Hello everybody. Next up we head on to the land of the Bene 'n' Hot, where at Turf Moor will be hosted by Burnley. Kick-off is at 3pm and the usual train route up there seems to be clear, even if that last section from Preston to Burnley seems to take forever.
However Kings Cross is closed, which may make Houston a bit busier than usual and there are the usual buses list of Shenfield to look out for, so check before you leave as usual.
So Burnley, then. Well, they're having a worse season than we are, really. Apart from A 5-1 Cup win over Millwall - nice one Scotty - they haven't seen a win in the results column since a 3-2 win over at Wolves on 26 October. Since then the results read loss, loss, draw, draw, loss, loss, draw, draw, draw, lost.
The scale of their problems can be gauged by the fact that the recent run of three draws included dropping points to Tottenham. All of which has left him in 19th place with 15 points from 24 games. That's five behind us and 11 behind Nottingham Forest.
Now, realistically, that's probably too far from any genuine prospect of staying up - but unfortunately it's close enough to us for them to drag us down with them.
Including loans and permanent deals, they brought in a dozen or so new players following their promotion last season. However much to Daisy's relief, that seems to have blown their budget for the season with only the one loan signing occurring during the winter window.
Since that signing is none other than James Ward-Prowse, he won't be available to face us for this one. The upside of that is that he won't be breaking that long-standing record for direct free kicks against us.
Another player who won't be available is Josh Cullen. The West Ham United Academy graduate has picked up an ACL injury which will keep him out well into next season. We wish the lad well.
Cullen joins Zeki Amdouni (knee), Jordan Beyer (hamstring), Mike Tresor (ankle) and the much easier to spell and pronounce Connor Roberts (Achilles), all of whom are out for the foreseeable future.
Their top scorer at the moment in the Premier League is Zane Fleming, who along with Jaden Anthony has six this season. Both players signed during the summer window this season, though Fleming was also part of their squad last season, scoring 12 times whilst on loan from Millwall.
Given the lack of transfer activity this winter, I'm afraid I don't really have an awful lot to say about them. We obviously carry good, strong, fond memories of Scott Parker whose role at the club was so strong that if and when Matthew Upson dies, I have a funny feeling they'll call it the Scott Parker funeral.
However there's no room for sentiment, so I think we'll move on now, shall we? To the wild and wacky world of association football
And dodgiest appeal of the week award goes to Senegal, who having survived the punishment from CAF with a swathe of fines and suspensions when arguably there was a good case for them to have been stripped of the African Cuppa Soup title, have decided to appeal against the sanctions.
A clearer example of trying to cut your losses and retire gratefully from the argument one couldn't imagine. But they are Senegal. Whether or not CAF have something akin to our own frivolous appeal rules, I have no idea. However you'd be tempted to take back all the medals at the very least, wouldn't you, if you were sat on that panel?
Much closer to home, it was revealed that the Epstein files had mentioned Chelsea's owners having held meetings with the disgraced friend of the dodgy. That came as a surprise to nobody. I'm sure our lawyers would love me to mention that nothing illegal was mentioned during the revelations. What did comes as a surprise was that nobody else in the English game had been mentioned.
Whilst we're talking about world affairs, I hear the film 'Melania', the best review of which was "if people were shown out on the plane, they'd still walk out", has been nominated for FIFA's first Best Film Oscar award. The award will be made as soon as Infantino can mock up a statuette that looks enough like the Oscar Trophy without infringing the notoriously copyright conscious Academy Award Committee's image rights.
The other odd news this week was the revelation that the mistakes in appointing managers this season are costing us something like £10,000,000 a year in wages to Messrs Lopetegui and Potter. You might think that somebody who'd made such mistakes in appointing the managers might well be considering whether their continued stewardship was really in the best interests of the club. Or maybe not.
Meanwhile, if it helps the club, I'd be willing to not manage the club for a bargain £1,000,000 a year. Yes, I know I'm selling myself short but you know, anything to help the club.
So let's move on to last week. Well, I did warn you about Anthony Taylor's top six love-in, didn't I? However, even I wasn't prepared for how low he was willing to stoop.
Now we need to do a little bit of verification on this, but it would appear that you have to go back to 2017/18 for the last time he allowed Chelsea to lose a league match to a team outside the dodgy half dozen. And he certainly wasn't in a move to break that record on Saturday.
He set his stall out early doors as Summerville came back to rob a ball from a Chelsea attack. It was a fine tackle, perfectly timed, but not for Taylor, who gleefully awarded a fail that even surprised Chelsea.
Now when I got home, I watched the match again and my first suspicion was that Taylor had messed up. After all, he usually does. Helpfully they've stuck a camera on the idiot. Maybe that'll show us something we didn't tell you, I thought? No. Ref Cam exposed Taylor for the beneficial we all know he is.
This was something that he maintained throughout the game. And as for the farce at the end, well you only have to count up the number of offences committed by Chelsea players during the whole process to ascertain where Taylor's loyalty lay.
To start with, Marc Cucurella deliberately handled the ball to prevent Traore getting a cross in. This was followed by a headbutt to Traore's his stomach at the same time. Traore took umbrage whilst Cucurella, in time honoured Chelsea style, legged it sharpish.
So there you have a yellow and a statutory straight red for you which Taylor, of course, ignored. Then the funniest bit, João Pedro decided to give Traore a shove. The look of sheer terror on the Chelsea player's face as he realised what he'd done and who he'd done it to wWas absolutely hilarious and he disappeared to hide behind anyone handy he could find.
Unfortunately, Todibo had spotted him sneaking out and grabbed him around the throat, earning a red card. Sanchez did exactly the same to Todibo, leading him to go unpunished. I'm just presuming it doesn't count if you're wearing gloves.
By the way, there were definitely three red card offences on display out there and the only one punished went against us. Todibo gets a three match suspension whilst Taylor goes on to decide more matches as he sees fit and another match is ruined because PGMOL won't punish the dishonest.
Yeah, given that Cucurella has now gone into print about his intention to start the whole thing off in the first place, I look forward to reading notification of the player's disrepute charge. I won't hold my breath though.
Todibo's enforced absence highlights the effect that dishonest and substandard officials can have on league placings. PGMOL's continued failure to deal with the problem cast major doubts on the integrity of the League. Match fixing may not actually be taking place, but PGMOL's inaction sure as hell makes it a lot easier to happen. After all, who's going to notice one more example of Taylor making it up as he goes along?
Todibo's ban seems to suddenly concentrate the hive mind back at the club with the sudden realisation that we'd need something in the way of central defensive personnel. Something that was clear to the rest of the world even before Todibo lost his rag.
So, and reportedly after no little deliberation on the player's part, we welcomed Axel Disasi on the line from Chelsea. With a surname that has the propensity to write its own headlines, I think we'll refer to him in future as Axel D. A bit more Langdon Hills than Beverly Hills Cop, if you like.
Todibo is joined by Fabianski on the absent list, which gives us a relatively full squad from which to choose. I'd expect Axel D to slip in in place of Todibo, as long as he can come to terms with the laws of the game which won't have applied to him during his time at Chelsea. This would leave us with a relatively unchanged side, one which looked good when playing 11 rather than 12 men in recent weeks.
Prediction? Well, I've got us down for a win. We must put Taylor behind us and muse on the fact that for much of the game, we were all over the so-called World Champions, a title with about as much validity as Trump's Peace Prize or his Oscar.
We've played well for much of the last three games so we should concentrate on doing so again. So as soon as I get the £1million due to me for NOT managing the club - in the meantime, I'll send across the usual £2.50 on account - I will wager it on an away win. Call it 3-1 to us please, Mr. Winston.
Enjoy the game!
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