I sat down last night to watch Chelsea take on PSG.
Liam Rosenior’s side having been hammered 5-2 in Paris in the first leg.
In the lead up to Tuesday night at Stamford Bridge no surprise that the London-centric media were declaring this wasn’t mission impossible.
That Chelsea could turn this around, with the quality they have and the tactical genius of Liam Rosenior.
This continued into the TV coverage in the lead up and as the match kicked off, an early goal and who knows what can happen…
The subservient Chelsea loving media got their wish, a goal after only six minutes.
What a shame that it ended up in the home net.
Even better, a second one after only 14 minutes, Chelsea 7-2 down on aggregate and the team looking a shambles, the tactical genius and team selection of the manager sacked by Hull City, there for all to see.
PSG had chance after chance as they easily broke at will, slicing through a poor Chelsea set-up, they could have won by double figures on aggregate but had to settle for ‘only’ 8-2, a 62nd minute goal meaning it ended Chelsea 0 PSG 3 on the night.
After the match it was all too predictable that the loyal Chelsea loving media would come to their rescue.
BBC Sport amongst the worst offenders…‘It perhaps stands to reason that this is too much too soon for the youngest starting XI to play a Champions League knockout game for Chelsea, regardless of the expectation of the shirt they wear.’
Yes, let us totally ignore the fact that the Chelsea owners have been allowed to spend a couple of billion on players in the space of a few years, on top of inheriting a squad that had already cost a fortune to put together.
The subservient BBC Sport, so slavish to the ‘elite’ Premier League clubs, going on to say…
‘PSG have been sweeping aside English teams with ease over the past two seasons…PSG beat Arsenal in last season’s semi-final, having already defeated Aston Villa and Liverpool on their way to a 5-0 final win over Inter Milan…PSG over two legs in the Champions League, asserting their dominance over Chelsea and, perhaps, over English – and even European – football more broadly. Now top scorers in the tournament, with more different scorers than any other team, Luis Enrique’s side seem capable of making any side look like “farmers”.’
Yes, if only there was an English club that didn’t get outclassed and hammered by PSG…
2025/26 PSG Champions League results against English clubs:
Chelsea 2 PSG 8 (on aggregate)
PSG 1 Newcastle 1
PSG 5 Tottenham 3
2024/25 PSG Champions League results against English clubs:
Arsenal 1 PSG 3 (on aggregate)
Aston Villa 4 PSG 5 (on aggregate)
Liverpool 1 PSG 1 (on aggregate, PSG win 4-1 on penalties)
PSG 4 Man City 2
Arsenal 2 PSG 0
2023/24 PSG Champions League results against English clubs:
PSG 1 Newcastle 1
Newcastle 4 PSG 1
It is so impressive how BBC Sport and so many others, can report on PSG and their dominance over Premier League clubs AND studiously refuse to even mention Eddie Howe and Newcastle United.
It is amusing and frustrating in equal measures, that those in the media ‘forget’ the fact that only six weeks ahead of Chelsea’s absolute battering, Eddie Howe’s Newcastle United were the better team against PSG in Paris and could and should have won, very unlucky only to draw, when they were easily the better team in the second half and failed to take their chances. Then six weeks later Chelsea get hammered 5-2 in Paris and nobody in the media is interested in making any comparison to how Newcastle United got on there. Nor compare it to the 8-2 hammering Chelsea suffered overall.
Arsenal got a 2-0 home victory over PSG in the Swiss League stage last season but then in the semi-finals were outclassed and beaten home and away by PSG.
All of the other Premier League clubs outclassed and beaten as well.
Then you have Newcastle United, who have never lost to PSG, NUFC hammering them 4-1 at home in 2023, then cheated out of a win in Paris in 2024 by an appalling set of match officials and a very late penalty that should never have been given. Before most recently facing another lot of appalling match officials who gave PSG a penalty that they should have never got, as well as a host of other decisions gifted to the home side, yet NUFC got a draw in Paris and should have won.
Imagine if Liam Rosenior and Chelsea had competed with PSG as Eddie Howe and Newcastle United have done on all three occasions. The bespectacled buffoon would be proclaimed a tactical genius.
Yet pretty much media silence for Eddie Howe and how his players executed the plan each time.
It was the same when Newcastle United went to Baku and tore Qarabag apart, game over at half-time with the score 5-0 to United and Eddie Howe’s side cruising to a 6-1 away win. The media keen to say how rubbish the opposition were, that this was the equivalent of a lower league English team etc etc. Once again choosing to ‘forget’ that only three months earlier, Chelsea were lucky to even draw 2-2 in Baku against Qarabag.
Eddie Howe and Newcastle United will continue to fight this unfair fight, on and off the pitch.
I bet PSG were over the moon that it was Chelsea they faced for a place in the Champions League quarter-finals, as opposed to a Newcastle United.