The cricket's hardly been good enough to help fill the extra long football gap either and so the time between Blues' trips to Deepdale and Stamford Bridge - without a major football Championship either (well, one England were in anyway) - seemed to span a particularly long and wet summer.
Anyway, football is back, and Blues were back in the Premiership, being handed about as tough a start as possible with a trip to the Champions. Of the Carling Cup.
I'm back too, you'll be delighted to hear, and after an intensive pre-season, I've decided to alter my approach a little - I'm not going to report on the match as much, because, look, let's face it, pick up a paper, go on teletext or go to a decent website if you want to know the score, who scored and what minute they scored in - I can't be bothered with trying to remember such details anymore. I'm just going to slag off Gary McSheffrey instead.
As far as Blues were concerned, the pre-season had gone pretty well - they actually beat everyone for once, and had done plenty of business transfer-wise. As a result of the influx of new players, there was an element of the unknown about what team would be selected for this game - especially as it's understandable that for such a game, you may view things slightly differently to a home game against someone rubbish. Chelsea are, after all, pretty good.
Colin Doyle was always going to be in goal, and he was. After signing Johan Djourou on Friday, he was always going to play alongside Liam Ridgewell, and he did. With Mat Sadler out, Franck Queudrue was always going to be left back, and he was. Mehdi Nafti and Fabrice Muamba were always going to make up the midfield engine room, with Damien Johnson injured and Hossam Ghaly being sent packing. The real issues were the wide players and the strikers, plus the right back dilemma of 'Stuart Parnaby or Stephen Kelly?' Kelly won that one, whilst Seb Larsson and Gary McSheffrey played wide to give Blues' midfield a distinctly Championship feel, with Olivier Kapo being given something of a roving role behind Mikael Forssell.
What to make of that? Well, decent enough, I thought. Personally, if you were playing one up front, I'd have been tempted to go with Garry O'Connor or Cameron Jerome ahead of Forssell, but that was about all I'd question, and hey, it wasn't the worst team in the world, and despite being a sort of 4-4-1-1 formation, wasn't worryingly defensive either.
Ridgewell was handed the captaincy in the absence of all sorts of other candidates, which may have surprised a few people given his previous club. Still, he handled the responsibility well and was possibly Blues' stand-out performer. He looked every inch an experienced Premiership centre half and marshalled his defence well. He's still only 23 too, remember.
So, what to make of the game? Well, Blues got in front, but then for the middle part of the first half, were being carved open at will by Chelsea, especially by Shuan Wright-Phillips who gave Queudrue a torrid time. It's always worrying when a manager questions someone's pre-season fitness in the final week before the season starts, but that was done of Queudrue by Steve Bruce, and I think it showed. I don't think he's a poor player - just not fit. Kelly switched there early in the second half with Parnaby coming on at right back, but this was after Michael Essien had made it 3-2, and even then may have been too late. Should the change have been made at half-time at 2-2? Maybe. Still, Queudrue struggled and needs games to get himself fit, but by the same token, doesn't need games where he's got a 4'2" whippet on heat running at him - that was Blues' undoing, really.
McSheffrey was another player taken off, later in the second half, and is someone who needs to do a lot of convincing. He started last season superbly, but was found out by January, and never really did a great deal from then on. We've now stepped up a division, and he was shown up. Last season he could get past a full-back - today Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole both at times brushed him aside and outpaced him. Sure, they're two strong, quick full-backs, but the Premiership is full of bigger, stronger, quicker players, and McSheffrey could well struggle. His all-round contribution was poor, and again, too often he exposed his teammates - not just positionally through indiscipline, but by giving the ball away when people had committed forward. Queudrue was poor, but McSheffrey didn't assist him much, and it got to the point where the supposed "luxury" player in Kapo had to go to the left of the midfield and do a decent shift there to help the team out, so we could get McSheffrey out of the way and put him up front.
Some players are Championship players. Some players are Premiership players. Some players can be equally capable at either level. McSheffrey, to me, is no more than a Championship player. He worried teams in that division - people would double up on him. At this level, I suspect no one cares too much about him. The nature of the likes of Larsson and Muamba (and their ages and education) means that they should be able to step up a level. With McSheffrey, I think we've already seen it all - there's nothing more to come from him. Yes, it was one game against Chelsea, but he looked as out of depth as a brick in a swimming pool. This isn't just a kneejerk reaction to this game either, but on the back of possibly only one good display in the whole of 2007 - away at Newcastle in January. You could probably still get £3m for McSheffrey from someone - I'd be tempted to sell him and do away with the inevitable obligation Steve Bruce feels to involve him. I can't help thinking that someone like Gary McSheffrey has served his purpose for Blues, and if we intend relying on him for creativity and goals this season, we'll struggle. Granted, he took a good free-kick for Blues' opener, but it has to be more than set pieces that you rely on someone for at this level - you can't carry people.
I can almost understand why Bruce almost feels that he HAS to pick McSheffrey. He paid an awful lot of money for him for the level we were at at the time, he was superb to start with, and he isn't your typical Bruce player in a way, which I think almost forces Bruce to pick him to say "hey, look, there's an out-and-out attacking player in our midfield" to try and get rid of this dour, defensive tag often hung around Bruce's neck. I think Bruce still feels the need to justify the price tag, in a way, and I'm not sure he needs to. McSheffrey paid back his transfer fee in about five months last season, when he propelled us into a position to get us promotion, and now, like some others, he's not the essential player he may have been last season.
So, if McSheffrey is Blues' past when it comes to the star player tag, is Olivier Kapo the future? He's a cut above. He's comfortable on the ball, can pick passes, can drift into good positions and scored a fabulous goal. Blues have stepped up a level, and they need players that help them compete at that level, and in Kapo, it looks like they may have found one. If we find ourselves relying on him rather than McSheffrey this season, we'll be competing a lot more healthily. As for the prospect of Daniel de Ridder doing likewise, well, he had a couple of touches and then got injured prompting the "he's gone" signal from the physio to the bench, so we may not find out for another few weeks or even months.
Another slight concern for Bruce may be Doyle's performance and his conceding of two goals that he got more than just fingertips too - he probably should have saved both Chelsea's first and third goals. We all know Doyle has a lot of potential and was superb at the back end of last season, but these were the first glimpses of mistakes, so it'll be interesting to see how he recovers. He'll be in goal for the Sunderland game, but the pressure will be on him now, so it'll be good to see how he reacts - it's a decent test for him. Doyle's come a long way very, very quickly - it's easy to forget that - and so an opening game away from home at Chelsea will doubtless have brought nerves and may have contributed to his below par performance. I won't crucify him yet.
All in all, Blues can be quite pleased with their opening game. Yes, they lost, which is never good, but it was away at Chelsea and they gave it a go. Chelsea were the better team and deserved to win - Florent Malouda was sensational - but Blues made them work and had them wasting time at the end. Had Ridgewell connected better with a free header late on when Blues put on some pressure, it may have been even better, but very few teams will manage to beat Petr Cech twice in a game at Stamford Bridge this season, so there's positives to take.
Wednesday night and Sunderland at home is where the season starts for Blues now really, and that's a big, big game. There'll be a few interesting decisions that need to be made too. I can understand picking just the one proper striker for Chelsea away - I'm sure we all can. We might not necessarily agree, but we can appreciate why it's done, and Blues did fairly well in attacking anyway. However, I don't think many people would understand a similar formation at home to Sunderland - you need a front two of two proper strikers. That means Kapo needs to be accommodated elsewhere, and I'd suggest that after his efforts today (he tracked back and defended well and showed he may not be the luxury player people may have expected) he should play wide left of a midfield four, probably with Larsson wide right, which means dropping McSheffrey. Is Steve Bruce brave enough to drop McSheffrey though? Is he brave enough to go with two up front and playing Kapo in midfield? We shall see...
One thing's for sure - Sunderland need to be attacked. They beat Spurs, but Spurs were dreadful and Sunderland weren't a great deal better. They lined up with a central midfielder at right-back and a left winger and left-back, and so are there for the taking. Paul McShane had a fair game too, but looks like a Darren Purse type to me - there's mistakes waiting to happen in him. Dickson Etuhu also played well for them in the middle of the park, but he's a Muamba type, and Muamba's better. Blues' squad is comfortably stronger than Sunderland's, and on Wednesday they'll need to prove it.
As far as starts to the season go, 6/10 - promising, but work still needs to be done.