Killbill

Sorry Nibs this is what I was writing in reply to Chippy before someone asked me to do some work (the cheek of the guy!) is pretty much what you said, but since I had written it I thought I’d post it anyway. "In addition Mourinho found a team angry for success, probably the best holding midfielder in the world at the top of his game, one of the best pair of centre-backs and two of the best wingers around, like having Ronaldo e Messi in the same team, I‘m not saying that Robben and Duff are as good as Ronaldo and Messi but they definitely offered what the latter two offer in a game. What has Scolari found? A whinging, injured first striker, two inadequate wingers a centre-back pairing disrupted by injuries and an inexperienced holding midfielder. And yet in his short spell he has revolutionised the style of play for the best, in my opinion, a style Grant said it would take years to develop. He needs to improve on how we get back in the game after going behind and I am sure (well, I hope) he will improve that as well. He can only work on it if we lose otherwise how is he gonna know . Never mind four year ago how well is Mourinho doing now? I don’t think he is doing much better at Inter, yes his team is top (like we were) but they are scraping results without having had one decent performance yet and this is a team who had already won back to back titles without Mourinho’s know-how. The fans don’t seem to be happy with him because he hasn’t done as well Mancini. Mancini for f@ck sake!"

Luckily we have escaped with minimum damage from this defeat. It seems that we do not have to win to put pressure on Liverpool, the mere fact that we play before them freaks them out. We have only played before them twice this season and in those two games they lost five points. We are playing before them one more time in December, fingers crossed.

:angry: And there was me thinking that we are too attack minded, alternating our play between a 2-5-3 and a 2-1-7.

1) Away at Werder Bremen springs to mind. It was shameful. 2) Again I wished I recorded the game, JFH seemed to think that Lampard had to do something there as the player tackled by Lampard was about to trigger a counterattack. What puzzled him was why was Drogba, a strong tall centre-forward, taking that sort of free kick and Lampard was in the box at the end of it? Shouldn’t it have been the other way around?

I forgot to mention one thing. Although the pundits seemed to think so I’m not convinced Diawara was Terry’s man. I wish I had recorded the game, but from those replay I had a feeling Terry spotted the danger and reacted leaving his man and trying to chase after Diawara.

First, Bordeaux are a bunch of cheating gits and I took a quite strong dislike to them because of their antics in the first half. Second, the referee was a gullible and incompetent twit who acted against us on Bordeaux players’ reactions. Having said that you have to hand it to Bordeaux , they did their home work very well and worked out how to cause us problems without shutting up shop. Like Evissy I also thought “In some sick twisted way it is good to see a team challenging us in every part of the pitch†hoping they wouldn’t score though, I’m not that sick, just to get an idea of how we could cope against the top teams later on in the competition, touch wood. Not too impressed I must say. Finally, I also have a complain against Scolari. How could he take off Anelka after we went one nil up and the game was going to open up even more. Doesn’t he read this forum? Glad to see Anelka smiling on the bench straight after the substitution at least it seemed that he wasn’t pissed off at being substituted. I would have!

First, Bordeaux are a bunch of cheating gits and I took a quite strong dislike to them because of their antics in the first half. Second, the referee was a gullible and incompetent twit who acted against us on Bordeaux players’ reactions. Having said that you have to hand it to Bordeaux , they did their home work very well and worked out how to cause us problems without shutting up shop. Like Evissy I also thought “In some sick twisted way it is good to see a team challenging us in every part of the pitch†hoping they wouldn’t score though, I’m not that sick, just to get an idea of how we could cope against the top teams later on in the competition, touch wood. Not too impressed I must say. Finally, I also have a complain against Scolari. How could he take off Anelka after we went one nil up and the game was going to open up even more. Doesn’t he read this forum? Glad to see Anelka smiling on the bench straight after the substitution at least it seem that he wasn’t pissed off at being substituted. I would have!

More of the same from me. It has taken him two years to come good for us, he is not going anywhere now.

There is your answer. For as well as Anelka is doing at the moment I still can’t see him scoring against or causing problems to Liverpool, Arsenal and Man U centre backs or the centre backs of the top CL teams. In tight spaces with his back to goal he is easily controlled, and let’s face it the crucial games will be played in that manner. You can get away with not beating the other top teams in the league and still win it but you won’t get away with it in knock out competitions. As for Drogba on the bench, if you start with him on the bench you’ll find out who the real Le Sulk is. PS What’s starting to worry me is this thought at the back of my mind that Drogba is finished. It’s the same feeling I had when we signed Shevchenco and I was right there. I can’t be right twice, can I? Hopefully not.

Why didn't we lose our "aura of unbeatableness" when we got knocked out of the LC at home on penalties by Charlton?

You still wouldn't be able to expand because of the tube and railway lines behind it.

That was my little attempt at trying to be funny. Don't worry I shall never try that again.

I wasn’t criticising your opinion of Lampard’s game, I was just saying that the comment didn’t match the marking, which was good. Although, I would have done given an higher mark to Lampard than Anelka.

Cheers Barn. I hadn’t realised the pitch had been sold to the public, I thought it was still part of the financial mess Bates got into with the developers. I had no idea that this included the rights to the name as well. I would like to hear the reasoning behind this?

You make it sound like you are doing him a favour by giving him a 7. He probably was our man of the match, and he set up the second and third goal.

This is what I found in your link: As a consequence there has been much speculation about of a possible move away from the Bridge, a move which would mean the club would have to relinquish the name Chelsea Football Club due to the terms of the agreement with ‘Chelsea Pitch Owners’ This is a point not missed by Ken Bates who said, ‘When they talk about Abramovich moving the club to East London or the new Wembley or whatever, you say “Great, off you go, rename it Neasden United, give us our pitch back, we’ll sign tomorrow and we’ll name it Chelsea Football Club Limited, just as Wimbledon have" But I am even more confused. Who are the pitch owners? And why they own the name of the club?

Ah the great Spalletti. I enjoyed the way he masterminded the 7 - 1 defeat against Man U and about 8 defeats in 10 games this year. It takes guts, determination and know-how. I don’t remember Pauly giving any kind of praise to Mourinho when he was at Chelsea. I seem to remember words to this effect, “a decent motivator but clueless tacticianâ€, "doesn’t know attack from his arseâ€

Bloody hell! Did we mess up or what? Now we have to win both games to finish top. I had a feeling that our new style of play was a bit too cavalier for continental sides. Anyway, my theory that we would find easier to beat top/defensive team at their own ground than at the bridge is gone straight out of the window. PS I have to agree with those who said that Mikel was looking hot in the earlier part of the game.

During the week Gerrard said that they felt invincible.

I wouldn’t bet on that, they played eleven men behind the ball for 90 minutes at home, can you imagine what they are going to be like away.

My take on the current situation is we are playing excellent football but are a bit weak up front and therefore we struggle to create chances against teams who come to the Bridge with a defensive game plan. We had the same problem for the last couple of years and Deco was supposed to be the answer. But it seems that Deco on his own is not enough, we also need Drogba up front to overcome those teams. I am not worried about not winning against the top teams yet as I like to think that if we had played them away we would have beat them. For those who have raised concern for the game against Hull I say if Hull dare to play football against us we will wipe the floor with them like we have done with all the others.

I don’t know what it means either. Is it a show of confidence or is he being pushed upstairs to make room for a new manager? :unsure: Or has it got anything to do with the credit crunch and we can’t afford a new director of football?

According to Merson on Sky Sport News we “wiped the floor with themâ€.

What a weird game! And what a weird team! Cluj that is.

What food would that be? Some Brazilian Chorizo casserole?