants Hazard's mystique, his fantasy. He wants more entertainment from a rejuvenated team. The notion of Hulk, Hazard and Juan Mata in support of Torres is mouth-watering. Moreover, the move is evidence of him flexing his financial muscle in the face of Manchester City, the club that nobody is supposed to be able to outbid. City wanted Hazard, as did Manchester United, while Arsenal were also credited with an interest; Hazard took in a game at the Emirates in the middle of last season and he liked what he saw. 

But Chelsea's barging to the front of the queue is evocative of an older order of things. Chelsea are understood to be close to announcing break-even financial results, thanks to Drogba's decisive penalty in the shootout against Bayern, which club insiders say could be worth as much as £100m. With Financial Fair Play approaching, the Champions League success has provided wriggle room. Abramovich wants his team to dance to a funkier beat.

Read More...