mickyg

If I was David Moyes, I'd be more interested in looking behind me than at the game!

Well played Anelka.

On the positive side, Luiz looks great.

Brilliant photo! The good news for me is that my 51-year-old body doesn't look that much worse... The bad news is that I was never one of the best English footballers ever!

At least Frank is playing well - some very intelligent passes.

Mod: Not sure why, but entering 'B' and ')' leads to a "smiley face"?!?

I have been trying to come up with a logical explanation of our drop in form, and to compare it with last year's success... My thought was to list all the possible causes, and then give a percentage weighting to each. Please add, correct, or delete as you see fit... Possible Causes: A) Players are less skillful than last year B) Players are less fit C) Other teams are better than last year D) The tactics are not as good as last year E) There is less of a team spirit than last year - something has disturbed the machine F) The fans are not doing as much as last year G) Injuries have been more significant than last year H) Football is always a bit random - a couple of 50-50 balls going the other way, a couple of refereeing decisions being different, a couple of passes beating the defense, and maybe we'd would be top I) ??? My estimate on weighting is... E). 50% G). 30% H). 20% What do you think?

I'll be happy with just the Champions League this season.

I'd bring on Makelele!

We're giving the ball away too much. Not sure if it symptom or a cause.

Perfect.

Sometimes Ramires seems too slight of build.

Well - I got the 3-0 part ... just got it the wrong way round!

The Manchester Evening News is reporting speculation that Wayne Rooney might be sold in January and goes on to say: "And with Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and even mega-rich rivals Manchester City all expected to launch a bidding war for Rooney, United will be looking for more than the £80m they got for Cristiano Ronaldo." If Chelsea did buy him, would you be happy? Would he fit in? Personally, I don't think it would be a good move - he wouldn't fit in.

I think whichever team scores next will win.

I think I'm re-watching the second half of the game against Wigan!

Great to see Essien walking out onto the pitch!

Sad to see him go. Lucky or not, he was in the right position against Utd to score a goal that, for me, looking back with perfect and happy hindsight, was the key goal of the season. Now thinking of him in a red shirt is really difficult to process.

Well, mathematically of course, every win this season was worth three points - whether it was against Birmingham or Arsenal. Except that it isn't that simple...that's not what a close season hinges on. We all knew that the key rival throughout the season was Man Utd. OK, Arsenal could hang-about. And we could take a trip to “longer-shot-land†- the land of Liverpool, Spurs, Villa, and a hopeful City- and wonder if they could grab glory. But in the end it was us versus Man U. So given the threat of United - for me, the season-defining and pivotal-moment, was the win at Old Trafford. The half-luck, half-brilliance- goal from Joe was probably the most important goal of the season. The win against the scum was great - but was only important because we had won at Old Trafford. I’m guessing that if we asked the players; “What was your most important win?†it would be the oneon that Old Trafford day.

Ha! Very good point. Let's hope it's soon.

I think we would have won easily if the pitch had been smoother.

Sunday was one of the best days of my life... Anyway, the random thought is....if the laws of football had been changed at the start of the season and the offside rule had been got rid of, then, just for the fun of it, how would this have impacted the season's outcome? When I played football during break at school, we had no offside, and sure enough, there would be a "goal-hanger" on each team who stood near the keeper and hoped to get a goal or two. And, I can't imagine anyone who could do that better than Mr. Drogba. Also maybe the average distance of passes would increase as the game "stretches out", so not sure who gains from that? Maybe the elimination of offsides would relatively harm the fastest players most, so Ballack gains and a Walcott or Wright-Philips loses out? Well, the beauty of winning the league is you can now turn your mind to harmless happy thoughts!

Well, as many people in this thread stressed, Chelsea had to win all the points from the final games. Man U gave up nothing, and that makes it even sweeter.

Wigan are by no means useless.

With our goal difference, even a draw at Sunderland crowns us today.