Happy homecoming for Gianfranco Zola

DEC 16 — When Gianfranco Zola was voted the greatest-ever Chelsea player by their supporters a few years back, never in their wildest dreams would any of these supporters have imagined that Zola will next make an official comeback to Stamford Bridge as the manager of a London rival.

Any bookie would have given odds of thousands-to-one for such a turn of events. But life does tend to throw its occasional surprise and this was certainly one of them.

Zola brought West Ham United across town for this encounter, which was also to prove a test of Chelsea’s resolve after a hard-fought victory against lowly-European opponents, FC Cluj from Romania, in the Champions League last Tuesday.

It certainly was an emotional return for Zola to his former stomping ground on Sunday. The Blues supporters ignored the local London rivalry between the two clubs, showing good form by saluting their former hero.

At the end of the gruelling encounter, his still close bonds with ex-teammates John Terry and Frank Lampard showed when he received hugs from the both of them as they came off the pitch.

Let’s move on to the action on the pitch. Prior to the weekend’s round of English Premier League matches, it looked like Chelsea had the easiest tie among the Big 4. But old boys do tend to come back to haunt their old clubs, be it as a player or a manager. It was no different this time around as it turned out.

Getting past the emotional aspects of the match initially, Zola soon got his boys focused on the passion of a typical London derby.

After all, he should know more than most of the players in action on Sunday on how important such occasions are for the respective clubs’ supporters, having played in so many London derbies throughout his illustrious career with the Blues.

Facing a manager of far superior experience and capabilities in Luiz Felipe Scolari, one wouldn’t have blamed him should the Hammers have lost the game. So that is how every pundit and punter expected it to turn out, a solid win for Chelsea.

Instead, West Ham took the game to Chelsea and after some close calls in their own goalmouth earlier in the first half, Craig Bellamy gave the Hammers an unexpected lead in the 33rd minute. It was a well-crafted goal with a solid finish by the former Newcastle United man. One that Zola would have been proud to have scored in his day.

Not surprisingly, Chelsea came out in the second half with a vengeance following what must have been a major shelling from Scolari in the dressing room at half-time.

The relentless pressure soon paid off with an equaliser by Nicolas Anelka coming after only six minutes from the restart.

Any bookie would have happily offered a high return on anyone willing to bet on West Ham preventing Chelsea’s superstars from scoring one more goal, let alone two or three.

But that is what Zola’s boys ended up doing totally against the odds, as the match ended 1-1. Actually, they could have even grabbed all three points at the death, with a great passing move which left ex-Chelsea youngster Carlton Cole go one-on-one with Peter Cech in the first minute of the four minutes of injury time given by referee Mike Riley.

But yet again, the Czech goalkeeper showed why he is the best goalkeeper plying his trade in England by stretching his hand out to barely stop the goal-bound shot, then safely collecting the loose ball.

With the draw, Chelsea also lost out on a great opportunity to break away from the chasing pack of Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal who all drew against relatively weaker opponents on Saturday.

This season is developing a rather unique trend in that the Big 4 have either won in unison or all faltered on the same weekend, on more than one occasion.

One wonders if this could be some instruction from the top, or even sponsors, to make the season a bit more exciting instead of just having the two or three teams take a huge lead even before approaching the half-way mark of the season.

It certainly has been one of the most close-fought seasons in the past 10 years with upsets galore. The other surprising trend is the missing scorers among the Big 4.

I don’t recall Manchester United having had more than one scoreless draw in a season before this. Yet, since August they have already pulled off such a feat, as bad as it sounds, on two occasions in the Premiership as well as twice in the Champions League.

Liverpool are certainly one team who have been trailing MU for years in various aspects, but not this time around. They have managed to outdo MU by achieving more scoreless draws this season in the Premiership, four times to be precise. The thing that is even more surprising is that it was against the likes of Aston Villa, Stoke City, Fulham and West Ham. Two of these were at home.

At the weekend, they scored but still could only muster a draw against mighty Hull. Yes, you read that right. And the Reds had to come back from being 2-0 down in the first 20 minutes to salvage the draw.

Not for the first time this season, they had captain marvel Steven Gerrard to thank for saving them from embarrassing losses at home and away with some amazing goals.

Arsenal, meanwhile, are just not the team they were last season. Middlesbrough have been a bogey team for them since Gareth Southgate has been the manager — the Gunners have not won once against them with him in charge — and the record continued with an old boy, namely Jeremie Aliadiere, scoring one for his new team to help tie the game.

It didn’t help that the profligacy of Arsenal strikers continued. The team was left to rue the many missed chances at the end of another great opportunity to close the gap, especially with the other Big 4 teams dropping points.

Meanwhile, in Spain, the first of the two annual El Clasico clashes ended as most pundits predicted. But it must make you wonder about how the game must have been playing in the Asian trading with two late goals.

Tens of millions of dollars must have been going back and forth as Barcelona struggled to score and Real Madrid kept alive the hope of getting a point at the home of their biggest rivals.

Real were expected to lose, so letting in two goals so late in the game wouldn’t have hurt their pride. Their supporters would not feel too let down too.

The fact they are current champions, and have been so for two consecutive seasons would also allow for some leverage for the club and its management to “allow” their players to concede the match.

You make what you want of the match, but that is what really happened behind the scenes in my humble opinion.