International stars are out in force today and hopefully fitness wise won’t have affected this game, Chelsea away.

Now I know what you’re thinking and yes my mind is being cast back to last season’s debacle with Abel Xavier not having a clue what’s what and Woodgate’s β€˜omission’ from the team to keep Chelsea’s grubby mitts of our Boro-born centre back (which some of us thought at the time), but that’s water under the Transporter.

Boro players might feel a little over whelmed maybe but I have a cunning plan…

If Chelsea play with Makelele that could be good news for us as if I was Boro I would let me run wild and run free, as hopefully they will play Ballack and Lampard behind Drogba to which, I hope Gareth starts with Cattermole and Boateng so they can just be Lampard and Ballacks shadow for 90 minutes and not giving them an inch. To that effect we would only have the wingers to occupy ourselves with which could be Wright-Phillips and Joe Cole if Young and Taylor play if could turn out to be a very interesting Sunday afternoon, to that that would mean Didier Drogba would left on his own to deal with Poggy and Wheater (good luck to the pair of them). Unfortunately the only thing that seems to stick in the back of my mind is the wing backs for Chelsea, stopping the spine pinch by pinch is fine but that would allow the wing backs to operate in a more…

Thank God I’m not the Manager! I tell you what good luck Gareth and his men.

I truly hope we put in a steady, strong and professional performance, my only concern is that Chelsea get an early goal so who knows what will happen from then on.
The other side is that, we all thought we were going to get a slight beating against Arsenal so who knows.

Come on Boro!