Boehly reeling from Lampard BLAST amid Thiago CLASS in latest Chelsea disasterclass

Chelsea’s latest nonsense begets further nonsense as the Mirror follow Frank Lampard’s cryptic clues, while Sam Allardyce’s 100 per cent England record augurs well for Leeds…

Scene stealer
Now, the idea that Todd Boehly is a major source of the problems at Chelsea seems a sound one even to such anti-Lampard wokerati scum as ourselves.

And Lampard, who must by now be in full damage-limitation mode for whatever remains of his future career prospects, could certainly be forgiven for emphasising that point after leading a bloated, misshapen and confidence-bereft Chelsea as they slumped to a sixth straight defeat on his watch.

And the Mirror pretend he did just that.

‘BOEHLY BLAST! Frank Lampard turns on Todd Boehly with scathing remarks after Chelsea humiliation at Arsenal’

Guess how many times Lampard mentioned Boehly by name, in terms scathing, blasting or otherwise, after that Chelsea humiliation at Arsenal?

Clue: it’s the same number as points Lampard has won since his return to Stamford Bridge.

Have a read of these quotes described by the Mirror as Lampard defending his players but being ‘less complimentary about Todd Boehly and the Blues hierarchy’ and marvel at how anyone could reach such a conclusion.

“Chelsea has been a big success for 20 years but at the moment we aren’t in that position.

“In the time I’ve been here it’s clear to see behind the scenes, on the training ground, the reasons why. If you’re going to be a nice team to play against all the time it doesn’t matter where you go. That won’t change overnight but we better get there quickly.”

The Mirror’s entire angle here relies on the euphemistic ‘behind the scenes’ being a reference to Boehly and co. Which it may well be, but it’s a bit of a reach, no? Far less of a reach is to suggest that ‘on the training ground’ suggests this refers to the players and coaching staff – which everything that follows would appear to support.

And absolutely none of it could remotely be described as ‘scathing’ given where Chelsea are at right now. If you want scathing, may we recommend this morning’s Mailbox?

Innocent bystander
The same piece also notes Lampard ‘could only watch on in anguish at the Emirates’, which is interesting and we suspect accidentally damning phrasing to describe the actual manager of the team.

Class warfare
The Sun manage to find a positive angle from Chelsea’s disasterclass at the Emirates via one of those ‘fans all say the same thing’ Twitter round-ups you see these days, based on the social media reaction to Thiago Silva doing a goal-line clearance (which is, without being too Roy Keane about it, essentially his job).

One Chelsea fan described it as ‘classy’ and another as ‘pure class’ which meant The Sun could dress it up in ‘classy touch’ clothing and imply that it was about something other than a good if largely unremarkable piece of defending in a game where Chelsea did precious little of it.

‘Chelsea fans admit they ‘don’t deserve Thiago Silva’ after Brazilian’s act of ‘pure class’ during Arsenal defeat’

‘Chelsea fans say they don’t deserve Silva after his ‘class’ act in Arsenal loss’

And so forth.

Which makes the final paragraph unintentionally funny.

‘In an eventful game for Silva, he was also involved in a row with Ben Chilwell after going 2-0 down.’

Class.

And how did Chelsea’s one bright spot fare in the paper’s own player ratings? He got a four – only Cesar Azpilicueta, N’Golo Kante and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (whose performance comprised nine touches including four kick-offs) fared worse.

Big Sam
Sam Allardyce is back! And The Sun duly win the Technically Correct Statement of the Day with this unimprovable line:

‘However, he is the only person to boast a 100 percent win record with the national side.’

Amid sh*ts
Few words set off Mediawatch’s Spidey Senses quite like ‘amid’. It is nearly always an attempt to link two things that are not linked, or to make things said some time ago appear current and thus of greater significance.

Lovely sneaky little example from the Mirror today.

Headline: ‘Lionel Messi admitted ‘everything changed’ after World Cup glory amid PSG suspension’

Intro: ‘Lionel Messi admitted that ‘everything changed’ for him after Argentina won the World Cup at the tail-end of last year, as speculation over his Paris Saint-Germain future heightens amid a two-week suspension.’

The quote on which the Mirror leans – which they credit to InfoBae but which originate from an interview with Argentinian radio station Urbana Play – is:

“I always thank God. I knew he was going to give me a World Cup, I don’t know, I felt it.

“Luckily he gave himself what we dreamed of so much. Luckily it happened in the end. From that day everything changed for me. Now we can say it”

Everything in that quote, and everything in the rest of what he had to say is very, very clearly about his journey with the national team (“It was like closing the circle. We won the Copa América, we won the World Cup, that’s it. There’s nothing left, it’s over.”).

It’s already a bit of a stretch to make it about his current situation with PSG and his two-week suspension. Especially as the interview took place in January.

Because ‘amid’ is – just like ‘scathing’ in fact – one of those curious words whose meaning in tabloidese is very often the exact opposite of the dictionary’s.