ethicalstrategy

To be fair Sheva looked the most likely scorer for us yesterday. The 4-3-3 without Drogba will not yield us many goals because the wingers we have are not in the same class as Robben and Duff were. As soon as we switched to 4-2-3-1 and got SWP off we looked much more dangerous.

I can't think of one good reason why he shouldn't be allowed to stay. The whole thing's a farce. If he was homeless and sponging of the state then fine, but he's not. He has a full time job with a professional football team - well Watford, but you know what I mean - Personally I think it is bureaucracy gone mad. Try concentrating on something important instead I say.

What do people feel is our best formation? a) when everyone is available and B) when the African boys are away For me: a) ---------------Cech Ferreira ----- Carvalho----JT------Cole ----------------Mikel -------Essien------------Lampard Cole-------------------------Kalou --------------Drogba B) ---------------Cech Ferreira------Carvalho---JT------Cole --------Ballack------Lampard Malouda--------Cole----------Sinclair -----------Sheva If JT is out then Alex seems a pretty sound replacement. Belletti and Bridge are good cover for full back. Midfield we have Sidwell and Maka as cover. Wide we are really short of quality. I have given up on SWP after his last two performances. Let's give Sinclair a bit more of a chance. Upfront we have Pizzaro to cover for Sheva so again we need to strengthen. Really we need a top quality winger and striker in january.

After 10 minutes of the second half I was struggling to find anything very positive about the match. but in the end I felt there were some good things that can be taken forward if we learn our lessons well. We saw that even in our current state we can compete and will never be a pushover for anyone. We saw that without Drogba we will need to play a different formation if we want to carry any attacking threat. Against Valencia we used this 4-2-3-1 formation with some success and we finished up playing that yesterday and looked much more dangerous. The big question is who should play where in that formation? It has been Pizzaro playing in the hole behind Sheva, but I would like to see Cole in there. We saw that SWP is just not up to it. There were others who had bad games but SWP has consistently proved to be useless. It's no good beating your man and then being clueless. We saw that Ben Haim is a disaster waiting to happen. Who the hell passes the ball back to their keeper from 4 feet when all they have to do is put their boot through it? We saw Wenger be very cute tactically when playing Joe Cole. He knew that Cole didn't have the pace to beat Sagna or Clichy and so all they had to do was make sure Joe didn't get turned so that he could run at them. They managed it very well and Joe just kept giving the ball away trying to dribble his way through 3 players. We need to think long and hard about how we use him. He is not a winger or a wide player really. He just doesn't have the pace. Was Cech fully fit? Gullit mad the point that he had had a calf injury and maybe that restricted him a little in his jump. He was trying just to tip the ball away, which was the right thing to do, but he just didn't get up high enough to make the contact. A shame as it ultimately cost us the game, but I was still impressed that it really didn't seem to affect him at all for the rest of the game - a sure sign of a really top keeper. It would be unfair to place the blame for the defeat yesterday at Grants feet. He had a limited squad to choose from and pretty much did everything as you would have expected. He can't be blamed for a goalkeeping error. My only reservation is that in this world there are winners and also-rans. We know Jose was a winner. The question is will Grant be a winner or another Claudio? Early signs are that he is a Claudio.

Roman had to agree to a long term contract. He just couldn't risk Avram being tempted away by another top european club. I can see his point Seriously, why not wait and see instead of potentially landing yourself with a big payoff liability if things don't work out. If he proves a great success then he will still end up having to renegotiate the contract anyway. Clearly the russian mind works in mysterious ways.

Doesn't sound as drastic as I first thought. He sold his 5% stake to the existing chairman and owner. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 142408.stm Doesn't sound like it will effect them much.

And a bloody good response it was too - probably why I completely ignored it at the time. Anyway I reserve the right to bring this up again in the future, hopefully when you're not looking. (I just prefer the flicky, wasteful, non-productive, joyful Joe much more than the Sidwell version) Joe obviously frustrated Jose and no doubt it worked the other way round too. I wouldn't agree that Jose didn't like or wouldn't accommodate creative players - he had Deco at Porto. But the team always came first for him and he wouldn't have any truck with players that didn't play within the structure that he wanted. Personally, I thought it was good for Joe's game. Jose's 2nd season was far and away Joe's best year for us, but I understand that others prefer to see him beat the same man three times without actually moving from the spot he started

The facts on appearances were posted before (and ignored): *repost These are the premier league appearances for some players under Mourinho. Number of games started/Number of substitute appearances Lampard 111/1 Terry 101/1 Makelele 91/6 Carvalho 75/5 Drogba 73/21 Ferreira 65/9 Even...Robben 51/16 Cole 48/30 Shevchenko by the way 21/9 *repost Disregard the number of appearances if you like but please look at the ratio of starts to substitute appearances. It is also true as you know that he was almost always substituted when he did start. This season, under Grant, he has made 15 starts (4th highest in the squad) with 5 substitute appearances. Cole is happier under Grant because he is playing for a coach who trusts him, lets him do what he is good at, and gives him playing time in which to do it. As indeed was my response to those stats:: Repost: The idea that Jose had some sort of personal vendetta against Joe is nonsense. He wanted Joe to play in a particular way - just like he wanted every other member of his team to play in a particular way. If players weren't able to do as he wanted then they got subbed/dropped etc. He may have seemed extra harsh on Joe because it took a long time for this to sink in to his numbskull brain Once he got the idea by Jose's second season he played regularly. He started 26 premier league matches and was sub in a further 8. The only players who started more were Cech, Terry, Gallas, Essien, Makelele and Lampard. In other words he started more than Drogba, Crespo, Robben, Duff, Guddy and SWP - all the other attacking members of the squad!! Last season was more or less a write off because of injury, but he still played when he was available including at the end of the season in the CL and FA Cup. Repost. In other words, when he satisfied Jose that he could do the job he became an integral part of the team. It was only injury last season that kept him out. The start of this season his form was poor and so he had to work to get his place back. I would suggest that it revolved around the fact that he expected Jose to be leaving so thought he could stop doing the things that had made him a better player.

You don't think that's implied then. You don't think that Joe might be enjoying his greater freedom (and increased playing time). Almost certainly implied by Joe but I think not by Petr. Joe has/had a vested interest in Jose going in so much as Jose made him work hard at his game and wouldn't let him just play however he liked. I have heard him make comments which suggest that he is happier now than he was when Mourinho was in charge. Personally I think it was better for him but I can understand that he would prefer to play for someone who wasn't on his case so much. Joe's playing time is a myth. He played plenty under Jose when he was fit. It was nobodys fault he spent most of last season injured. Cech was just commenting on the game. Nothing wrong with that.

This time that god of merseyside has been done Raiders target Gerrard's mansion That's number six now. Incredible.

Becoming a regular occurance. - Derby away, Sunderland at home, Rosenborg at home.Dunno if it's a coincidence but it seems to be whenever Sheva plays up front I'm afraid, or at least when Drogba's missing. I don't know that you can place all the blame on Sheva though. Last night there were others who should have scored. And we did win against Derby and Sunderland. and Sheva did score against Sunderland and Rosenborg. But clearly we are worse off without Drogba - but what can you do. We are never going to have someone as good just sitting on the bench waiting to replace him when he's injured or away at the ACN. As long as we can remain defensively solid then we will win more games than not. The matches against Arsenal and Liverpool in the next week will tell us a lot I think.

It was tough to pick anyone who really shone above anyone else last night. I went for JT because he was his usual solid self in defence but he also enjoyed himself going forward much more than normal. He showed that he really is a very skillful player with some lovely touches. Perhaps when Riccky is fit JT can play in behind Sheva? Of course the actual man of the match was Canizares. I particularly liked his headed save from his own defender. Top class.

I think Arsenal will finish runners up in their group so that would rule out Sevilla as a possibility. Roma look the most dangerous but Olympiakos and Fenebache would both be quite tough.

What a strange match last night. I can't make my mind up what to think about it. Did we play well and were just very unlucky? or should we concerned that we couldn't score against a side that were a shadow of the team that played so well in last years quarter final at the Bridge and who really were not in the least bit interested in being there? I guess that the answer is a bit of both. Hopefully missing a hatful of chances means that on Sunday we will score from the only shot we have and that it will be the winner! SWP last night was absolutely shocking. He had a hatful of chances to cross the ball under no pressure and I can't remember him getting even one right. It really was pitiful. Kalou is an enigma. His general play was pretty sound but when he gets within 12 yards of the goal he has absolutely zero composure. How he missed that chance in the second half I'll never know. Pizzaro played a very strange role for most of the match. He seemed to sitting at the tip if some sort of midfield diamond. He certainly wasn't playing up front. He had some nice touches but he doesn't look like a goal scorer to me. He actually reminded me a bit of Eidur. Sheva spent a good part of the first half very isolated up front. He either was having to come very deep or go out wide to get the ball only to find that he was surrounded by about 4 Valencia players. I had assumed that we would try to play to his strengths now that Drogba is out for a while. He ought though to have done a lot better with his early chance. The half time change to 4-3-3 really didn't work at all. It was the only time in the match that Valencia were able to keep possession. We also then started to pump the ball up to Pizzaro who won absolutely nothing in the air. After Frank went off and we reverted back to the original formation we regained control and really should have won at a canter. Joe was very lively when he came on. He is most effective when he can pick the ball up, turn and run at the defence through the centre. Last night he had plenty of space to do this and he was unlucky not to score. Unfortunately he doesn't often get the opportunity to do that in the PL. Tal Ben Haim is an accident waiting to happen. Even last night he managed to almost give two goals away - firstly by completely missing a header and the secondly by diving in out wide and being beaten. I really hope Carvalho is back soon. So all in all a frustrating evening. By the end the fact we couldn't get the ball in the net became almost comical. The only good thing was that Valencia didn't go and score with their only chance.

Both Cole and Cech kept mentioning the good football we are playing in the post match interview. Are they being disrespectful to Mourinho? No not really - I didn't hear either of them say anything about how crap we were before.

Sorry. My mistake. Valencia can't qualify for the next stage. If they beat us and Schalke draw or lose to Rosenborg then they can finish third. I would expect Schalke to win though.

Bluenut, I'm happy to be a second in your corner mate (just don't do a Ricky! mind you Chippy's no pretty boy! )

I believe the correct pronunciation is: "Nigerian wonder kid Babayaro"

Not true, Valencia will try to win to get the third place and a UEFA cup spot, but to do so, they'll have to win and Shalke must at best tie the game against Rosenborg. Nope. Valencia can't get third. It is unfortunately an utterly meaningless game. I'll still be going though. When the draw was made this looked the pick of the ties in the group. Just goes to show how unpredictable football can be. I know people are suggesting that we play a weakened team ahead of Sunday's match but I really don't want us to lose. Our home record is something that I really cherish and I wouldn't want to see it given away. I also don't think it is actually that easy just to turn it on and off - winning is a habit and we need to keep it going. I just watched Avram's press conference on the BBC website and he looked very relaxed and was quite amusing. Looks as if he's growing in to the role which was nice to see.

If we have to look for someone we could do a lot worse than Tim Cahill. Maybe not as complete an all round player but he will get you his fair share of goals.

He has to realise that he can't have his cake and eat it!

Peter Kenyon might want to debate that one with you after his showing in the last couple of games for Arsenal. The guy is now 24 (?) and will not be playing too much for the gooners when Fabregas and Flamini are fit. I said I'd take him back, but I'm not so sure now.

Pretty much every time I hear him interviewed he comes out with something along the lines of: We are playing more attractive football: We are trying to play football the right way: we had to improve because we were poor before he came in: we had a terrible start to the season. After the match on Saturday he said "we played good" - he obviously wasn't at the same match as I was "what we did after not a good start (to the season) - even a bad start, to play good football, to improve our game....." Watch his press conference. We were poor on Saturday. We started well for 10 mins but after that really were pretty clueless. For 15 mins in the second half I was seriously worried that Sunderland would equalise as they dominated possession and we were running around like headless chickens. Fortunately we got the penalty and that killed the game. I am not complaining that we aren't playing better - particularly because the results are good - but I do get wound up when someone keeps telling me that we are playing well and improving and that they are doing a great job because they have turned a bad situation around when all of that is patent nonsense. Now if he were to say that his longer term aim was to change our style and that it would take time and that for now we would continue to play as we had been doing until the opportunity was there to develop the new style and new players be brought in who were suited to that. Or if he was to say that of course it is no surprise that we have been doing so well because we had a solid foundation laid down by the previous manager along with a squad of top class international players and that it was his aim is to take that forward and develop it in a more expansive way then I'd respect that.

It wouldn't be against the manager though - I won't take it to the matches I promise It would just counter balance your one man crusade and it's line by line analysis of anything which vaguely resembles something other than blind, unquestioning faith in the "Ordinary One" And is not the same. I wish we hadn't sacked him, but in the circumstances it was inevitable. Oh, and in any case it was a joke

Don't forget that there will undoubtedly be "a restricted service on the District line from Fulham Broadway" requiring fans to walk to Earl's Court. I usually set my watch by it with 10 mins to go in the match.