Style conscious

The West End of London is the stylish side of town, and Roman Abramovich expects style out of his £300 million side. Abramovich's expectations led to the sacking of José Mourinho earlier this year and was replaced by avuncular Avram Grant. The Israeli manager was supposed to bring beautiful football to Stamford Bridge, but outside observers don't see it that way, and it wasn't any different when West Ham crossed London for the early game Saturday.

The Guardian and the Independent both sided with Alan Curbishley's view that the "new" Chelsea isn't any more stylish than the old, very successful one. After the game, Curbishley said that not much has changed under Grant, but that he got some of his big players back (Frank Lampard and John Terry), Didier Drogba's hot and Grant just told them to "get on with it." The Independent's Sam Wallace also disagreed with Grant's claim that West Ham did nothing but defend in their 1-0 loss at the Bridge. Wallace put it down to poor finishing from Carlton Cole and substitute Dean Ashton that West Ham didn't get a point.

I did not watch the match. It was a 6:45 a.m. start here, and it was also TMG's birthday. Frankly, it's hard to imagine me hauling myself out of bed early enough for that match anyway, but there was simply no way that I could justify waking TMG up for a match at that hour on her birthday. I saw the highlights of the match on my recording of the Aston Villa-Arsenal match (a heck of a first half in that one, but I knew the score when I watched it, so I skipped the second half). The highlights were very Chelsea-centric, and that's no surprise, as once or twice a week I see someone walking around downtown Chicago wearing a Chelsea track jacket or something else in blue with "Samsung" across the front. All of that is a long way around of saying that I saw very few West Ham chances, so I can't confirm or disagree with Wallace's contention. I saw a couple involving Nolberto Solano and one involving Luis Boa Morte.

Wallace also slipped in a dig at Ashton, saying he was the size of a linebacker rather than a centre forward. Being so new to watching the game, and especially the EPL, I don't know what Ashton looked like before his injury. I never saw him play before this season. But even to me, he does look rather large in the upper body these days. A player like Craig Bellamy is fairly ripped, too, but not as bulky as Ashton. Perhaps he overdid the upper body workouts while his leg was immobilized.

As to Grant's claim that West Ham deserved more yellow cards, both the Times and the Telegraph suggested that John Mikel Obi's challenge on Scott Parker in the first half was the most vicious of the match.

West Ham remain 10th in the table and take on Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park on Sunday. Blackburn are coming off a 3-1 dismantling of Newcastle and have the week off from UEFA Cup action. I'll get to watch this one, as it's on Fox Soccer Channel. It also pits my side against the one favored by my friend BT, who would be better described as a Brad Friedel fan. They both grew up in the Cleveland area.