BigIzz

It has to be Drogba for me. He didn't dominate the entire match but at points it was clear that Arsenal had no answer for him Ashley Cole would have gotten consideration from me but he made a few too many sloppy plays for my liking. Ivanovich was awesome down the right side. Same for Terry in the middle. Anelka did not score but, like usual, he had an excellent performance.

I don't think it is the end of the world if we start Malouda instead of Lampard and have Lampard to come off the bench in the second half. Of course if Lampard is 100% he should start but I can't see how he could be. I liked how the midfield played against Wolves and the second half against Porto. We are a much more dangerous side with Mikel playing in front of the defense and Essien having a more free role. Essien is a beast and Mikel has handled himself pretty well. The other question is who plays the forward tip of the diamond. Pretty clear it won't be Deco so that leaves Cole? I think Malouda could handle that spot given his current form.

Just finished watching on tape delay in the States. Malouda is the MotM for me

Essien for me without a doubt. Anelka and Malouda stuck out as well.

I was going to go with Carvalho, who I thought was superb defensively and even added a bit to the attack but the goal puts Terry over for me. He was almost as good as Carvalho defensively and, of course, scored the gane winner.

I baked everyone some cookies tonight too, just give me your addresses and I'll ship them out :D

Thank you very much You are a friendly bunch, I must say I looked at a number of Chelsea message boards and this one seems to be the best

Yes, I like it not my favorite though I've heard of both and have always meant to make the trip as I have the train to Manhattan right down the street, Only problem is on Saturday or Sunday morning the last place I want to go is a bar, I'm usually trying to recover from the night before :D

Northern New Jersey, Morristown to be precise.

I am off to work now but have the match set to record. One of the nice things about being over here is I do not really need to worry about anyone spoiling the results. Thank you for the warm welcome.

Hello everyone My name is Matt and I live in New Jersey, USA. What brings me here? Well, quite obviously, a love of football and Chelsea. I'll share a bit of my story if anyone is interested as to how someone living in the US catches the football bug.... Like many Americans, I started watching during WC 94. I was 12 and, being of Italian heritage, I gravitated towards the Italian National Team. I began to play some FIFA on whatever system was hip at the time and started to play as Juventus, who became the club team I supported, Somewhere along the way (1998?) I got tired of Juve (again while playing FIFA) and started to play as Chelsea, mostly because I was a big Zola fan. I began to support Chelsea but more closely followed Juve in Serie A. Still I picked up a Chelsea jersey (or kit I suppose) and watched some matches here and there. After all of the unpleasantness with Juve (the cheating, the relegation and whatnot) I felt seriously betrayed. Here is a team I put years of effort into following and it turned out to be all a lie. I've never really been able to care for them much ever since. Sadly my love of club football fell by the wayside and I moved towards the American sports, which are much easier for me to follow. I still supported Chelsea but from a bit of a distance. This brings us to present. ESPN has begun to show EPL games in beautiful high definition and when I sat down to watch the first match Chelsea were playing Hull. Needless to say, something clicked and my obsession has been rekindled. I've watched just about every match this season and have started to revolve my life around them. However in order to follow them I need people to engage me. Unfortunately I cannot find much of that where I am so I've turned to the internet. Anyway, that is my story. I appreciate if you made it through my long post and hope I have found a place where I can closely follow Chelsea FC, have some nice discussions and meet some great people.