Wenger nailed Abramovich with accusation as asterisk mooted for eight Chelsea trophies | OneFootball

Chelsea should have some of their Abramovich era trophies asterisked, while there are also thoughts on Liverpool, Mo Salah and Spurs.

Oh, and Newcastle too, after ‘that rogering at the Nou Camp’.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

Why is Salah getting flowers? Well…

What a question to ask about Salah. Where have you been for the last decade? The goal was not only vintage Salah, the assist for Ekitike’s goal was also vintage Salah. And the cherry on top for the man who loves a personal milestone – He is the 1st African player to get 50 goals in the Champions League.

Has he (and the whole squad) been below par all season, sure, but Wednesday night was what we like to see and need to see more of. I think the leaving early and booing after Spurs might have been a kick up the arse that was needed. Culk the Younger

I’ve never really been a 50 Cent guy. Back in 2003, like every self-respecting rap fan in New York, I dutifully bought Get Rich or Die Tryin’ on CD (yes, kids — physical music once existed) and even committed the greater sin of owning a pair of those truly diabolical G-Unit trainers.

Truth is, he was never the most technically gifted rapper. But what he lacked in lyrical dexterity he more than made up for with hooks — the man could write a chorus so catchy it’d have the Heavenly Choir asking for a feature. And while his later years have been spent as a sort of entrepreneurial wind-up merchant rather than a serious musical force, that doesn’t erase what he was.

The last genuinely “rap” thing he did of note? Probably hanging upside down at the Super Bowl like a nostalgia-powered bat. But still — he gets his flowers. He’s earned that. He’s part of the furniture now. An elder statesman of New York rap, in the same bracket as Fat Joe and Jadakiss: not necessarily setting the pace anymore, but absolutely deserving of respect.

Because at a certain point, the debate ends. You stop nitpicking the imperfections and start acknowledging the body of work. Which is why it’s so baffling to watch a section of Liverpool fans bend themselves into knots to avoid doing the same for Mohamed Salah.

We’re not talking about a flash-in-the-pan purple patch here. Salah isn’t a moment — he’s an era. Year after year: goals, assists, big moments, ridiculous consistency. Records quietly stacked on top of records. Title-winning contributions. Champions League nights. The kind of output that, in any other shirt, would have him universally deified without hesitation or caveat.

And yet there’s this strange reluctance to fully commit. A hesitation. A “yes, but…” that never seems to follow players of comparable impact.

Maybe — and it’s worth asking — part of it is that brief moment earlier this season where he appeared to throw his toys out of the pram. Modern fandom is unforgiving, and any perceived disruption to the collective mood gets remembered far longer than it probably should. A wobble in attitude can, unfairly, linger longer than years of elite output.

But even if that’s the case, it still doesn’t quite justify the scale of the reluctance.

Because at some point, you have to stop grading him against vibes and isolated moments and start grading him against facts.

Salah might not glide like your Henrys or carry the romantic chaos of your Ronaldos, but what he does do — relentlessly, clinically, season after season — is deliver. And not just numbers, but decisive numbers. The kind that tilt seasons.

Like 50, he may not fit everyone’s idea of what greatness should look like. But that doesn’t make it any less real.

Give the man his flowers — while he’s still scoring them. Gaptoothfreak, Man. Utd., New York (Tell me, with a straight face, that “Many Men” doesn’t hype you up any time it comes on)

Luis change

Eric from LA always writes in with some typically misplaced Yank bravado and outdid himself this time. You still remember Enrique’s face from the comeback against Barca in 2019? On the touchline? When Valverde was the manager? Amazing. Quite a memory.

Also, Szoboszlai missed his last penalty in the FA Cup 3rd Round in January. Salah scored his last 11 if I’m not mistaken. Stick to Baseball. Or maybe not, as the Americans can’t even win there. AK (Keep Americans away from the beautiful game please)

Eric from Los Angeles. It’s not Luis Enrique that got turned over for your number 6. I wonder where you saw his face or facial expression.

It was ERNESTO VALVERDE in charge of that night’s absymal team.He actually took over from Enrique, who himself had won the CL with the famous MSN and staged the biggest comeback in CL knockout history. Anon

Over to Eric…

Apparently it was Valverde (and not Enrique) who led that Barcelona side into Anfield for our 4-3 aggregate overturn.  Salah had a hat trick that night, Divock wore a t-shirt in the stands that said Never Give Up, with Bobby Firmino sat next to him in his own tee that read Look At These Gnashers.  The sweet memory of Frimpong’s corner-taken-quickly lives long in my heart. Eric, Los Angeles  CA  (Genuinely fearful of early-onset dementia.  (And incidentally, already forgetting large parts of this season.))

That’s your Slot

Do you think Virj, Szlob and Mo got the players together in a private huddle just before KO – firstly to respect the ball – and then to say ‘look guys – lets f### this tepid horseshoe possesion obsessed sh#t off and get back to how we want and are supposed to play’? Certainly felt like it. More of that please.

It 100% proved that its not about form or who we need to sign/ditch – its about the style/way that the players actually are made to play. It was a completely different way of playing than we have been. It was the way the club had been playing every week before Slot turned up.  If we had been anywhere near those levels all season we would be 10 points clear in the Prem. Shunt LFC

No doubt the same fans who vilified Martinelli on Bradley will hold Dominic S to account for trying to lift up Osihmen by his sore arm, just saying… JimmyB, Dublin

Respect for the new Chelsea owners

Hear me out.

I have so much respect for the way the new Chelsea owners have handled this whole situation of buying a club from a Russian with a questionable history.

Going into the buying process, they had the foresight to set a £150m holdback amount, meaning that if there were any future fines based on the previous owner’s indiscretions, they would not be liable. They then seemingly were very forthright in opening their books to the FA to get this all out of the way, and in doing so ensured there was no ramification on the playing side.

Now don’t get this twisted, I don’t think they did this out of the goodness of their heart. These are business people laser focused on limiting the risks to their investments, and my oh my, they got out of this clean.

As the majority of people have commented, it’s ridiculous that Chelsea have essentially been caught cheating by seemingly buying players with secret payments, and yet there is no notable punishment. The £10.75m fine gets paid out of what I guess is Abramovich’s frozen assets or something. I assume it doesn’t even hit Chelsea’s profit and loss for this season.

Moving on from the ridiculously low punishment for the crime, can we all now agree on a couple of things.

Firstly, that Wenger was right when he accused Abramovich’s Chelsea of “financial doping”. This was a very clever term to use because at the time many were suspicious of the sudden injections of an unnaturally large amount of Russian money. However, if you had cast any aspersions on potential illegal activities, you would have faced being sued by Abramovich’s expensively assembled legal team. In 2026 it’s normal that the world’s richest people or petro states want to spend hundreds of millions on football clubs, and once you get to that level you start coming up against a different level of potential corruption or at best playing by different rules. This just was not the case when Abramovich entered Chelsea in 2004.

Secondly, with all the talk of Senegal getting the AFCON taken off them post event, can we follow some similar logic to Chelsea. Now, before the comment section explodes, I’m not suggesting everything Chelsea won in that time is arbitrarily handed over to beaten finalists or runners up, more that we put a nice little asterisk next to all the competitions that Chelsea won between 2011 and 2018. For me it was stupid for click bait merchant Alan Pardew to suggest that Arsenal’s potential title this year should have an asterisk next to it to indicate that Arsenal did not play the type of football that Pardew liked, or equally that the Liverpool COVID season somehow doesn’t count the same because there was the extended break and no fans for the last dozen or so games.

For me, Chelsea’s trophies should be viewed in the same light as Marseille’s Champions League win in 1993 or Juventus’s league titles of 2004/5 and 2005/6. I know the crimes of both of these teams were match fixing, which is far more serious than secret payments, but both these teams were also relegated. I’m not suggesting we relegate Chelsea, merely that future generations are aware that Chelsea cheated in order to win these competitions.

Sure, you could argue that £47m of undisclosed payments is not the end of the world, but for me this is likely just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what could have been happening over that time. We all now know how unscrupulous Abramovich’s political connections are (invading sovereign countries etc.), so I think it would be very naive to think that the worst thing Abramovich did was make secret payments when he was clearly rich enough to make the payments via official routes.

Also, although £47m now only gets you a Strand Larsen shaped average Premier League striker in 2026, this was not always the case. In fact, the £47m that Abramovich shielded covers the majority of the £60m that Abramovich paid for Chelsea in totality, including the stadium and all the players, a few years before.

Anyway, as I say, well done to Chelsea’s current owners. You’ve played these cards as champions (although not sure about your other decisions).

Cheers, Paul K, London

‘Slammed’

Anything included in said article (which could be construed as a ‘slamming’):

‘Despite the win against Atletico Madrid, former Tottenham midfielder Andy Reid was still unhappy with Tudor, who went down the tunnel without clapping the fans at the end of the game.

Reid told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I thought it was a bit unnecessary from Tudor [to walk straight through the tunnel]. He hasn’t had great success yet so you pick up a win tonight, let’s get the fans on board and give them a clap so when they turn up here on Sunday they are behind the team.’

If that kind of unremarkable comment is a ‘slamming’ these days then we are all probably getting reamed up hill and down dale every day I would think! A, LFC, Montreal

Hope for Spurs?

Thought I’d chip in with my thoughts after the Spurs game (they won, not that you’d know that from reading this esteemed website).

Are there reasons to be hopeful over Spurs after that performance? Well , no, as I’m a Spurs fan and it’s the hope that kills you,  but are there reasons to be cautiously optimistic? Yes, absolutely.

That was a performance full of heart, fight, desire and the fact the players were given an ovation off the pitch shows what the meant. The players looked like they cared which is a good place to start.

Players back from suspension,  players back from injury (cameo from Bergvall at the end getting some minutes in him) , some fantastic individual performances – Tel, Xavi, and Gray in particular – and a decent performance against a very good team.

Obviously none of that counts because of the narrative/ banter/ Spursy / the tie was dead (was it? Players from both sides didn’t seem to think so..) but if Spurs can play like that , looking like they give a shit,  (with Relegation/World Cup year Richarlison  ) with players back from injury and suspension and Tudor can have more options to put on the bench other than some really really high squad numbers we might, *might* have a chance.

Chelsea and Newcastle got absolutely slapped,  but Spurs actually annoyingly went and won the game,  which is distinctly unhelpful for banter merchants. If Spurs had been battered as badly as Chelsea or Newcastle then you wouldn’t be able to move on here for articles about Spursy Spursiness , staff shortage or not ( also Chelsea tie was pretty much dead but plenty of coverage about that , mainly digging out Rosenior – you guys really don’t like him huh? )

Spurs have done plenty to be mocked and if we go down then it’ll be justified (both the relegation and the ridicule) but completely ignoring any progress or postives over the last 2 games for banter banter banter is just poor, unless you are genuinely aiming for  football twitter/Paddy Power/Jamie O’Hara level.

Some great articles online about last night’s game and asking if Tudor is now having an impact, are his methods working now? With key players now back from  injury/ suspension could that game be a postive in the relegation fight. It might not make a difference but that was very heartening to see them fight and look like they care.

Time will tell if they actually do, massive game at the weekend. Though unless they win about 6-0 we’ll just get Dave and his Spursy/Spursiness/banter club/ we aren’t a serious club routine. Jefferson 

The Barcelona battering

Let’s get my complaints out the way first. Newcastle have had the worst luck with referees during this stretch of matches, and the Barcelona matches were no exception. Fermin Lopez should have been sent off in the first twenty minutes of the first match for two yellows and in the first half of the second for an orange and a yellow. Yamal probably should have been off in the first leg, too. The eight minutes of stoppage time at the end of the first leg should have been about four. We absolutely should have had a penalty after the rugby tackle at the Nou Camp, as well. Trippier deserved his penalty (and a red, imo), and I wouldn’t deny that Joelinton could have been off in the first leg, as well, but the weight of decisions felt heavily against Newcastle.

But: nobody is ever going to remember the referee. Instead, they’ll remember the result.

But: winning clubs get those calls, and we have to get good enough to get the benefit of that doubt.

But: Barcelona are simply too good for us. Even when we were counterpunching — heck, even in the SJP match we sort of controlled — their players were usually quicker to the ball and one step ahead in their thinking. In the second leg, there was no comparison. When they scored their third just before the half, I announced that we were likely to match Chelsea’s result. I meant the 5-2 at PSG, but we nearly caught them up on aggregate.

But: Trippier should never have started, Tonali was dogging it to the point that my nephew wondered whether he was throwing the match in the first ten minutes, Gordon hardly saw the ball, Thiaw was a basket case and Burn only a bit better, Joelinton was slow of thought and foot, and Livramento was anonymous except for conceding that Lewandoski header. I haven’t seen such a weak-minded performance since Steve Bruce.

But: anything we deserved was wiped out by that fourth half.

That rogering at the Nou Camp was the last thing we could afford before the Tyne-Wear derby, and probably represents the end of Newcastle’s season. I wouldn’t put money on us finishing in the European places, much less the CL spots. Every player on that pitch — and only Elanga, Hall and Barnes came out with much credit — will come out less confident in their next match. Our run-in is reasonably kind, but we may take a while to recover. Worse, it’s going to hurt us in recruitment: does a superstar want to play alongside teammates with that many errors in them? Who’s known to just quit trying at times (looking at you, Tonali)?

Despite it all, I’m still able to find an occasional gleam of pride for the way we set about them for almost three halves. Not enough to climb back on the Eddie In train, though. It’s time to build him a statue and send him off.