barak81

Out of interest while we are on the subject was is happening with this home growen rule that was supposedly coming to force this season?

You have to think how different it would be if the league let ya have 7 subs on the bench, think the youngsters might see a little more action if that were the case

Would mikel/essien work with mikel finaly being utilised further forwards and being able to feed the frount me far easier than in his more restricting role that he performs at the moment, alternativly this would be the ideal time for ballak to come back

To back up nibs point i think people are approaching this from two different perspectives... some are just seeing players that get there chance take it form dips loose there place, alls great and the way football should be!! Its not like that though and as others and my self have mentioned it does seem like joe has to double and some then the next guy to get a chance of a string of games... It took Jose months to drop and ineffective duff where as it takes one game to bench joe Any one that thinks lamps was any more pivotal in are 05/06 campaign needs to sit through the season again. Im not saying he was less important im saying in that particualr season both contributed massivly and there was a long period in the season where Joe seemed to be are only attacking spark! before x-mass and the first couple of months of the year. In this time i think he deffinatly laid down a marker for the kind of player he is and what he brings to the team and as Barn has said swp and i will add malouda from what ive seen are at there best still not as good. And yet he seemes to have been ignored by Jose once again. I have to admit if i was joe i would have had enough by now and have told my agent to find me a move. I can think of at least two managers that would through top doller at him in a heart beat. And he would get a whole lot more games for arsenal and manur

Where ya of to Bjd or have i missed that some where?

Thats fair comment brit but you have to admit for joe's point of view it does seem to be one rule for some and quite another for him. Example, imagine lamps last season if he had got injured for say a month and then all of a sudden essien ballak partnership burst on to the sceane and really started doing the buisness, do you honestly think that when lamps was fit again you woudlnt see essein back at right back to accomadate him and lamps re-instated

You havent actually given me a reason why you consider ronnaldo to be world class and not joe other than, thats the way it is... considering i gave you quite decent reasoning to why i beg to differ on that point. the fact that in ronnaldo's time in england The ONLY season that you could actually say he's had a better one than cole is a season he where cole has been injured. You your self have agreed this citing age as a reason why he's a better player. In that case can my nephew has been playing for makebelieve wanderers for 3 seasons now, at first he got of to a shaky start showed promise and good touch on the ball got pushed of it alot. Well last season he toughend up a bit and won there player of the season award as well as finishing top goal scorer... seeing as how he is 11 i would say that probably makes him better that ronnaldo already or would you say that was obsured logic?? With regards to the skill in the left toe of robinio, its a shame he's to offten having the ball whiped of him while trying to demonstrate it, maybe if it where in his foot as apposed to just his toe. The thing is if your talking about skill in terms of ability on the ball maybe you should try and find a bit of joe cole pre chelsea before he was harnesd!! Tricks to burn some would leave you very impressed and re-assesing that statment. I really believe if you had the privalge to watch him then you would not have made the robinio comment so quickly! The fact is that was every ones biggest problem with him, to much of a luxery player, a liability, great to wach but when it doesnt come of? Well he has been well and truly pulled in to place and IMO to the detriment of the paying public, i have always been a fan of having a player in the team where you say dont worry about the donky work, go an make things happen if you loose it your going to be high up the pitch and we got people to cover ya. However Jose thinks differently and to be fair the guy has a pretty good record so who am i to argue on that count! By the way this would be when Joe was 17 and ferguson was ready to offer anything spammers wanted to get hold of him!! Saviola is a good player, no argumnet... striker for a start so has little comparion hear but in terms of doing it for the big clubs on the big stage it hasnt really happend. It just doesnt for some people, they lack that little bit of class. I think this was glaringly obviuse when barca played scousers last season. going back to robinio's skill for a moment do you remmeber Jose domingez, think that was his name, phenomanle amout of trikery but never really produced much did he... I actually like robinio another more forward player than cole by the way but at the moment he is on the slipery slope to being another over hyped south ammerican player that failed to impress in europe!! Your post history does sugest quite glaringly that you dont rate english players very highly and you seem to feel that they are technicaly infiror to latin players if you like. If im mistaken well that would even things up because you wont find one bad word from me about belleti as of yet on these forums, yet you made out with out actually quoting any thing that i had slated a player that ive not even seen in a chealse shirt yet. By the way Im half anf half but there is a seriouse lack of tallent in israel

Valencia Schalke Rangers

Surely the point is that Joe may have started the season determined, but he didn't actually play that well, hence he fell behind SWP & Malouda in the pecking order. If he has a genuine beef it is maybe that he should have got a game instead of Kalou. But it will be a long season and just because you don't start in the first 4 league matches doesn't mean that you won't be playing regularly come Xmas. Out of interest what particular game's are you reffering to when you say he hasnt played that well!?? Because ive only seen him get on in two and he had bugger all time in those and still managed to do as much as both wingers in the short time he had which in those particualr games was not a lot

To be honest gem i think there is a lot more to this than people think

the fact that you ad cristiano, robinho and saviola to that list negates everything you say and just show's ya up for a "better to buy forighn because the english arnt that good merchant" Dont worry portuga, im not just going to attack your post with out explantion. Cristiano had a storming season last year no two ways about it pretty much draged manur to the title however he previouse 3 years where full of fancy tricks and no end product. I used to love it when he got the ball out wide becaue you knew he would wast the optimum time to cross it and let every opposition player get back in to position while he ponced arround. He was fast becoming a player that promised so much but deliverd so little! Now if we compare that to cole in his last couple of season that he has not been plagued by injury he was the most consistent and attacking force we have.. people with one season memorys like you seem to display above will not remmeber that, i suggest ya probably not strain ya self trying!! season before that i can pick out games that are every bit as impressive as any player you have names, barca and bayarn to name a few... Performing and dictating on the big occation, somthing a couple of players on your list have never really managed but ill get to that. Basicaly becaues of the "one season memory" syndrome that i mentioned you have decided that cristiano is better because he was great in a season when cole was injured for most of it while if we look at them over the past 4 years are you honestly trying to tell me cry on the telly ronnaldo has been better? if you are you need a new telly!! As for saviola and robinio, are you actually seriouse. Robinio has failed to impress in spain and is offten museled out of games in a league that should suit him far more than the EPL and savilo has never produced on the big stage. Neither are as good as cole, there just south ammeican thus you have a crush on them!! And more importantly neither have the mental tenacity that cole has and would have left the club a long time ago under the scurtiny that cole has had to deal with!! Which brings me to my final point really.... if its true im not all that supprised. Put your self in cole's position, has any player had to work harder to proove them selves to Jose, has any player had to take as much public critasisem from jose. And yet he still comes back working harder for himself and the team to try and proove a point. Now SWP and malouda have played well this season but i just happen to think that cole is a better player than both. best crosser of the ball along with bridge at the club and can effect the game out wide or in the middle!! a striker he aint but then we all new that!! Now regardless of form you have to be thinking to your self if your Joe, look over there at ballack, take a look at sheva last season... hell lets stair at frank!! all players that by there own standards had poor seasons last year and yet continued to be picked week in week out! because of what they may be able to do when they find a bit of form. Joe must be thinking that he hasnt actually done an awfull lot wrong, not actually had a dip in form but still cant earn the kind of trust showen in those guys, sooner or later your going to snap. PS sofa/portuga, let me respond on your behalf. "your english and your favoiret player is joe cole so you would say that,"

Got to be paulo if he's fit for the right back spot. we need essien in center mid and paulo seemes to do very well against wingers that like to go at him with a few fancy tricks.

Notice a lot of people condeming sheva before he has even kicked a competative ball. How about we wait and see how he does before we completly kick the guy when he's down!! Im not saying he's going to turn it all around and sudenly become the player he was, no one can predict that for cirtian but he deserves a fair crack as opposed to the right ripping he's getting for not even having kicked a ball yet.. let the papers do that!!

4 golas in the EPL was not good enough. I was going to have a punt on him for top goal scorer this season but as it stands i dont think he's going to be able to overcome the injurys to put enough games together

Like many over the past 4 years i have kind of fallen out of love with the england team for a variaty of reasons. However tonight and every night england play really im on lamps watch, Im willing him on to really put in a top performance and shut the natiotn know it all's up!! Every fan i seem to meet goes on about how frank ruins it for stievie me!! How quickly they forget and how easily the have the minds influenced by the medjia!! 2 years running frank was more or less the only attacking force really doing any work in the england team. And yes he has been poor this last year for england but when you look next to him i cant even think of two games running where captian run around alot has been a force!

That would be the worst deal in the world.. Why would we park, cicinho at are place. He's terrible!1

Now there's a 'great footballer'! But back to the focus of the thread... People can throw around any argument they like about who's better and who's crap, but in the case of a striker, stats do not lie. A striker either scores goals or he doesn't. And Jimmy did. And how. And like it or not, there's the rub. PS: oh BOY is there ever gonna be a 'Jimmy is a Legend' article written for young Loz after all this hullabaloo. Consider yourself warned, good Shedenders all! Jimmy will be honoured amongst the pantheon of Chelsea legends in a way that will make sure his star shines until the ending of the world! Thing is brian, kevin phillips used to get a lot of goals, as does darren bent now there have been several strikers over the years that could get goals, but not necaserily great football players. Just add deano sturige to that list quickly as well. Jimmy was limited. He had his strong points and boy were they strong, When he managed to get that shot on target in invariably went in. Close him down fast however and that shot never came in, put him under a little preshure and that shot more often that not was seen going in to orbit! This is why Jimmy hasnt got a great goal scoring recored against the big clubs, or in europe or on the international stage. He has to many weekness in his game. Thats why i can only subscirbe to the good goal scorer and nice guy club. He may be a legand as in so much as he gave us somthing we didnt have at the time but he wont ever be considerd amoung the greats IMO. I doubt you would find his name any where near the top 10 or 20 of any greates forighner of all time poll.

I went for mikel, didnt think he did a whole lot wrong, defended well and moved the ball about well... no one was spectacular but i thought he did what was asked of him

Right well we where crap!! not going to hide it scousers where a bit better than us and i love the fact that we robbed it!! to quote.... just love it!! Im not like some of the others and see every poor performance as a dark vishion of what to come. Liverpool alwasy raise there game for us, its like if they can beat us they can justify to them selves that there good enough to win the title. By contrast we didnt play well at all but cant play champaigne football every week and im very happy with that point. Two things im sick of seeing essien any where else but midfield and i really want to see malouda get wide more and get balls in to the box it was clear to me at least that if we where going to hurt scousers to day it was going to come from getting balls in to the box from a wide position.

Well zola got far more games that season than the previouse one and we came 4th, first season CR had managed to get us in to a CL place... the season before that when Jimmy and Eidur where starting together game in game out we didnt, we came 6 i think, some way of a CL place infact. Ipswich came higher!! The only player we brought in that season was de lucas, hardly a world beater or even a spot of difference on the team. Im going to let you work out exactly what the above goes to proove, but his a clue, goals arn't every thing!!

Not as good as deal as you may have first thought though loz, ive heard we have to thow a years worth of first aid kits in to the deal as well!!

yeah but we can all slag off JFH for being lazy when for many years he was our top man Many years??? He was only here for four years, the first two he was great, the second two he was a lazy git our top scorer 3 out of 4 years...so he was lazy for one Just being top scorer doesn't mean a player is less lazy, just means he's scored more goals than his team-mates. Mike Fillery was top scorer in 1982/83 with 9 league goals, does that mean he was a great goalscorer? JFH's first two years at Chelsea, he was a goalscoring machine, the last two years his attitude was totally different and he spent most of his time blaming team-mates for his own mistakes, or because he couldn't be bothered to run two yards to collect a pass. Sorry if that upsets you, but it's true. Oh, and back to the main topic - it was great to see Mikael Forssell fit again, I really rated him when he was at Chelsea. His reaction to scoring against us was pure quality, the man has class well those last two years i will blame Claudio for being "the tinker man" rather than blame jimmy for our problems...had Claudio played Jimmy and Eidur regularly we probably would have done a lot better....we didn't lose many games when they played together and that is a fact So you would have played them ahead of a rejuvinated zola who was showing form as good as any we had seen at the club?

Agree entirely... he's never going to be 20 + a season, he may have the odd season where he hits it but nor is rooney and nor was zola, now im not comparing him to either of those players.... he's very different but what im just saying to back up your comments really is its not all about goals. And his touch in the last couple of games has been right in, he terreises deffences with his quick feet and is IMO a very good partner for any of our other 3 strikers! If there was somthing i would want him to improove on it would be maybe just look up and make that extra second for your self to think, something the other two names that i have mentioned did/do instinctavly

Thanks. And yes just to clear things up so the rest of you can all insult me properly he's a SHE. Right then now thats cleard up.....HOW YOOUUUU DOING!!!

Erm, i could be wrong but i think he is a she