Zola's Love Child

This is true - regardless there will be fans sticking around. That said - I know a lot of the proper fans would stick around to congratulate Leicester - even if Claudio and Huth weren't involved. I was at Sunderland away in 2009 when despite losing to us, they stayed up at Newcastle's expense. The majority of our away stayed for the Mackems lap of honour, applauded them and got a good response back form their players. I imagine given the ex-Chelsea links for Leicester there will be quite a bit of enthusiasm. I dare say there would be a few slightly conflicted Chelsea fans if we are stuck in mid table and Leicester were dependent on a result to take it away from Arsenal or Tottenham... The tongue in cheek boos that Jody Morris got after scoring from our fans when we sent Bolton down in 1998 might be a little more genuine

5 weeks ago I would have agreed with you - however at this point I don't (regarding his attitude, especially to the press/FA). He tried as hard as he could to create the siege mentality which has served his teams well over the course of his career. At one point his defense of Diego and his ridiculously aggressive antics bordered on absurd, considering how much his play was hurting our team's performances. Then however, he switched the flip and took the attitude that the fans were, and hanging him out to dry to try and provoke a positive reaction. In the end, I think the only big attitude mistake he made was with Eva (which I still maintain was a huge one). Everything else was Jose, increasingly desperately, trying to find any angle to get the players to start committing to the cause like they had done in the past. In retrospect I don't blame him for the refereeing rants, taking on the media, defending the players to the hill, throwing the individual players under the bus - he tried everything that he could to get last season back - just nothing gelled with the squad.

And that is really what it comes down to for me. Logically, it would have made more sense to sack him a month and a bit ago when the league was still more of a manageable goal (like with Di Matteo). The timing does nothing to achieve much of anything.

The first time Jose was fired I was relieved with the decision and wasn't a huge fan of the direction things were starting to go. This time I'm absolutely gutted. I can't believe they didn't give him longer. I accept that there can be a new manager swing, but at the moment I have absolutely no faith that the senior players can turn it around (and due to quality of play that includes JT). I honestly do not see how this helps our season, and how anyone, even Guus, can get better out of the shambolic lot that have been out there this season.

My earliest memory of being at a game - and never gets boring watching it. What a day that was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FedS8T9hBS8

Fair enough opinion - I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this one. I personally don't see trying to analyse a players injury from such a distance as part of the job. If a player goes down, and stays down, then I would rather my club's medical team make every effort to ensure that the player if okay. At such a high pace, and from the far distances that the game can take place from the dugout I think that something could easily be missed from the sidelines (or just by a momentary lapse in concentration). I know you don't like the comparison, but taking the Cech incident as an example there could be a possibility that even when something as serious as that happened with the speed of the collision, and the extra player or two in the line of sight from the dugout that blocks an optimal view could cause what was obviously a horrific injury to look like someone coming off worse in a fairly ordinary challenge. And whilst I don't think that medical staff should be making assessments on players likelihood of "faking it", I have lost count the amount of times that Eden has had lumps kicked out of him and managed to carry on playing. He certainly isn't a player I associate with going down easily. I just think it is in both the sport's, and the player's best interests to err on the side of caution if there is any doubt at all - which there obviously was in their professional minds during this incident.

Can't help but feel this is fantastic business for Southampton. Hopefully we chucked in a right of first refusal clause in with the deal. We all know how late developing these defensive midfielders can be - and with his injuries his development could have just been naturally delayed. When we was playing for us before the injury I was pretty impressed by him. Either way - can't see the Saints losing on this one. They're a heck of a shrewd club in the transfer market.

My point is that there is no consistency from his ranting, and a ridiculously unfair burden being placed on the medical staff. When Cech had his horrible injury - Jose was quite rightly disgusted at the lack of responsiveness from emergency services which could have easily cost him his career, if not more. In this case now, with an apparent omnipresent knowledge of his players going down, he feels happy to berate two of his colleagues and create this mess. Compensation doesn't come into the matter. A doctor is not playing the game, and outside of the health and welfare of the game is not a part of the game. It isn't a matter of money, it is a matter of what their job is. A medical team should always take the welfare of the person they are treating (or going to treat) first. I don't expect a doctor in hospital to use cheapo equipment to save their hospital a few pounds, and I don't expect Chelsea's team of medical professionals to ever be expected to make a split second decision on whether a player is really injured from 50 yards away in case it doesn't benefit our chances of winning. Jose's meltdown during the game at them were a big misjudgment, and his comments afterwards throwing the medical team under the bus were borderline pathetic.

Surely Jose has never criticised medical professionals for being too slow to respond to an injury?

If all of these reports are true - then the club (and Jose) looks absolutely pathetic. Trained medical professionals should have absolute autonomy to make issues related to their field - be it whether a player has passed a fitness test or whether a player needs treatment. A doctor should never have to err on the side of caution because of the situation in the game - and there are situations in the game where people's lives could be seriously damaged by a few moment's delay. A manager, or any other playing staff member will always struggle to achieve a objective opinion of the situation. There is quite clearly something out of balance with the medical staff at Chelsea as far as I'm concerned with regards to payer safety. Ever since the Oscar incident earlier in the year where he was so obviously concussed there has been a question about the level of protection of our own players (for me, if anything, that incident would have warranted reprimanding the matchday medical staff).

Not sure about Ballack over Cole, but I still have Frank above JT. As with Frank, it will be weird seeing Cech playing for Arsenal, but it will no nothing to sully any of the efforts he made whilst at The Bridge.

Well, it isn't a particularly inspiring signing, and will probably see the end of Remy. That said, comparing to Torres - at least the bar for success is low for Falcao. If he scored 10 goals this year in a backup role, he'll have done his job - where Torres was being expected to score 20 Premier League goals. In Jose we trust. I guess.

Yeah - unless it is in a deal for Pogba, I don't want to take less than 30 million under any circumstances. The 9 million article better be absolute rubbish...

Looking forward to seeing him, JT, Ashley, Petr and co. all back at the Bridge for whatevery testimonial/charity game they do to honour them all - that is when his proper send off will be - back at home. He really did prove everyone wrong. They said that he was an overpriced gamble, until they couldn't any more. They called him fat, until they couldn't any more. They said all his goals were deflections, until they couldn't anymore. He took on every challenge in his career with professionalism and won with flying colours. I don't doubt he will do the same in North America.

The 5-1 in the FA Cup. They were getting ready to cry blue murder about the over/not over the line goal - and then we destroyed them.