Things You Never Knew...

No, not me. The real thing. Your heart really goes out to the poor guy. What does it take for him to get a goal? A proper Premiership goal, mind you, not some freebie from opposition playing in leagues twice removed. Against Blackburn he had 6, possibly 7 pretty decent chances, but a combination of a poor first touch, weak finishing and a lack of self-confidence really let him down. Plus some last ditch defending from the Blackburn defence didn't hurt.

And to rub salt into the wound? Salomon Kalou comes on for him in the last 10 minutes, and within minutes of coming on he gets a goal, which you suspect Shevchenko would probably have either missed or hit right at the keeper if he were in the same position.

As an aside, there's some form of contradiction in the way the Premiership is working out right now. Blackburn come to Stamford Bridge, play attractive, open attacking football, and what do they get for their troubles? A 3-0 defeat, which seems harsh on them. On the other hand, some other teams come with the "well, a draw at Chelsea is a really good result so let's play for that" mentality so they shut up shop from the opening kick-off. With that sort of negative play Aston Villa managed a drab goalless draw, so what does that tell you? Moral of the story - everyone behind the ball doesn't seem to bode well, yet that's about the only strategy that'll get you remotely within sniffing distance of a point at Stamford Bridge. Talk about a conundrum.