By Myles Palmer

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I was thinking about Papa Bouba Diop.

Wondering if he was good enough for Arsenal.

Then my friend Bob called and said he had two free tickets for Chelsea v Fulham on Boxing Day.

So I would see Papa Bouba Diop at last.

We arrive in time to see the warm-up.

The Fulham team run out...... but Diop isn't there. He has an ankle injury.

We watch Chelsea warm up. The left-footed goalkeeping coach hits some shots that thump into Cech's midriff, Cudicini crosses some balls while Cech comes out to catch them as the coach jumps into him.

Somebody hits a ball straight up in the air and as it comes down vertically towards Robben he hops up to avoid the ball, but lets it bounce and hit the inside of his left thigh and deflect to Joe Cole, who smashes in a shot.

A big geezer comes in and sits behind us and says, "Where's the Drog? Has he gone to Egypt already?"

Drogba and Essien are absent from the warm-up.

MOURINHO has Joe Cole in midfield, SWP wide right, Robben wide left, Crespo up front and Paulo Ferreira at right back.

The game kicks off and Chelsea press and almost score and then they almost score again and then they get a corner and its a very well-rehearsed outswinger from Lampard, nodded forward by Huth, and Gallas swoops to stab in from three yards.

1-0 after three minutes.

Lampard is looking to shoot and shoot again and after 24 he shoots and the ball deflects off Legwinski and goes in for 2-0 and after that the contest sags a bit. but then Boa Morte takes a free-kick out on the right.

It's an inswinger and it's coming towards us and towards Cech and there is no way it can be a goal because the ball is going straight towards the keeper.

But, incredibly, the ball goes through Cech and McBride stabs in for 2-1.

On the TV replays later I see that the ball goes through Cech's arms and bounces between his legs.

I think he took his eye off the ball as a boot came flying towards him, lunging for that ball. That is the only way I can explain his blunder.

At half-time Mourinho brings on Gudjohnsen for SWP, who has done nothing. Shaun is wasted there.He is rich and redundant and cannot be happy. He would have been magic at Arsenal.

Then Rosenior breaks on the left, evades Ferreira, and Joe Cole chases McBride into the box and brings him down.

Poll gives a penalty and Helguson buries it for 2-2.

Now all hell breaks loose : noise, fury and swearing. I've never heard so many F-words at a football match, even in Scotland.

The big prole geezers round us vent their frustrations in torrents of obscenities.I'm not offended by it, though, since I swear a lot myself.

These fans are not used to seeing their team concede goals, let alone two goals to a patched-up Fulham outfit.

MOURINHO immediately makes a risky substitution.

He puts on Drogba for Huth and goes to three at the back

They break on the right and Lampard stabs in.

But the goal is disallowed.

Despite that stupid tackle in the box, Joe Cole has a fantastic second half and he zips down the right flank and hits a terrific early cross and the unmarked Crespo comes sailing in and sidefoots his volley into the ground and it bounces sweetly past the sub keeper Tony Warner for 3-2.

A GREAT GOAL.

The way Crespo timed his run and measured his stride pattern was fabulous.

The main components of the goal, I thought, were experience and concentration.

Unless you've played for four years for Parma when you are hungry and trying to make your name, unless you've suffered the 1001 tugs, shoves, elbows, hairpulls and obstructions of Serie A, and learned how to drift off defenders, you will never score a goal like that.

It was a goal like some he scored for AC Milan last season, but many of those were headers.

Overall, a red-blooded contest, ding-dong entertainment with surprises, goals, mistakes, plenty of action, with two handballs supplying controversy.

OBVIOUSLY, THERE ARE loads of things I hate about the oligarch's Chelsea.

They messed up Gerrard's head during Euro 2004 by offering him £120,000 a week, so he had a crap tournament.

The paranoid Mourinho and his paranoid henchmen accused Frank Rijkaard of going into Anders Frisk's dressing room at half-time and Frisk quit the game within days after menacing phone calls to his wife and children.

They beat Barcelona with a foul by Carvalho on keeper Valdez- that goal should have been disallowed. Kenyon and

Mourinho and Kenyon met Ashley Cole in a London hotel which destabilised Arsenal days before the Man Utd game at Highbury. That was totally out of order, a new low for English football, even though the meeting was initiated by Cole.

They have destroyed Shaun Wright-Phillips by buying him when they did not need another winger.

They did not make Essien apologise for his assault on Hamann until four days after the event, by which time the apology was obviously insincere.

As a club they lack a sense of league and a sense of sportsmanship. They foul ruthlessly, especially when the game is in the balance

But, having said all that, after watching so much of Arsenal, it's refreshing to see a team which is so conventional.

Chelsea have a captain, they have a centre forward, they can score from set-pieces, they try harder when the game is swinging against them, they generate momentum by willpower and physical force, and they have a tactical manager whose substitutions make sense.

So it was easy to see why Chelsea have 49 points and Arsenal have 29.

Will Chelsea win at Man City tonight?

I don't know.

They have weaknesses.If Papa Bouba Diop had played, maybe Chelsea would not have beaten Fulham 3-2.

ONE OTHER THING : Mr Abramovich, your roof is leaking.

Big blobs of water were falling on us.

A reminder of the last time a stadium roof leaked on me : Derby County v Arsenal when the scribbles in my notebook became blotchy and unreadable as rainwater spread pale blue ink over the pages.

Robert Maxwell, that ghastly crook, owned Derby and their dilapidated Baseball Ground.

December 28th 2005

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