KrazyTea

Meh at the end of the day I won't lose any sleep over the League Cup loss. I don't think we've even tried in this cup since 06

f**k sakes

How could Drogs not be number 1? In all seriousness, he will be immortalized, scoring the biggest two goals in this clubs history. If you count his final pen

Crazy game. Hope the arse can ride this momentum in manc country as well

I agree and he has developed a penchant for diving which I find a little annoying

Rare good write-up from Goal.com http://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/editorial/2012/10/29/3486003/spirit-of-drogba-lives-on-in-lionheart-mata-as-chelsea

This will be crazy, also means more mainstream cable broadcasts for football hopefully. We pick up the channels here in Canada but for the most part none of the games are televised. Some of the sports broadcasters carry them here but they are often on specialty channels. Like today's Man U vs Chelsea match was while the Merseyside derby was broadcast. Very strange. Anyways this is good tidings indeed for the EPL.

I think the biggest problem with Torres will always be his price tag. Because of his cost he will always be slated in the media and he will always force the hand of his manager to play him no matter his consistency. It is a shame really, were he purchased for less he would be a valuable role player and perhaps celebrated. Unfortunately that is not the case here and that is the tragedy of it all

By the time a player is done celebrating most reviews would already be complete

To me Mata seems to be making bigger and bigger cases for it. Scoring in all the big games really lifts him to to the talismanic level already

As far as video review, the National Hockey League is probably one of the fastest flowing games in sports and yet they too are able to institute video review. While there are still more stops in the game that allow for it, at the same time it also makes sure that the right calls are made. Surely with all the money invested in a larger global sport like football would be able to guarantee the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_%28ice_hockey%29#Video_goal_judge

To be honest the loss is not even bothering me that much right now, sure its really disappointing, but the biggest issue to me is that here we have this game between heavyweights that will have an asterisk around it. Quite literally one of the biggest games of the year for the EPL has been ruined and that to me is something that needs to be examined more closely.

Reffing was terrible on both the Torres card and the offside, I am unsure on the Ivanovic thing. Ivan has not been that great this year, especially with some dives becoming more prominent from him. Oh well need to pick up the pieces and move on.

I think this might be true, reports seem to say that he is taking on too much. He has done well there but he is also failing the team aspect. On the other hand this seemed to be a criticism of him in Porto as well. Food for thought anyways

Probably

I wouldn't get too outraged. I am sure the same would be likely during some of the May CL finals of United vs Barca

I would even argue that their going out of the CL last year and "faffing about" in Europa may have given them an advantage in winning the Prem over the rest of us last year. That went for both Man U clubs being competitive in the Prem last year really.

Perhaps one of the more controversial players in ShedEnd discourse, yet one of our most valuable squad wise

Not a good week for British footy clubs in Europe

Sure I hate some teams, but if I hate teams more than the team I love, it kind of defeats the purpose of football or even sport where I cheer FOR teams, not against. Cheering against teams is not really that fun or sporting to me.

Really? This is in the vein of the classic over reacting to each result. Whomever thought that Shakhtar was going to be a walk over was doing a serious injustice to that team as they are definitely one of the top squads. I think Manchester United have looked far more vulnerable this year than Shakhtar have. Certainly there are going to be goals scored against United but kind of a facepalm moment to me switching prediction from result to result.

I was saying from the beginning of the draw that I think we are in the top 2 hardest groups and with the emergence that a lot of the sides in D are pretty weak, I would even argue that we might be in the hardest group. Shakhtar is an amazing squad and not to be underestimated. We have it all to do against them at home with a tough one against Juve who for some godforsaken reason really duffed it against Nordsjaelland. At least the group stage is interesting this year for us...again. We love the drama don't we! Hopefully the tide goes our way in the end as well. Thankfully we have two home games in our favour, so that may amount to something. Now to regroup and play Manchester, a team that looked vulnerable again today. I am predicting goals on Sunday.

Does anyone have a gif of Mikel's '720'

This is precisely it, I think this will be a reserve game for everyone. Whomever wins on Sunday might define if someone wants to go for a moral victory as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQx1iFBG_rE