Davey Baby

I hope we field some players who don't bore me sh*tless .. Cech Boswinga Cole Luiz Terry Oriol Ramires Josh Drogba Mata Sturridge What a team that would be to watch. With that line-up, Terry might end up as our only defender.

Well, we held our own away to decent opposition. We stopped playing after we went ahead however and it was no surprise when they equalised. Only then did we go on the front foot again, which was a disappointment. I don't think the substitution of Ramires worked. In fact, it plainly didn't work. Regarding Malouda, you are right, clearly our worst player, in terms of starter. As you say, his decision-making is appalling. There was one occasion in the second-half, when he received the ball in their box, to the right of goal, and rather than letting the ball come across and hitting it, he shifted his body so he could hit it with his left. It was a decent opportunity that went begging. Time and time again he makes the wrong call. And his opponents know it. I wonder how much time they spend on him in team briefings, compared to Mata? Hiddink worked miracles with Malouda. I don't know how he done it. All of a sudden we had a player. Not a game-breaker but a very competent performer. Slowly but surely he regressed under Carlo, like a lot of our players. I wonder if AVB can work some magic. Malouda is capable of so much more, and much of it depends on confidence. Why was he loathe to shoot with his right? Confidence. Hiddink tapped into him. Understood him. Knew what to ask him to do on the pitch. For a large part of his time here, he just hasn't performed at the level he's capable of, which leads me to believe that his true level is not that required of a top-level club. Lots of players have golden patches, but their true level is the level at which they can be relied upon to perform, every week. That's what separates the wheat from the chaff. Yesterday, AVB's formation required two wide attacking players. Mata picks himself so that leaves one. Assuming Sturridge was unable to start, his choice was between .. Anelka .. Malouda .. and Kalou. That says it all. This winter we will hopefully sign a winger. Next summer we will hopefully sell the dead wood.

i.e. Valencia benefited from having committed a foul. We were attacking. We should have been allowed to finish that attack. That's the convention. It was a very strange decision. It's the same amount of time for both teams.

Malouda and Anelka are both French. That's not a swipe at French people that's just a fact. The similarities don't end there though. There are more. For those of you who like Anelka and Malouda, look away now, I'm about to say an uncomfortable truth .. They are profligate. Give them the ball in threatening positions, and more often than not, the chance goes begging. The chance to hit the right ball, the chance to score. They need umpteen opportunities. This is where they are wanting. This is why they are not good enough for us. You see, if you give the attackers of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Man Utd the ball in dangerous positions, they will make you pay. That's what football's about, making you pay. The chance doesn't come along every minute, but when it does, the best players make it tell. They're waiting, they're prowling, like a lion in the jungle, they're killers. One sniff is all they need. Defenders know they can't switch off, for if they do, they're dead meat. Their managers tell them, "Don't give that guy a sniff". Here's my question .. Anelka or Malouda have the ball in a dangerous position. They're bearing down on goal, supported by their colleagues. All their opponents are scampering back. You have to bet your mortgage on it. Which way do you go? Your mortgage. The roof over your head. The roof over your family's heads. Which way do you go?

Whoever wrote the post above, and I believe his name is Nibs, deserves a round of applause. Last night, AVB pulled off Ramires, replacing him with Mereiles, leaving us with the midfield trio described above, and it didn't work. I'm not going to go into the reasons why it didn't work, Nibs will do that, but it didn't work, and if AVB had done what he should have done, i.e. listened to Nibs, he'd have known it wouldn't work. Edit: Doesn't AVB have a smart phone? By god man, you can log on to this forum anywhere in the world.

The young man in the corner who suggested Luiz saved a certain goal with a glancing header 3/10 It was actually Terry, but you were probably thrown by the commentator. The young man in the corner who suggested Malouda was better than Mata -349/10 May I remind you this is a family forum. We won't have that kind of language. Last warning. The young man in the corner who suggested Josh would have made a difference in the latter stages 10/10 Give that man a banana. The young man in the corner who suggested Mikel needed to up his game in the second-half 5/10 That may be true but this is Mikel, hence your theory doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. Nice try though.

Cech 8/10 Man of the match for me. Boswinga 7/10 Had a good game. Cole 7/10 Had a good game. Luiz 6/10 Good in general but still prone to the occasional lapse, i.e. giving away soft free-kicks outside the box and misguidedly trying to play offside. Terry 7/10 Didn't put a foot wrong. Saved a certain goal with a glancing header. Mikel 6/10 I was going to give him seven but f**k it. Ramires 7/10 Our best player until he got kicked on the shin. Took his time to recover. The decision to sub him was the pivotal moment in the match. They may have been having a good spell but we had just had a good spell of our own. His withdrawal handed all the initiative to them and that was that, we stopped playing and stopped offering any kind of threat. Shame, because three points would have been invaluable. If we needed fresh legs his weren't the legs to take off. Malouda's or Lampard's were, despite the fact they had combined for the goal. Maybe AVB felt pressure to keep Lampard on, in which case, all I can say is, "trust your judgement". Lampard 7/10 Took his goal brilliantly. Torres 5/10 Woeful first half. I'm not going to cream my pants over a decent header and a well-taken volley. These are things plenty centre-forwards can do. Mata 7/10 I was going to give him six but f**k it. Malouda 5/10 Very frustrating but occasionally got something right. Subs: Mereiles 2/10 Why two? I'm a big fan of Taxi Driver. He can count himself lucky. Anelka 0/10 AVB got this badly wrong. Drogba was on the bench. If anyone can tell me why Anelka was preferred to him in the centre-forward position I'd be most interested. A prize to the person who actually manages to convince themselves. Kalou .. I'm not even going to go there.

Congratulations on the new arrival. If he really is new born you won't be watching much of the game. I speak from experience.

I prefer my eggs hard boiled.

1. I'd hope we'd afford him more respect than that. 2. He's our player, so he won't be playing against us. 3. I find it hard to believe you'd ever hear all four sides of the ground sing.

The greatest manager of them all was Brian Clough. Wherever Clough went, McGovern soon followed. Why did Clough always sign John McGovern? He didn't have an alice band, he wasn't from Argentina, and he didn't have his own blog. What he did get was two European Cup winner's medals .. Maybe McGovern was able to do the things Clough wanted? Just a guess.

Spiller, not every signing can be the name on everybody's lips, be they a teenage sensation or an established name. Sometimes you have to make pragmatic, sensible decisions, and strengthen areas that need stengthening, and for my money Mereiles is a hell of a lot better than Steve Sidwell. Mereiles wasn't top of my wish-list either, nor was he top of AVB's, but we failed in our bid to sign a player who could walk straight into our midfield and enhance it (Modric), and he was the only player we identified that was realistic for us and filled the brief, therefore we went after someone else, someone who could enhance our squad. Only 11 make the field. Not every member of the squad can be sexy. We can all reel off a list of groovy players with far-flung exotic names. Truth is, there is no guarantee they will succeed. The manager has to back his judgement. That's all I'm saying, let the manager back his judgement. He got the job on merit, not because of who he knows. We as fans should want him to be allowed to do it his way, and I for one welcome the fact we have a manager who knows what he wants, as opposed to previous managers who have just worked with what they've had and haven't had very clear ideas. I do not have absolute faith in the manager, it is too early to tell. I have absolute faith in the concept that he should assemble the personnel he needs, otherwise he can't put his ideas into practice. Nothing about releasing Benayoun rung alarm bells for me, and nothing, from what I've seen, has made me feel he doesn't know what he's doing. As for Benayoun only going because he was willing to, I suspect he was only willing to because he wasn't a major part of the manager's plans ..

1. He's the manager's pick. The manager has purchased him, put his trust in him, and picked him. That means a lot to a player. There's a psychology at work here. It's the reason most top managers do it. You get players to play for you, which is what a manager needs. 2. The manager has ideas. We're not exactly sure what those ideas are but they exist. He believes Mereiles can put his ideas into practise on the pitch. That should be good enough for us. We want our manager to have those players. We want our manager to identify those players. We want our manager to have ideas. Ideas that seem to be working by the way. 3. He's no mug. Mereiles, not the manager. The manager is no mug either but that's another story. So long as you understand what we bought in Mereiles you won't be disappointed. He wasn't our first choice he won't be our last choice. We will get better midfielders. He was bought to do a job, to strengthen our squad in an area which needed strengthening. He may prove a valuable member of our squad, as he is currently doing. 4. We are playing well. We are winning. On Saturday we started scoring goals. We are creating. There really isn't a lot to moan about. 5. Yes the squad could be better. The squad can always be better. 1. Yossi Benayoun did nothing at Chelsea. 2. The manager had a look and deemed him surplus. 3. Whatever his reasons, they're probably valid, given the manager is no mug, and given he has done nothing to make us lose faith in him, quite the contrary, he has made a very impressive start. 4. We are playing better football. 5. Mereiles will never be a Lampard or Ramires. That's why he wasn't getting a game at Liverpool. That's why we bought him for £12m and Modric would have cost much more. However he can provide genuine competition for places for all our midfielders, he can compete at the top level, and he can do a job. That's what he was bought to do. To do the job the manager wants. Lampard and Mikel will probably have better seasons because of him, because he can fill in and because he can challenge, genuinely, because he's an experienced international at his peak. There's the value right there. 6. The manager didn't have a job for Benayoun. He probably looked at Josh and thought, "Ring Arsenal."

Regardless of what went on before, Poyet has no need to come out and defend Chelsea as he has. What he's saying isn't popular but it's true, as we all know. He's managing Brighton, he's building a reputation, and he doesn't have to involve himself in other people's business, let alone defend a club as unpopular as ours. It's about time someone set the record straight as far as our club is concerned and he's done it, and full power to him for it. Also, considering he was a popular player at Spurs, it might rankle with their fans that he says "We" in regard to Chelsea ..

The referee of this game obviously deemed there to be intent here, for once he saw the television pictures, the player in question was handed a 3 game ban, just like Torres. Make up your own mind .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9AfwVuttS4

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/sep/26/neil-lennon-celtic-islam-feruz

Interestingly, by the time Fulham came along, in only our 7th game of the season, 25 of the 26 players generally acknowledged to comprise ourt first-team squad had got a game. The only one who hadn't was Essien, so that's everyone who's available to the manager, including all 3 keepers.

I did think what he did at White Hart Lane was out of order. I wasn't there but heard about it, obviously. However we all make mistakes and he has since expressed his regret over it and I think he deserves forgiveness, particularly as he was such a committed footballer for us. I didn't begrudge his move to Spurs and understood his reasons for it. We offered him one further year with us when he wanted two, and we didn't entertain the idea. He was getting on and had suffered injuries while playing for us. Hoddle offered him a three year deal and he went to Spurs, quite understandably in my view. Chelsea were quite happy to sell him, and we lost a good player, though we may have been right in thinking he only had one more good season left in him. He was very good that first year at Spurs and they reached the League Cup final, which thankfully they lost.

I know opinion is divided on Gus Poyet. Great player for us, fell out with the club over a contract, felt harshly treated, went to Spurs, then infamously kissed their badge in front of our travelling support at sh*te Hart Lane, when they (or he) had just scored. I forgave him. He has since admitted it was a mistake, and one he regrets. He was always a passionate fellow and I think he just got caught up in the moment. Whatever. I understand those that bear a grudge. What is beyond dispute is that he was a great player for us: Bucketloads of bottle and no little quality. His comments on Chelsea are pure quality and I think he goes some way to redeem himself. Notice he still talks in the "We". As in, "We are good enough". http://www.skysports...7204614,00.html For those that can't access the link on their phones, here's the edited version that was shown on Sky Sports News, courtesy of youtube. That's right folks, you heard me correctly, SKY really did show it. Enjoy ..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/sep/26/petr-cech-head-injury-chelsea?newsfeed=true

There are 7 certain starters on Wednesday and 4 spots up for grabs .. Cech + Right-back + Cole + Luiz + Centre-back + "Number 6" + Ramires + Lampard + Torres + Mata + Attacker

Regarding Torres and that tackle, regardless of the Swansea player's reaction, it was a red card and it was needless. He had just started performing well, after so long a wait. I'm afraid his tackling has been poor this season and there was almost an inevitability about it. I just hope the manager sorts it out. I don't think he's malicious just a little too pumped up. He got a yellow against Leverkuson for a needless challenge. Got a yellow at home recently and was lucky not to receive another and hence a red. And there was one away game where he made another needless one. There's closing down, there's pressing, and then there's being rash, and I'm afraid he's guilty of the latter. Hopefully it doesn't happen again. Against Swansea we were 2-0 up and playing at home to minnows, but on another day it could cost us. I hope he reflects on this while he's out.

I was at the game and can assure you that didn't happen. If you heard booing, it was directed at someone else, not a Chelsea player (possibly the referee), or it may have been the crowd telling him to shoot. Or it may have been the Swansea fans, who did boo him. Everyone boos him. Just not Chelsea fans. In fact he had his name sung second-half.

Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere .. On Saturday Messi and Ronaldo both scored hat-tricks as their sides romped to victories. In goal for Atletico, against Messi, was Courtois, our new Belgian keeper .. Two of Ronaldo's goals were penalties but they were pretty sublime at that .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbAlcOJWAxM Not sure what their goals to games ratios are, but they seem to be banging them in every week, and breaking scoring records by the truckload ..

It is quite clear he is calling the shots and I like that. He is picking the team on merit, not on reputation, unlike the previous manager. The signs are very encouraging for me. We have renewed desire and we are creating chances. When you look at our players, they are progressing rather than regressing, and that's the sign of a good manager, it shows he is handling them correctly, Torres being a case in point, he dropped him, he publicly admonished him, he got him scoring again, now he just has to calm him down a bit. I dare say his handling of Lamps will have the desired effect, as it seems to be doing with Mikel, judging by yesterday, etc etc. Still could do with some width mind ..