Si Phillips Talks Chelsea

Rocket Sports Internet

Every Friday, Simon Phillips and Dan McCarthy take you on a deep dive into all the key Chelsea FC news and issues with a subscriber only podcast, featuring guest commentary from players, former players, club insiders and other Chelsea reporters. sptc.news

  1. SPTC Podcast: Chelsea Reporter Lloyd Canfield joins the show!

    May 6

    SPTC Podcast: Chelsea Reporter Lloyd Canfield joins the show!

    Welcome, and if you were hoping for a week in which Chelsea Football Club might offer its supporters something resembling encouragement, I am afraid you have come to the wrong place. Joining me today is Lloyd Canfield, Chelsea reporter for The Sun, a man whose professional obligation it is to watch this club at close quarters and report back with a straight face, which in the current climate must require a fortitude bordering on the heroic. Together we shall be picking through the bones of yet another dispiriting chapter in what is becoming an exhaustingly long novel of institutional underperformance. The defeat to Nottingham Forest was, to put it with characteristic restraint, abysmal. Not merely a loss but the kind of performance that leaves you questioning whether the players on the pitch share any common understanding of what they are supposed to be doing out there. We dissect where it went wrong, which frankly does not take long because the answer is more or less everywhere, and we examine the latest managerial rumours that continue to swirl around Stamford Bridge like fog around a lighthouse. There is also a touch of transfer talk, because Chelsea’s appetite for squad upheaval shows no sign of diminishing regardless of who happens to be sitting in the dugout. Finally, and with a degree of trepidation that borders on dread, we look ahead to Chelsea’s trip to Anfield to face Liverpool. Neither Lloyd nor I, it must be said, are approaching this fixture with anything one might generously describe as confidence, and we shall explain precisely why. If you enjoy the sound of two men trying to locate reasons for optimism and finding the cupboard almost entirely bare, then this is very much the episode for you. Jai This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sptc.news/subscribe

    43 min
  2. SPTC Podcast: Leeds fan Jack Durkin joins Jai Mcintosh to preview the FA Cup Semi Final!

    Apr 24

    SPTC Podcast: Leeds fan Jack Durkin joins Jai Mcintosh to preview the FA Cup Semi Final!

    Welcome, welcome. There are occasions in football when a fixture transcends the merely sporting and assumes the character of a small moral drama, and I rather think this weekend’s FA Cup semi-final between Chelsea and Leeds United qualifies handsomely. To discuss it with me today is Jack Durkin, a Leeds supporter and football presenter who, I suspect, will require very little encouragement to explain why his side are arriving at this contest not as plucky underdogs but as the altogether more serious and purposeful outfit. The rivalry between these two clubs has never wanted for intensity, but there is something particularly delicious about the present configuration of forces. For Chelsea, one hardly knows where to begin cataloguing the dysfunction. Liam Rosenior has been sacked, which is to say the club has continued its now almost compulsive habit of discarding managers the way a careless child discards toys on Christmas afternoon. The supporters, those long-suffering souls who once had Stamford Bridge as a fortress, find themselves increasingly disenfranchised from a project that appears to lack both direction and conviction. Six consecutive cup final defeats tells you rather a lot, and none of what it tells you is flattering. One loss might be misfortune; six begins to look like institutional rot. Leeds, by contrast, arrive with something Chelsea conspicuously lack: momentum and a sense of collective purpose. Having all but secured their Premier League survival, they are liberated from anxiety and playing with the freedom that comes from having nothing left to lose and everything to gain. A place in the FA Cup Final, the first since the 1972/73 season, beckons like a long-promised homecoming. Jack and I will be picking through all of this, so do stay with us. Jai This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sptc.news/subscribe

    42 min

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

Every Friday, Simon Phillips and Dan McCarthy take you on a deep dive into all the key Chelsea FC news and issues with a subscriber only podcast, featuring guest commentary from players, former players, club insiders and other Chelsea reporters. sptc.news

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