Zola

I think we can dream on with this one, but what s p[alyer he is ! Heres an article to get you going http://theprideoflondon.com/2016/12/08/alexis-sanchez-chelsea-transfer-news-arsenal/

Happy birthday to JT, 36 today

These guys tend to give us a tough game, but I am hopeful this season will be different!

I like your style Andy!

Yep!

The players have their own songs too, which get sung a fair bit

TAKE A BOW BOURNEMOUTH ! !!!!

What a day, what a result! That was a hard spell we had to navigate through, and we've done brilliantly.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/dec/02/love-john-terry-loathe-chelsea-manchester-city Skip to main content sign in become a supportersubscribe search jobs dating more UK edition The Guardianwebsite of the year home ›football live scores tables competitions results fixtures clubs home UK world politics sportselected footballselected opinion culture business lifestyle fashion environment tech travel all John Terry Sportblog Love John Terry or loathe him, an unignorable career is winding down Barney Ronay John Terry will miss Saturday’s trip to Manchester City and for the first time in the Abramovich era his absence is not, for Chelsea, a source of fretful speculation ‘John Terry’s absence through injury for a game as big as Saturday’s lunchtime trip to Manchester City is suddenly not really an issue’. Photograph: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images Contact author Friday 2 December 2016 13.59 GMT View more sharing options Shares 54 Comments 100 Aman from the Daily Telegraph once told me an interesting story about John Terry, Fabio Capello and one of those informal chit-chats England managers like to have with journalists. This one took place a few years back, when Terry was having one of those off periods when he seems to be slightly falling to pieces, panels flapping, hinges rusting, grabbing at the passing shirts like a man groping for the light switch in the dark. Someone asked why Capello kept picking Terry when his form was poor. The answer was simple. Yes, there were quicker, fitter players. But when Capello and his men looked around the dressing room before kick-off they usually found Terry was the only England player not frozen into silence, bowed with angst or – in the colloquialism used – “sh*tting it” under the weight of the England shirt. Terry was unafraid. He made the others less afraid. You can see it, can’t you? No matter where you stand on the John Terry moral universe, he would still be a pretty good person to, say, come with you on the train to Birmingham to help give a PowerPoint presentation to an aggressively sceptical sales conference audience. Or to go out on a sky dive with, just the two of you up in some howling fuselage above the Arapaho National Forest, the japes, the backslaps, the emergency chute slung away – “Don’t need it, mate” – JT hurling himself out first into that screaming void still talking about Lewis Hamilton or The X Factor. “I’m coming, John. I’m coming with you. Catch me. Catch me, John.” Football transfer rumours: is John Terry off to Shanghai Shenhua? Read more This ability to inspire from the front has been surplus to requirements during the current Chelsea run of eight wins and seven clean sheets. Just as for the first time in the Abramovich era, Terry’s absence through injury for a game as big as Saturday’s lunchtime trip to Manchester City is suddenly not really an issue, no longer a source of fretful speculation. The news this week is that Conte plans to “phase out” his captain, with the suggestion Terry could even be off to Shanghai Shenhua in January. In a bizarro-world twist, Shanghai Shenhua are managed by Gus Poyet, the player Terry replaced to make his Chelsea debut in a League Cup tie against Aston Villa 18 years ago, a sign, perhaps, of some late 1990s Chelsea Valhalla out there in the glare of the new world. Maybe Jody Morris and Michael Duberry are also in town and everyone’s off to Boujis later with Dane Bowers. Either way, the signs are clear enough. Terry will turn 36 this week. He is by five years the longest serving current player at any Premier League club. He’s still out there: still leading, still captaining, still legending. But after 18 wild, glorious years the sense of an ending is now impossible to ignore. FacebookTwitterPinterest John Terry, the centre of attention after the Champions League final win against Bayern Munich in 2012, for which he was suspended but put on his kit to claim the trophy. Photograph: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images Before we get lost in more formal goodbyes closer to the time, there are perhaps three things worth saying about the Terry years. First: hate him, loathe him or support Chelsea, this has been one of the great, unignorable English sporting lives of the current century. Terry has been relentlessly visible throughout the creation of a modern‑day powerhouse. Should Chelsea win another league title this season, they will be unarguably English football’s premier force since 2004, when Terry became captain and they first began to spend in earnest. In total Terry has now been present for 64% of Chelsea’s total accumulated silverware since the club were formed in 1905 as a fill-in for the empty Fulham Road stadium. This is in part Conte’s challenge: a first trophy outside the main span of the Terry Supremacy. There has already been a change of tone and texture. The current three-man defensive wedge is mobile and aggressive. Whereas Terry has become more minimal with age, sitting deep, playing flatter, taking the air out of the game. In Chelsea’s last title campaign, he committed 13 fouls all season in the league, and made just over one tackle per 90 minutes. He could perhaps have been a more striking, more expressive player in his best years. He might have used his ease on the ball to push his team forward: in 2011 Terry was rated the third most accurate passer in Europe; he still has more career goals than Andrés Iniesta. Instead he has pared back his game, playing within his limits and becoming an irresistibly familiar presence, the one constant through Chelsea’s modern triumphs those great, beaming hollering Terry features, victory sealed with the standard shots of triumphant post-match JT striding about shirtless, invariably cropped at the waist to give the unnerving impression of a man so committed to the cause he’s just played the full 90 minutes bullishly, unapologetically in the nude. FacebookTwitterPinterest John Terry with QPR’s Anton Ferdinand during the Premier League match at Loftus Road in October 2011, which led to Terry’s ban for using racist language. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA So much for the good times. The second thing about Terry is, of course, his toxic mistakes, his wider unpopularity. The scrapes, the splashes, the priapism: this is no more than lurid detail. But the FA ban for using racist language during a match will remain an indelible stain. The court case alone provided an extraordinary glimpse into the dismal internal monologue of the professional game. Terry has apologised and admitted that his language was completely unacceptable He is at least right there. Beyond this, as the waters start to close above his head, the most striking thing about Terry is simply his basic presence in extraordinary times. In a way Chelsea have been a case study, an outlier for the eviscerating changes in English football. Billionaire ownership, the large-scale bartering of success, the bolting on of a new, aggressively burnished brand to our creaky old Victorian community centres: there is in principle something deeply odd and uncharted about this. John Terry describes José Mourinho as ‘very best I have ever worked with’ Read more Just as being a billionaire is in itself inane – a process of being continually replete, existing within a sealed world of chinchilla‑skin helicopter rides and seven-star homogeneity – so the billionaire’s project club is also an inane idea and entirely anti-sport, a sanding down of edges and imperfections and thrilling variables into cold, hard, cash‑bought certainties. This is not sport. It’s not football. It doesn’t actually have to work at all. Football can survive most things. But not the moment supporters stop caring about their club and its players. It is a challenge that is yet to hit but that always lurks just beyond the fringes and the fury. At Chelsea the age of Abramovich has worked so far, both as a spectacle and as a coherent whole that still feels like the same coherent whole. At times, at least in those raw early days, this has felt like it was in large part because of Terry’s vividness, his persuasive spirit, a player who has been not so much the brains or the heart of his club as its bowels, the hard colonic centre that ensures Chelsea have through it all still smelt like a football team. More comment Topics John Terry Chelsea Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Google+ Save for later Reuse this content Most popular Good riddance to Zac Goldsmith. His vainglorious political career is over | Owen Jones Richmond Park byelection: Tory Brexit voters switched to us, say Lib Dems Nico Rosberg announces shock F1 retirement after maiden world title Donald Trump reverts to campaign mode, bashing Clinton and media £5 animal fat bank note: British vegetarians being 'stupid' says inventor promoted links from around the web Recommended by OutbrainAbout this Content Why Canada’s Bay of Fundy is an Adventure-Seeker’s ParadiseDESTINATION CANADA - KEEP EXPLORING What’s the ideal beard for your face?FAB BEAUTY People Who Had Credit Cards Between 1990-2004 Must Read ThisMY BANK CLAIM She didn't want to look back with regrets, so followed her instinctDANONE ACTIVIA 9 Out Of 10 People Can't Get Through These Photos, Can You?TREND CHASER Time to invest in the US? Discover our favourite North American funds.FIDELITY INTL. – CAPITAL AT RISK Lion Catches An Injured Fox And Does The Most Amazing ThingTICKLEFEEDS 10 Worst Cars In HistoryCARBUYER comments (100) Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion. Order by Newest Threads Collapsed 1 2 1timeonly 4m ago 01 Won't comment on Terry's personal life. Will only note that I once saw him head a ball off the line at the bridge that left both sets of supporters amazed. Huge scramble in the box, volley came in that left Cech stranded and Terry leapt in the air as he was moving to his right. However, the kick came arcing in toward spot on the line he had just left. Somehow, mid-air, he managed to contort his body and flick the ball clear. Not comparing the two, but only every saw Michael Jordan do anything similar. Terry could be depended upon to defend the goal with his life, but he also brought skill and athleticism to the game. Reply Share Facebook Twitter Report citymiddle 5m ago 01 Saw him getting sent off for hacking down Bale twice at WHL. Good times.. Reply Share Facebook Twitter Report View more comments most viewed The Guardianback to top home UK world politics sportselected footballselected opinion culture business lifestyle fashion environment tech travel all football ›john terry facebook twitter membership jobs dating modern slavery act statement guardian labs subscribe all topics all contributors about us contact us report technical issue complaints & corrections terms & conditions privacy policy cookie policy securedrop © 2016 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Its all been rather too easy to see whats coming down the road for some time, I feel its lost a bit of momentum. Finale bound to be explosive.

We weren't protecting a living abuser though, the guy is dead. What else should the club have done? Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Surely we are not the only premier league club who has done this. If theres over 850 calls made solely about this, many clubs must be hiding a lot.

wow! Didnt know it was anything like that

YES

Or one guy who supposedly abused a player, f**k all to do with us

Aren't all out of court settlements done in this way ? Can't send a corpse to jail. Why would Chelsea go public about it ? Is Johnson going to give the money to an abuse charity help line now that he has got that off his chest?

Over 350 now coming forward.. if genuine that's very, very sad, but I can't help but feel there's a fair number of opportunists coming out now just wanting cash. Easier for people to say they were abused when the person in question is dead. surely not every one of those people are only finding the strength to talk about it now. Hope the truth prevails, but it's going to drag on forever now.

Mixed thoughts on Dirty Leeds.

http://www.101greatgoals.com/101ggvideos/lolz/rio-ferdinand-put-chelsea-steward-place-gianfranco-zola-video/ One of our stewards was being a jobsworth, surprise surprise...

You just knew we'd be dragged into this mess somehow.

Another week, another victory.... the bloke can do no wrong at the mo. I have to admit I didnt like our subs around 80 mins mark, shutting up shop, thought it was gonna come back and bite us in the arse.

Well, you can buy all the tools to do the job, but if the tradesman who's doing the job isn't focused on his game, the job wont be done properly!

He's been a miserable git since he came back to us for the second stint. He was maybe the "Happy one" when he said it, for about a month, but it all went south soon afterwards, even if we did win the title with him, it wasn't the same and I think most of us found him really annoying. The man to me seems jaded and fed up, his referrals to the "new football", "football Einsteins" to me suggests the man knows his best days are probably behind him now, with all the fresh ideas and styles coming through.

It was coming...