Yaotzin

Any coach is tactically equipped for the PL, it's the most simplistic big league by far.

Then you'd either have to play Lampard deep, where he's even more useless, or drop him and deal with the bullsh*t. It's all lose lose situations for AVB. Feel so sorry for the guy.

Chuck, the point of trolling is to wind people up for as long as possible, not get banned within an hour.

As someone with a soft spot for Arsenal, please do!

He's absolutely right. Footballers in general seem to forget that they're nothing more than employees of the club. They should shut up and do their jobs.

Well you desperately need a left winger and a striker to replace Torres. Those don't come cheap. You need a lot more squad depth, too. Just imagine if Mata and Sturridge got injured.

This would make sense if his Spain form hasn't been just as horrendous at the same time. In that team he's playing with players he knows, players with vast amounts of quality...and he's still bloody terrible. Sid Lowe called him the Spanish Emile Heskey, and it wasn't even an outrageous claim. That said it's also true he doesn't suit the side. Which is why his return is utterly abysmal instead of merely bad, as you'd expect from the finished player he appears to be.

The anti-AVB folks need to remember, that what he is doing *has* to happen. Terry, Lampard, Cole etc cannot be allowed to to rule Chelsea. It prevents the blatantly necessary rejuvenation of the squad, and it makes every single manager a dead man walking - walking only so long as those players wish it. If you sack AVB, these problems go nowhere, they are only deferred to the next manager. And the next manager would have an even more difficult job, because AVB being sacked would be yet another victory for the power of these players. Not to mention that these players will have deteriorated even more, making the expectations of results even more difficult to achieve. At some point, you have to take your medicine and get rid of these players, who - (former) quality and service to the club aside, have become a cancer. They are/were legends, of course. But even legends have to move on at some point. If they don't have the self awareness to do it themselves (like, say, Raul did), then you simply have to do it for them. IMO, you should let AVB perform this task. Once he has done so, you can assess his position. Is he then the man to rebuild the club, to buy the right players, to play the right way etc? If not, bring in a new guy. But at least that new guy will have an attractive project, rather than an absolute nightmare of attempting to quash player power gone totally out of control, while somehow providing results and bringing in new talent all at the same time. Disclaimer: I think AVB has made plenty of mistakes, strange/wrong choices etc. Not saying he's perfect at all. But he is a promising young coach, and he's doing a brutally difficult job.

He's sort of like Mikel in that he offers the square root of nothing in possession, and isn't as amazing defensively as someone needs to be to make up for that. Top teams can't afford to carry purely defensive midfielders anymore; they all play with guys who can pass - Busquets, Carrick, Alonso, even Barry. This trend is even creeping into centre backs - you have to contribute in possession as well.

Chelsea have to buy a whole new set of players regardless of who your manager is. If you don't think AVB is the man to do that, then sack him. The next guy still has to do it though, and his job would be even more difficult. Your players would be another year past it, and they would be empowered by having gotten yet another manager sacked. Taking your medicine now is probably the best course of action; it will only be more bitter if you take it next season.

Well, you said they remained top of the rich list because of that uneven distribution. One could also say they remain top because they continue to earn the most from matchday and commercial revenue streams. No matter, a small quibble. Just wanted to make clear that they are seriously rich regardless of the TV issue, which is rather overblown. Seen people claim they wouldn't even compete in Europe without it... Yeah, not enough though. Wage pressures on all clubs can't be relieved enough with just modest increases to commercial revenue. Hence English football - by far the richest around - still bleeding money at an incredible rate. Wish I was an agent ;)

Given that Real Madrid and Barcelona have the highest combined matchday and commercial revenues, this is...incomplete at best. If Spain used England's revenue sharing model they would drop, but not nearly as much as people like to think. The aforementioned revenue streams, plus the CL stream, would remain unchanged. They would be in the top 5 even with ZERO domestic broadcasting revenue, for example. As for Chelsea: Their matchday revenue is high (5th overall) despite the relatively low stadium size. Other than building a new stadium there is little improvement to be had there. Broadcasting revenue will slowly increase as for all English clubs - there is nothing Chelsea can do in this area beyond being successful on the pitch. Commercial revenue is their best hope for improvement - they are around 20m behind Liverpool and United in this. In all, though, beyond new stadia or a broadcasting rights revolution, English clubs don't have a great deal of room for revenue growth.