Jack

I know very little about Copenhagen but what I do know is that they will have that extra 10% that a roaring crowd gives you. What I know about us is that 1) we can't string passes together to save our lives at the moment, and 2) we have a number of players who cannot seem to keep the ball even when it's at their feet (Lamps, Drogba, Malouda, Kalou, Torres). Those factors together mean a draw will be a good result, 0-0.

Our current predicament is the result of bad decisions made by the club since the summer - tired players back from the world cup have had to play game after game without rest because we sold/let go so many good soliders; then we let one of our generals go without reason, Wilkins; and the final problem is now we have to change the way we play to accommodate Romans' new train set,Torres. The season is a right off because we also have too many jumped-up twats who think they don't have to work to get results - Drogba, Essien, Malouda, Kalou, Anelka, Mikel. For me I'd sack Malouda for the whole ring fiasco today - professional footballer who doesn't know to remove the bloody thing and as a result spends 10 mins off the pitch!? I'd have subbed him on the spot and sent him home - we'll you'd have done it with a school kid, wouldn't you? But that's another problem - the coaching staff are a joke, no assertion, no initiative, no idea. The club is on the way down and bar a couple of results we've played like a relegation side - worse than the Spammers, WBA, Wolves and others. Beware, there are many humiliations to come - starting with Tuesday night when a fit, hungry Copenhagen will beat our lazy, over-fed side. We lack motivation, ideas and spirit. Ok rant nearly over. Solutions? I have none. Too many f**k ups to fix overnight. Time to re-build big style. Watched Milan play Spuds earlier in the week and was shocked at how similar they looked to us - plodding, no ideas, terrible to watch. Ancellotti has turned us into an ageing, fat, bloated joke just like his old Milan side. Where we go from here is a mystery. The kids are good but just kids. I've listed the players who need to move on and you can add JT and Lamps to that which leaves us with....nothing. Winning the odd game has just papered over the cracks. It's a sad situation but we will finish below Spuds and Man City and may not even make the top six. If Carlo is still at the club in six months I'll be amazed, but for me signing an out-and-out striker like Torres is the last nail in the coffin. Just when we needed to be a team we sign a player who needs it on a plate for him and isn't even prepared to help lay the table. We've gone as a force in the this league - a few more weeks and we could be looked on as a joke. Prediction - 7th or 8th in the league - nowhere near the Champions League - Liverpool will finish above us and will get back into the CL before we do. Goodnight.

1997 - FA Cup Winners - Manager leaves Jan 98 2000 - FA Cup Winners - Manager leaves Sept 2000 2007 - FA Cup Winners - Manager leaves Sept 2007 2009 - FA Cup Winners - Manager leaves same day (effectively)! 2010 - FA Cup Winners - .................................????

Two things - firstly those of you lucky enough to be at the game (probably already there or on your way) give Ossie my best, and secondly don-a-worry, whatever happens today we are in far better shape than anyone else in the Prem, this is a freebie in terms of the league situation and although we'd all like to win it by 20 points, I'll settle for a one goal-diference 1st place come May! Don't stress about this one - the Arse may turn us over today but in the great scheme of things would you rather be us or them? ...and yes, I have had a drink!

Not interested in the supposed Villa injuries - whatever 11 they stick on the pitch we have to remember it's a Martin O'Neill team, and they have caused us problems down the years (remember Leicester?). As far as our 11 goes, the back 5 picks itself, Mikel and Lamps will take 2 of 3 midfield slots, Drogba up front with Malouda wide left, so just two positions to fill; Deco or Ballack in midfield, Cole, Sturridge, Anelka or Kalou wide right. Personally I'd go for Kalou deep with Cole ahead of him purely for their pace and invention. I'd never have had Deco at the club, don't see what anyone sees in him, not fit to lace Joey's boots. Ballack is shot, gone, o'er the hill and far away! Sturridge is only useful as an impact player, an extra striker if you need a goal, but not a starter. Anelka has suffered due to the role he's been asked to play - wide, deep, holding midfield, I don't know where he's being asked to play, but whatever it doesn't work. It'll be tough tomorrow and probably not very pretty but Lamps' confidence should have taken a boost, as well as Joey and a few others. Start strong, impose ourselves on the game, get the crowd behind us and push on to victory! 2-0, JT and Alex!

Ok so much for all the doom and gloom - the fightback starts here! We (the fans, the players, the management) must be positive. Statistically there is everything to play for, so while that's the case the guys who got us into this situation have to be given the chance to get us out of it. Pompey are not the worst team in the league and you have to admire them just for turning up every week! The fans (including the w**ker with the bell!) will be behind them 100% as per usual and we'll have to give it our best to win the 3 points. We're now in the position of underdogs and will almost certainly go to Old T playing catch-up, but it is all ifs and buts. The beauty of it all is we now aren't expected to do anything and the mentality is to take one game at a time, rest, and go again. I expect the personnel to be roughly the same mainly due to the fact there are no options - Ballack is injured so we have Mikel, Lampard and deco as out and out midfielders, kalou, drogba, anelka and malouda up front, cole falls into both camps and the back 4 are the last 4 available plus carvalho - but it's the attitude I want to see change. Be ruthless, be clinical, be hungry and lay down a marker. I predict 3-0 - Lampard, Drogba and Anelka in that order!

To be honest I don't think Carlo will change, but I think getting rid is the wrong way forward. We need stability but Carlo needs to be more pro-active, to find a way to make us a better team, one that makes up for his lack of inspiration. Guardiola may not inspire his team but they're that good, they don't need it! The man needs to get us to play better so he can sit on his fat one and watch!

OK, lets pick over the bones of this one! Once again a failure to just keep the f***ing ball undoes us. From the very first minute of the 2nd half I was convinced Blackburn were going to equalise, not because of any superior play but simply due to the fact that they had the ball 80% of the time. The quality of any team is irrelevant - if they have the ball at some point or other they will create chances and if they do that one will eventually go in. It happened at Wolves a few weeks ago but we luckily held out (somehow) and then got a straight-forward 2nd goal which stole Wolves' confidence and the points. Yesterday, through a lack of clinical finishing, we didn't have the cushion and so Blackburn were encouraged, simply beacuse they had so much of the play (anm I beginning to sound like a broken record?). Before I go on, let me just make a list of excuses that are irrelevant: Injuries (everyone has them) Shape (good players make it work) The pitch (as above) Midweek defeat (get over it) Any other excuse we hear from the very nice Ancellotti and the even nicer Butch Wilkins is just designed to deflect from the failings of the team. Not good enough - that's the bottom line. The experience of winning a title is there (though possibly fading after 4 years) but the know-who can never replace application. Doing it in one half of football and not in the very next half is unforgiveable for a team that wants to win the league, any league. I don't expect us to recover from this - this was a fatal blow to a team lacking direction, and surely that goes back to the manager/coach. Whatever you may say about Mourinho's Inter on Tuesday, he'd have got us up for this one and found a way to inspire us. Cuddy Carlo looks like he knows how to produce a winning team, but not how to INSPIRE one! So to wednesday. When I bought tickets to take my wife to see Paloma Faith at the O2 in Birmingham for our anniversary, Chelsea did not have a fixture. When the Pompey game was shifted I thought of feigning some sort of terrible virus in order to get out of it. Now I'm quite happy to go so I don't have to suffer another p*ss-poor performance! Portsmouth, with all their problems, have more heart and spirit than our bunch of over-paid tits. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't produce again. Even if we do get the points, I expect them to be hard-fought and untidy. They have pace and bottle - we have a cuddly manager and a lack of fight. To be honest a defeat might be a good thing, the win only papering over the ravines, but that may lead Roman into a knee-jerk reaction. Sacking Ancellotti would be yet another backward step - he just needs to up his game, really learn what it means to fight for the title in this country. Hopefully we can secure 3rd (yes, I'm serious) and then have the (shortened due to the World Cup) summer to re-jig, lick our wounds and come out fighting. The mind-set has changed so much we need a fresh start, both on the pitch and off it. Do we have the desire and heart?

Hi guys, haven't been around for yonks mainly due to my disgust with the club for letting Jose go and the consequent fall-out on here with several of you, so I think it's appropriate to post now after yesterdays game. It wasn't a surprise to me that Jose out-thought Carlo Ancellotti last night - he's done it plenty of times to better managers than our one-eyed current incumbent! The main point I want to make (rather than just saying I told you so - but I did tell you so!) is that we have finally lost the fundamentals that Jose taught us, which were to keep possession of the ball and don't make simple mistakes. The number of unforced errors this Chelsea team have started to make is incredible, and even players like Frank Lampard are giving the ball away cheaply. Jose came to us and said he would create a team in his image and according to his football philosophy. That philosophy included as a basic building block teaching the team to keep the ball. There was one sequence last night where we gave the ball away five times in succession culminating in a needless foul by Ballack. And it's not just been last night - we've been doing it for weeks and weeks. Ancellotti doesn't seem to value possession as much as Jose does and consequently Everton, Man City and Inter twice have beaten us quite easily. People are now talking about an ageing team, can Drogba and Anelka play together, will Joe Cole stay etc., but I feel we have to get back to basics. It's been a complaint from some that we don't move the ball quickly enough and we don't play with enough width but if you keep giving the ball away it doesn't matter what you do or who is playing well. Finally for the future - if anyone here thinks this is a good thing re: our chances for the EPL, think again. It doesn't neccessarily follow that because you have less games you'll be better than the opposition. I find it hard to believe we can win games at 3 point lane, Old trafford and Anfield playing the way we are at the moment. It'll be the best title win of all if we can pull it off but to be honest I can't see us winning anything. Painful as it may be I don't see us reacting and turning round what has been a series of poor away performances dating back 3 months - Inter, Everton, Hull, Birmingham, West Ham, Man city (we've only won games at Preston, Burnley and Wolves in all that time) - and winning at the big clubs without a radical change of form, and that doesn't happen overnight. Excuses about players out and dodgy refs are all very good but the fact of the matter is that we're just not any good at controlling a game, taking charge and bossing the ball. I know it may not sound like it, but I'm hurting as much as anyone else here, but to be honest I've been hurting since we sacked Jose. I thought and I still think it was the most stupid decision the club has made in my time as a supporter - to sack the best young manager because of why? I still don't know - some people say we were boring, too negative, the enemy of football. Well I'd rather be all of those things and win big titles than play good football and win nothing. We let the rest of Europe off the hook and now instead of being a force to be reckoned with we're licking our wounds and crossing our fingers. The football we play is pants, the trophys we win (well one cup beating only two EPL teams) are non-existent and the future - well looks a bit sh*t, doesn't it?

I can't take any of you seriously, especially the Aussie twat who can't spell or punk-too-ate! Qaz, you are the idiot! Coco, feel free to slap me, and I will remove your testicles with a blunt instrument for having the nerve to even mention Zola in the same post. Feel free to slap yourself in the knackers! dkw - I've just re-read my post. I don't see the word greedy in there anywhere? Is the shift key broken on your keyboard or can you just not be bother with either reading or writing? Ok I'll (note the apostrophe, Qaz and dkw!) let you into a secret. I grew very tired of this place a while back, I re-visit occasionally to try and re-kindle my enthusiasm (or is it to wake you twats up?) but it's become as boring as I'm sure you all are with my posts. The rah-rah-rah approach leaves me cold these days, the blind support, the badge-kissers, the disgusting amounts of money that slosh around, the egos and most of all the bandwagon supporters from here there and everywhere around the globe. It just ain't football anymore, it's a business and a sick and GREEDY one for all that. Deco comes for the dosh and to polish his ego a bit more, and you all fall to your knees open-mouthed ready to suck his dick, hence the play on words some of you took objection to! There - I've had my 15 seconds of fame. Feel free to say "good riddance", or "thank God", and continue to debate the 'shape' of the team till it comes out of your ears. I think we're all being conned by these charlatans who take home more money per week than a family of four do in a year, posing and tatting themselves 'at the end of the day'. I'm tired of the cliches, the utter drivel, the banality of it all. Fergie can shag Ronaldo up the tookers for all I care, it's become a bit of a joke (like you, yes, yes not all at once). For the odd one or two around here who can still put one word after another, I salute you. You should stop all this tittle-tattle and write a book (no I'm serious), but the other 99% need to get out more, and I don't mean for a drink or twenty. Have fun guys. ;)

I must be watching a different game to the vast majority of the (increasingly younger) posters round these here parts, but if anyone really thinks Dico is the sort of player who will propel us that extra bit forward that we need to win trophies, you are sadly mistaken. Fergie must be pissing his pants at the joke that is our Brazillian No. 20, even moreso than when we gave them £16m or whatever it was for V*r*n! Some of you think he'll be player of the season, others that he's the answer to all our problems. For me, he's the start of all the trouble we will encounter this season. I've watched him over the past couple of seasons and the first few appearances for us confirm for me that the guy is not a team player. He's only interested in making himself look good - yes the tricky, flicky sh*te is back! But what's worse is this guy does it 25 yards from his own goal, the cardinal sin. Against a decent team, losing the ball in your own half is usually fatal. Dico did it 4 times against Lokomotiv the other day. If we'd been playing a decent side like say Sp*rs (yes, now I've got your attention!) and two of those stupid mistakes had been punished, how would he be viewed then? Player of the season? The MAN? Sorry but I pray he gets a knock today so we can play proper footballers in our midfield. Scolari obviously fancies the pants off him, so when Ballack or Frank is sat on the bench and this twat flicks another one to the opposition and then puts his hand up in apology, how are they going to feel? The part of all this that really galls me is that we have the man in the squad to do all the things that Dico does, but do it responsibly and with his heart clearly in the club, and that man is Joey Cole. I fear he will be sidelined more and more as Scolari struggles to incorporate everyone - with Dico as the first name on the teamsheet of course! Ok, debate this among yourselves if you wish. I'm just putting it out there, his lack of professionalism is my defence. Watch the bloke carefully and tell me he's someone you want in your team week in week out. I'm certain that Fergie is delighted that we have a weak, selfish twat in the middle of our team, and maybe Benitez, Wenger and Ramos ain't too unhappy either! I for one am very, very unhappy that we've managed to resurrect the ghost of V*r*n - lets hope he doesn't haunt us for too long.

Plus points for me tonight - Essien, can play anywhere and do a top job; Lamps, strolled around and looked imperious; Ricky and JT, the dogs bollickios. Negatives - Deco, for me he's a total idiot, always looking for the flash trick/pass, gave the ball away in areas which will cost us against better opposition; SWP - please go to Pompey, hopeless; Joey Cole, had a poor half, looks a bit lost; Malouda - how he got French footballer of the year I'll never know, a joke perhaps?;and generally the way we play - too open, too free, too lax. Play that way, with Deco farting about and SWP falling over his feet, Malouda unable to control the ball and Mikel showing all his studs to row Z and we'll get nowhere. Sorry guys but this pre-season has looked as pants as the last one. If we don't spank a very old, unfit Milan on Sunday morning I'll be surprised, but Lokomotiv were rubbish and we struggled in the 2nd half. Ok maybe they were fitter but we didn't use any common sense - between Deco, Malouda, Mikel and SWP I think we have the makings of an IQ of about 75....at best! Some of you may say they aren't first choice players, but it's a squad game now and we don't shape up in a lot of positions. Add the fact that Scolari is under orders to play a more expansive game and you have the recipe for instability.

WOE, WOE AND THRICE WOE!

Samaritans? Happy pills? Listen, I'm not pessimistic, just realistic. All the factors I listed will come into play this season -yes Maka is 35 and we will play a different way, and Lamps is a professional but... Sorry, just can't feel like anything has taken much of a step forward. I wait to be proven wrong, I hope to be proven wrong, but I was right last season (although roundly condemned for my 'pessimism'), and unfortunately I think I'll be right again this.

Burning with optimisms flames? Not really. We're more a train running low on soul coal, I'm afraid. It's all well and good to look at pre-season with Blue-coloured glasses and think everything is rosy in the garden, but that's just the Chelsea tv slant - "13 goals for and none against", as they keep rattling out, as if it actually means something! Here are a few reasons why I'm not as optimistic as I have been at the start of the past few seasons: 1) Maka has gone. Whatever anyone says about Essien or Mikel Obi or anyone else given the task of following the genius that was Claude Makelele, they will never come close. The bloke has been integral to our success over the past 3 or 4 seasons and is irreplaceable, simple as that. Thanks Maka for all the body-swerves, the unsung match-winning tackles, the impish cheeky of you - thanks. 2) We have no forwards - Drogba is off, either in body or spirit. Very few of us want him to stay, he doesn't want to stay, but go or stay makes no difference - the relationship is over. Sheva is an ex-striker, shuffling around seeking past glories. Anelka is not a goal scorer, Di Santo isn't ready and there's no-one else, is there? Scolari seemed to cope without any notable firepower with the Portugal team, but what did they win? Nice football but winning football? 3) United will be stronger. Some of their players are now seasoned veterans yet barely out of nappies. If they add Berbatov or someone of similar class we won't get near them. 4) Scolari won't be able to cope with the strains of an egotistical squad and a packed schedule - I have nothing to base this on, just a gut feeling. The squad is happy at the moment, but when Frank or Ballack or Joey Cole are left out, and he reads them the riot act, I sense anger will become division. Remember Ballack's response to being subbed last season? Scolari won't take that from him, and Ballack won't take kindly to being scolded by Scolari. Again just a feeling. 5) Lampard. Love the bloke, admire his strength of character and the way he plays his heart out for the shirt, but it needs to be resolved one way or t'other. Sign the contract or leave. It'll hang over us until January, at which point he'll cut us to the core by signing a pre-contract to re-join Jose. If it's all still up in the air, the club will suffer. Will Scolari play him? If he has a bad game will we all be thinking his mind is elsewhere? Too distracting, too difficult. Fair enough I could probably have listed a whole load of reasons why we'll be riding that wave of success again, and I concede it's a complicated game, but I do think we'll be the disappointed ones again this season. I'm not just trying to be the smartest monkey around these here parts and maybe I'm just having one of my cynical days, but I really don't see how all these factors can possibly add up to us being stupidly happy.