Michael Essien IS Back and Plays at Palace

COME ON CHELSEA
By Since66
July 16 2010

It is the news that all Chelsea fans and perhaps Ghana fans have been waiting for, that Michael Essien aka The Bison is back and is expected to play between 45 and 60 minutes when Chelsea travel to South London to play newly reprieved Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park tomorrow (Saturday).

The game is practically a sell-out which will produce much needed ££££'s jingling around the ears of the CPFC2010 consortium who struggled during the Summer to keep the club, the heritage and the history of Crystal Palace Football Club alive and a BIG 'Glad All Over' to the Palace fans that have dug deep to help the Palace cause against Chelsea tomorrow.

When this fixture was first announced, Palace were struggling to keep alive, then there was the news that Palace had 'survived' and it was just a question of being able to buy a ticket.

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In typical Chelsea fashion, tickets went on sale two weeks ago (just under 3000), I got two and I am off to Selhurst Park tomorrow.

I do have an affinity with Palace.

Growing up in South London I regularly went to Palace when Chelsea played away (my late parents wouldn't let me go to Chelsea away games LOL LOL) or I went to Wimbledon in the days of Bassett, Dickie Guy when Wimbledon were in the Southern League and playing at Plough Lane.

On Selhurst match-days I can still remember banging on the hoardings to Dave Clark Five's Glad All Over - then there was the period of going to Selhurst and seeing Ian Wright destroy us, then Wrighty moved to Arsenal and destroyed us again and again - hated him!!

I was there when Wimbledon staged their FA Cup replay against Leeds United at Selhurst Park on a Wednesday night in a crowd of 55,000 or thereabouts.

Leeds won 1-0 and it was a school day next day and I had to walk home from the ground, can't remember why, but I got home really really late.

New signing Yossi will NOT be making his debut.

He has an injury - probably Chelsea worked him to hard - 'Anco' said, "Yossi had last week a little problem with his groin."

Also unavailable apart from the World Cup representatives are, Bosingwa, Zhirkov and Mancienne who all have pre-season niggles.

So expect Cech to start in goal with Alex marshalling the centre of defence, with Sam Hutchinson, Jeffrey Bruma, Patrick van Aanholt and Ryan Bertrand amongst the candidates to join him.

Mikel is likely to return in midfield with Essien and the rest of the starting XI is going to be like a 'lucky dip' lottery on a Saturday night although I suspect young Josh McEachran will feature at some point during the game.

Like in Seattle last year, the 'Boss' hinted that he could use 20 players at Selhurst Park.

He said, "It is a good opportunity for young players, a good chance to show their quality.

"I want to put a lot of young players in for the next two weeks and I hope they will do a very good job before all the players come back who were involved in the World Cup."

Liam Bridcutt who was released by Chelsea during the Summer, could have an early reunion with his old team mates tomorrow.

Liam played in a Palace XI that lost to Crawley in midweek, which is where Chelsea Reserves travel to next Saturday 24th July for a pre-season friendly.

Michael Essien IS Back and Plays at Palace

Posted by: 50 Years Over 100 Years (IP Logged)

Date: 16/07/2010 18:16

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