Chelsea reach Carling Cup Final
Watford keep survival hopes alive
Big Ron is back
—– Out-of-sorts Chelsea reach the Carling Cup Final as they prevent League Two Wycombe Wanderers from pulling off a major shock.
The 2005 winners win the second leg of their semi-final 4-0 at Stamford Bridge to go through 5-1 on aggregate.
Under-fire superstar Andriy Shevchenko scores twice. They’re his first domestic goals since 11 November.
The £30million striker’s improved performance appears to end his speculated rife with Jose Mourinho as the Chelsea boss explains: “If they work and they perform I love them, if they do not work and they do not perform, I hate them. Sometimes you kiss, sometimes you kick.
“I don’t kick, I ignore. He is a good boy, he needs happiness. I think this game can give him a bit of happiness.”
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—– Bottom club Watford win only their second Premiership game of the season with a 2-1 success against Blackburn Rovers at Vicarage Road.
Inventive boss Adrian Boothroyd puts the rare victory down to a team trip to the cinema to see the new Rocky Balboa film: “They had heard enough of me so it was time for them to hear someone else. Maybe they should go to the pictures more often.”
To complete a bad night for Rovers, midfielder Robbie Savage suffers a broken leg.
—– Blackburn Rovers’ opposition in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup is decided as Luton Town beat Queens Park Rangers 1-0 in the Kenilworth Road replay with a classic own goal from Zesh Rehman which is set for a place in next Christmas’ DVD market.
QPR boss John Gregory doesn’t see the funny side though: “I’m devastated we’re out. We should have been 4-0 up at half-time and won 7-0. It’s a big blow to the club because it’s a lot of money we’ve lost.”
—– Stoke City move back in to the Championship Play-Off places with a 1-0 win at Burnley.
City boss Tony Pulis also seems to have Rocky Balboa on his mind: “I said to the players, after bad results, it’s not taking the punch and getting knocked down, it’s about getting up as quickly as you can and that’s that we’ve done.”
—– Swansea City move back in to the League One Play-Off places with a 2-0 win against Gillingham at the Liberty Stadium.
Millwall’s post-Christmas revival ends with a 0-3 defeat at Northampton Town.
—– Ron Atkinson confirms his first full-time post in football since losing his job as Nottingham Forest’s manager in May 1999 by becoming the new director of football at Kettering Town.
Big Ron began his managerial career with the Conference North club in 1971.
The 67 year-old has been out of football since 2004 when he lost his job as an ITV pundit for making an on-air racist comment about Chelsea’s Marcel Desailly.
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