Van Butsen

It's not about his development. It wasn't RLC 1 - Liverpool 1. It was for the team, the most senior player on the bench was brought on to see out the game. It only takes 1 mistake to score a goal.

Insulted? For being brought off the bench to relieve one of your team mates, add some height for the long ball and ensure your team gets through the game with a point. I hope he doesn't feel insulted to do is job. Christ if he bought on one of the even younger players they may have been so insulted that they would never have recovered

Under Armour yep, another one similar in size/growth is BLK. There is also a number of big brands that are now spreading into other sports not traditionally associated with them, Asics into Cricket for one. Think the deal will already be done in principle

I'm not nearly as concerned considering there is quite an emerging market for sports wear brands tackling the traditional giants. My bet is an ambitious company looking for a global foothold. We can't presume we are now both sh*t at football and business can we?

http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest-news/2016/05/chelsea-and-adidas-go-into-final-year-of-partnership.html?extcmp=SOCIA_FB_ENG_ADIDAS A little trivial.. never the less, adidas is probably my least favourite sporting apparel brand. Looking forward to some fresh designs. On a side note, has anyone noticed that our poor season coincided with losing Samsung as our main shirt sponsor?

Somebody is taking the absolute piss here, Pedro now set to wear the famous face mask

Welcome, few Aussies about

I doubt we'll ever be blessed with the wealth of leaders the club has had in the last 10 years for a long time. I doubt any club will either. If having John Terry, Branislav Ivanovic, Gary Cahill, Jon Obi Mikel, Cesc Fabregas and Pedro in your squad is not enough leadership then Id be a little worried. I don't think having Cech or Drogba in our squad would have got us to 4th or passed Paris.. so i think it's been far more positive than negative.

What were the club meant to learn from those decisions? From my point of view, the club has learnt Traore can play a bit and he can score, keep him on the books. Another year with Drogba in the team and they wouldn't know and we'd be crying out for the young guy to get game time, as if we aren't already. They've also seen Tibo is human, is susceptible to some bad form and definitely still needs some high quality coaching to fulfill his potential. If Cech was still here we'd have articles about one player or the other not enjoying their time. It's been the senior players and leaders that have let us down this year, a few more would have only hindered the problem.

Not sure I'm following this logic unless you also think Cech is in the top 3 goalkeepers in the world?

Am I allowed to ask what is it that everyone dislikes so much about the match day thread?

As the above poster mentioned, he certainly has on and off days with all those things you mentioned... even in-game he can have 2,3, 4 bad first touches then his 5th go will be a delight. It's infuriating at times. One thing I'm sure of though is that he puts the ball in the back of the net if given the chance. So many strikers around come in and hold the ball up nicely, direct nice passes out wide or have run at a defender or two.. but then they can't put the ball in the god dam net. I don't think he'd enjoy it, but i think he'd be a super substitute when chasing the game. I'd back him to get one in more often than not with a lot of delivery.

There is no chance Liverpool will want their form to dip leading into a European cup final... They will be red red hot and I'm struggling to see how we'll stop them here. Not to sound like a broken record, but a few youth prospects with a desire to make an impression would do wonders for us in this game!

Yeah, f*ck the world game! Why is it sickening?

Zero mental capacity

I don't necessarily think his time is up, but I do agree with everything else you've said. I support the club, even if I don't agree with the decision. Onwards and upwards

Perhaps JT was holding back a few potential leaders in our ranks? Perhaps some of them wanted to take on more but felt they couldn't or didn't want to overshadow the man?

Purely speculation, but I've heard that he doesn't want to budge on the 'highest paid player' clause that he's had in his contract for a while. However in JT's words, he's never even seen a contract offer so. There is hardly a footballing person in the world who thinks his time is done, so I'm thinking it does have something to do with money.

In case we needed any more confirmation, Andreas has featured in the BM kit reveal for next season.. As much as that's a trivial way to confirm something, i think it's as good as settled he's staying.

Newcastle/Sunderland is a better night out

Seems a few professional sports are leaning away from having a central figure as captain, implementing a range of things like leadership groups, attacking/defensive captains, weekly/seasonal captain. Personally I don't like that approach, having a great captain can really lift a team like nothing else especially when there is emotion involved. But perhaps other clubs and sports have moved away from this because of the increasing lack of emotional attachment players have to their club? Perhaps, like sports science, they progressed and realised having many leaders is better than one? I'm not so sure. I like rallying behind one figure, but maybe something different could be explored? I love Dave but I don't think he's ready to be the captain.

A lot of people are suggesting it will be difficult to lure quality players without the champions league carrot.. rightly so, but I don't think it's the be all and end all. As an example, if you're a player being chased by both Leicester and Chelsea, with the utmost respect possible to Leicester, I still look at Chelsea being the more chosen option in most cases. I might be biased, but i think we have a lot more to offer which out weighs the fact Leicester are playing champions league next season.

Yep, Sunderland are going to be right up for this game. Be interesting to see if we have the mental capacity to put in a real shift, might actually work more favorably to give some young ens a go.. I'd put costa, willian and dave on ice for this one