All Eyes to Wembley

Carling Cup Final Chelsea vs Tottenham Hotspurs
Location:The New Wembley stadium

It will be a great moment for Avram Grant if the Blues lift the Carling Cup today in New Wembley, especially with his father watching from the stands. But it would be stupid to think this would be easy against the Spurs, inspired by Juande Ramos who had two successive domestic cup wins with Sevilla.

The final comes with lots of selection problems for the Blues coach. It remains to be seen if he keeps both John Terry and Frank Lampard on the bench. Both players were named in the Blues squad but BBC football correspondent Jonathan Legard said they will be left out today. But i strongly feel it would be a mistake on Grant's part to leave them out. A draw was sufficient in Athens but things are different today. Chelsea certainly need that creativity in midfield which they lacked in Greece. Meanwhile former true blue Desailly finds logic in omitting Lampard but he says captain Terry must play.

Apart from the Terry/Alex dilemma the rest of the back four would be Carvalho, Belletti and Ashley Cole, though some fans strongly believe Bridge is better than Cole. In case of a 4-3-3, Essien, Ballack and Lampard are likely to play in the midfield with Drogba upfront and J.Cole, Malouda in the wings. A 4-2-2 would mean Anelka joins Drogba. In that case, guessing the midfield would be almost impossible. And in that case, maybe Lampard will start from bench.


Tottenham has their own share of selection problems, but of different kind. Tottenham defender Michael Dawson and midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng are being troubled by hamstring concerns. But Spurs will be boosted by the return of Ledley King and Pascal Chimbonda. What Tottenham would require for a win is some magic from the gifted Berbatov and a bit of complacency from Chelsea. Else I don't the result being different from what it was last time the teams met.

Hope this will be the first cup we win this season and there will be three more this season. You may consider it over-optimistic but I certainly feel we can do it. For a great video on the journey of Blues to Wembley,click here.

Finally a word about the Eduardo incident. Maybe Taylor didn't mean it but incidents like this are a shame to football as a whole. For people who haven't seen it, take a look, though I don't recommend seeing the pics.

Guess at the team:
Cech
Belletti, Terry, Carvalho, Bridge
Essien, Lampard, Ballack
J.Cole, Drogba, Malouda
subs:Cudicini, Anelka, Alex, Wright-Phillips, Mikel

Refree: Mark Hasley

TV Timings: 2030(IST) Zee Sports.

Scoreline prediction: 2-1 to blues