Published: 26 April, 2012
by RICHARD OSLEY

IT is about time we lavished some long overdue praise on west London football for its marvellous achievement in recent weeks.

Arsenal fans should stand and applaud today.

So well done Queens Park Rangers, another home win, a  very impressive victory against Spurs.

THAT'S SWITCHAROOS FOLKS… SEE YOU HERE SAME TIME NEXT WEEK! Ok, ok… of course, we must all – if we have to – congratulate those other west Londoners, Chelsea, the third best team in London, for knocking Barcelona out of the Champions League.

It wasn’t the real Barcelona, continually billed on the tellybox as ‘widely accepted as the best team in the world’. They haven’t even been the best team in Spain this year if you look at La Liga.

Chelsea, however, were left with a depleted defence and yet defended brilliantly.

You can’t imagine the same outcome if Arsenal had lost some key players and Johan Djourou and Sebastien Squillaci were left to hold the fort for a whole half of football at the Camp Nou.

And Chelsea, a team assembled by breaking financial fairplay, are a much more likeable team when Mr Chelsea is off the pitch.

If John Terry is Mr Chelsea then it explains why so many people watching in England wanted the Spanish team to win.

Here is a man paid so much money he can pretty much have what he likes. It can’t buy Champions League medals though.

You have to win those – and football’s most miserable soul may have lost out on two through his own idiocy. Good.

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