BumsteadCFC

Yes. Racism carries so much of a stigma that actually assaulting someone is considered a lesser offence. Madness.

FA's favourite club? You mean the club that was forced to play an FA Cup semi on the Sunday evening before a midweek Champions league semi because the FA accommodated Liverpool's refusal to play on the anniversary of Hillsborough.

Thank God John Barnes has taken a measured and sensible perspective and not jumped on the "lets give JT a kicking" bandwagon with the rest of the opportunists. So many commentators like that idiotic Guardian journalist see these things - apologies for the pun - as solely black and white. JT was found guilty in an FA hearing (where the burden of proof is relatively low) of uttering the words "f**king black c**t" therefore JT must be an iredeemable racist on par with Adolf Hitler who will carry the stigma around for the rest of his life. Seriously, f**k off - in the real world people say and do things that they don't mean out of anger, frustration etc. Its called being human, having flaws. At the end of the day there are a lot of bitter people in the world who have nothing going for themselves, their joy is derived from the misery of others. Guys like that Guardian moron don't care sincerely about racism, in a perverse way these parasitical journalists actually love what transpired at Loftus Rd last October because it gives them a scandal to sell papers. They can get all faux outraged about the whole thing, self righteously condemn JT as a vile racist scumbag, squeeze every pound of flesh out of the story before moving on to the next "story" that they will flog to death. The sanctimonious grandstanding is vomit inducing.

We aint won a thing in almost 50 years and its John Terry's fault England are sh*t. You've got to laugh when they come out with such far fetched bollocks :laugh2: Next JT will be getting blamed for the sinking of the Titanic, the global financial crisis and Watergate.

Spot on. If I'm honest I don't really know what Ash, JT and Lamps get out of playing for England. Its not as if the national team is any good whereas at Chelsea they have a decent chance of winning trophies every year in front of supporters who appreciate and respect them. England have not made a semi final in a major tourament since 1996. Since then Chelsea have played in 19 semis. They get booed by the morons who profess to support England with no realistic chance of winning silverware - I wish Ash and Lamps would follow JT's lead and call it a day.

+ 1.

Well and truly pissed off that he's received dogs abuse to the point that he's deactivated his twitter account. If these fans want to have a moan log on to shed end forum to get it off their chest, sending abusive tweets to our players is bang out of order.

Spot on. That was the exact point I made in the match thread last night. A misplaced pass is not the end of the world but thereafter he made no effort to close the player down or atone for his error which is the bigger sin.

The thing about Mikel that he done (which he's done in the past) is he does not close the ball down once he's given it away. He made a bad pass for their goal, fair enough its not good but look how he made absolutely no attempt to try and win it back and/or close down Marchisio. Its not good enough for someone whose job it is to protect the back 4. Look I'm not trying to crucify the bloke but thats a very costly mistake.

That result is not on Robbie - Mikel cost us the 3 points. We didnt do bad tonight - just a horrible pass from Mikel and no-one bothered to close down Marchisio (I think it was) who put Quariagella in.

Cudicini Bosingwa, Huth, Gallas, Bridge Duff, Cole, Ballack, Robben Drogba, Anelka ^ I haven't check to see if they are all playing but that would be our best ex XI, wouldn't it?

Your'e right RDM has started him in 4 of our 5 games, whats cut into Mata's playing time is that he is our most heavily substituted player, here is the list: Mata - 4 Ramires - 2 Hazard Mikel Cole Betrand Torres Miereles Also, RDM has used 12 of his 15 possible substitutions having only used all 3 subs in 2 of our 5 games (Reading & Atl Madrid).

Atletico Madrid (Monaco) August 31st Goal 9 - Cahill smashes the ball into the net after a scramble following a corner. (G - Cahill, - ?) Goals: Torres - 2 Lampard - 2 Ivanovic - 2 Cahill - 2 Hazard - 1 I'm not sure who the assist would be attributed to, I suppose it could be credited to the corner taker - anyone recall who that was?

Just to clarify one point given Miereles' departure. When I denote % of minutes played I am referring to % of minutes played in EVERY game ALL season regardless of whether the player was injured for some games or was sold. This doesn't neccessarily denote who RDM first choice's are (there might be a player who is first choice but injured so frequently that he only plays in 50% of the teams games, for example). Its more a reflection overall of who is getting the game time/who we are most dependent on. What we know thus far this season is that RDM has 6 players who are pretty much his automatic selections: 1. Cech 2. Ivanovic 3. Cole 4. Mikel 5. Hazard 6. Torres The only other point I will make is that I'm pretty sure that there is a consensus on here that Frank has not done nearly enough to justify being our 7th most used player (80% of match time). Right now I really think he is the weakest link.

Updated playing minutes stats after QPR (5th game): Chelsea = 450 minutes Cech - 450 (100%) Ivanovic - 450 (100%) Cole - 449 (99%) Torres - 441 (97%) Mikel - 428 (95%) Hazard - 424 (94%) Lampard - 363 (80%) Luiz - 360 (80%) Mata - 314 (70%) Cahill - 270 (60%) Terry - 270 (60%) Bertrand - 239 (53%) Ramires - 215 (47%) Oscar - 104 (23%) Mierles - 101 (22%) Sturridge - 40 (8%) Moses - 32 (7%)

Yes. Lampard has offered very little this season in attack.

Our inability to retain possession is concerning. I hate to see us play down to the level of the opposition.

We are playing down to their level - its so obvious. Need some composure here Chels

Scrappy Chels. Come on FFS

You're obviously a troll mate, do one.

The cover up is horrible - SYP colluding with The Sun - its like something out of 1984.

Andy Townsend. Probably wouldn't classify as a "great" player but he was our best player from 1990-1993 in my humble opinion. It was a real shame he left in 1993 because I rated him and I think he would have been a valuable contributor to our mid to late 90s teams too. Other than that it could be anyone who played for us prior to 1955, couldn't it? Hughie Gallagher, Tommy Lawton, George Hilsdon etc.

Spot. On. Making history. Not living off it.

You've taken the words right out of my old mans mouth, Butch was at Chelsea before my time but my Dad says the exact same thing. At Chelsea he was a great midfielder who loved a shot and an attacking pass. The "crab" nickname that he got at United was not a reflection of the flair that he had in his Chelsea career. In fact it winds my Dad up rotten when he hears people refer to Ray as a sideways passer.

Moscow - to be that close to Everest and fail right at the summit was gut wrenching and soul destroying. I concur with 7 times though - the pain of that failure was erased in Munich.