Roman Knows

"Hey Roman, those dumb Charlton fans have all just paid you 48 quid"

The Chelsea game will be shown live in the US, but thanks to a clashing invitation to the mens semis at the US Open tennis (tough life, I know) I will endeavour to avoid the result and persuade my local pub landlord to show it relayed in full at 8.45pm. Given that there is a 'vital' college gridiron game on at the same time, I suspect this request will be about as well received as a Bryan Hughes through ball.

A hardy 500 or so Charlton fans have paid £48 for the privilege of watching the game live. Plenty of the Addickted will have been put off by the cost but it's a fairly standard cost these days to watch most of our more illustrious London rivals. It's just another example of inflation in the service sector from restaurants to hotels, and from private schools to health clubs.

Given that Charlton fans will pay money to watch Chelsea once (and only once) this season, their only consideration will be to maximise the revenue from their attendance; they're not a charity after all. Whilst it is fairly likely that a £24 admission price would have more than doubled the number of Charlton fans at the game, Chelsea can't realistically do this whilst charging their own fans considerably more for seats in the same stand. The only way ticket prices will fall is if fans stop buying them, so full credit to those fans that baulked at the price. One just has to hope that more fans of Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal and the like begin to do the same.

Although it's hard to drum up too much enthusiasm for the fixture, we are of course the only team to take a point from Chelsea at Stamford Bridge since Arsenal last managed it in April 2005, and we also knocked them out of the Carling Cup there too. Despite ten signings since Curbs left, injuries and suspensions are already causing us problems, not least in central defence where Diawara is likely to make his debut sooner than Dowie might ordinarily have liked. With Pouso unlikely to be used yet, the only other possible change could see Kishishev return to the starting line-up in place of Hughes following his impressive display a fortnight ago. Some fans have suggested Hasselbaink be rested to allow for an extra man in midfield, but he will be itching to score against his former club and I'm not sure his ego could stomach being dropped this early in the campaign. NYA Predicts: Chelsea 2 (Drogba, Lampard), Charlton 0