Newt

This one is a classic
Abed khaled ?@Abedkhaled77 14m
I am hearing Matic to chelsea is almost complete, they are just waiting for @SpursOfficial to pay for his flight!

Someone mentioned how he's covered more ground this season than anyone else. Ideal for the pressing game José is using now.
 
Staggered a few of you are writing him off before you've even seen him f**king play. I have seen very little of him, but the general consensus from people that have, is that he's a very good player.
 
Probably the same people that were writing Willian off before we signed him.

Read all the books. seen three episodes of the new season. Loving it as far as a show goes, slightly concerned with how they are differing from the plot of the books with a few storylines, most notably Theons.
 
Season one they absolutely nailed it, plot was very consistent with the book, second season went way off on a few things just hoping they keep it more in line throughout this season.

It would have been worth it, just to have that face-to-face chat ..
 
"Here Nando. I want a word."
 
"What is it Boss."
 
"You can call me Boss."
 
"I just did."
 
"Good."
 
"What is it?"
"I want to talk about your performances."
"What about them?"
 
"They're sh*t."
"Who says?"
 
"Everyone apart from wasteoftime and Redhatter."
 
"I see."
 
"It's over Nando. We're tired of it. We're letting you go."
 
"Where?"
 
"Anywhere. Anywhere that will have you."
 
"Barcelona?"
 
"I don't think so, Nando."
 
"Read Madrid?"
 
"Unlikely."
 
"Inter? PSG? Bayern Munich?"
 
"How can I break this to you Nando?"
 
"Break what?"
 
"We've found a club in Cambodia. They say they're willing to take you on. On a trial basis."
 
"Cambodia?"
 
"Cambodia."
 
"Which club in Cambodia?"
"Awaaaa Fwaaaaa Phoeey Woeey Boeey Chaaaaaaaaaa FC. They're a decent side."
 
"I won't know anyone there."
"You'll know Malouda."
 
"Malouda? He never passes me the ball."
 
"We've removed his brain and he now says he'll pass to you."
 
"He's had a lobotomy?" 
 
"That's right. Heck if Redhatter and wasteoftime can have one so can he. So long Nando. It's been fun."
 
"Has it?"
 
"Not really. I lied. Now f**k off. Peter Reid will be waiting to pick you up at the airport .."

Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Robin van Persie, Kerim Benzima, Carlos Tevez, Mario Gomez... Some of the greatest forwards in Europe, leading the lines of teams we consider to be rivals. Would any of them trade for Torres?
He has come on leaps and bounds since his arrival, but he set the bar extremely low to begin with. Now he scores a reasonable number of goals and makes a decent contribution to the team. But he is nowhere near adequate to replace Drogba, nor can he be considered "world-class" which a team with our ambitions needs to compete.
The argument was often made last season (including by myself), that he needed a more suitable supporting cast to flourish. Well, Roman went out and assembled the finest money could buy and he still struggles to impress. In fact, I feel like Torres looks out of his depth playing with our midfield trio; as if he isn't quite on their wavelength when he mistimes a run or tries a return pass that just wasn't on - breaking up what would have been an intricate thing of beauty. His decision making is frankly appalling for a striker of his supposed quality.
Somebody on here (I want to say youlots) suggested last season that Torres was a striker who relied entirely on his considerable physical assets which have now abandoned him; and because of his consistent string of injuries he never had an opportunity to develop as a player and learn to compensate his loss of agility and speed with more intelligent movement and positioning as Eto'o did for instance. This is an assessment I agree with entirely. He still relies on tools he no longer has which is why he looks so out of sorts.
I unfairly focus on the negative, but he has improved a lot. I am proud of his determination to do his best for us and I can't fault him for lack of trying. But he just isn't who we need any more than Darren Bent is. What bothers me most is our opponents are not even slightly afraid of Torres. Not the fans and not the players. Our opponents HATED seeing Drogba's name on the team sheet because they knew that he could single handedly wreck them should it strike his fancy. This is not so with Torres. He doesn't inspire fear. He doesn't force teams to overreact to his mere presence on the field. A striker with that quality leading the line often makes the difference between a good team and a great one. A CL finalist and a European Champion.

See, that's the excuse I've heard most of all about Torres. Why single him out when others were poor,too and the classic "no service" quote.
Yes, he wasn't the only one playing badly, but Torres was out of League Cup game and was supposed to be fresh and yet he looked his usual helpless self.
As for service, a top class striker creates things on his own when the service is not there. Look at RVP's goal yesterday. It wasn't a great service that supplied him with a goal scoring opportunity, he was at the right time in the right place and the second the chance presented itself he didn't hesitate and put it away. That's what strikers do.
As someone mentioned it earlier in the thread, in a course of a season there will always be games when the team struggles and doesn't produce their best for various reasons. This is when a top class striker comes in handy, he'll save your bacon by scoring goals and getting points in fixtures where seemingly everything's gone against you. Can you honestly remember such game with Fernando playing that part? Even worse, on so many occasions he's a hindrance rather than help, his whole body language speaks volumes about his shattered self confidence, he doesn't strike fear in any of the opposing defenses, and his own teammates suffer because they have a spent force leading the attacking line, who's constantly in the wrong place, hiding from his responsibilities and time and again making wrong decisions that hurt the team.
I think we've spent too much time guessing what needs to be done to accommodate Torres and finding excuses for his poor performances. He's done very little to justify that faith and he still looks miserable out there. If sending him to the bench makes him even less happy, I couldn't care less. Give Sturridge a run of games to see how he fares and in January either bring back Lukaku or buy someone who knows what the job of a striker entails.
Enough of this sh*t already.

I’ve been considering writing an article about Fernando for a while. Like any true Chelsea fan I will always support and defend our players throughout the season. This is especially difficult when you are the only Chelsea fan in a group of 15 avid and, it’s worth noting, educated football fans. This has caused me to understand the strengths and weaknesses of our club from an outside perspective – I hear what no Chelsea fan wants to hear on a regular basis. I think it would be fair to say I’m an expert in the defence of our club and, frustratingly, very experienced in this area. Looking back on the last few seasons there are countless Chelsea related controversies that cause furious reactions to the rest of the English Footballing world. Whether it be a shooting at the training ground, a sacked manager, a wasted talent, an over-inflated transfer price, or a player tweeting derogatory comments – football fans love to hate Chelsea and, I hate to say, we give them all the ammunition they need.
I’m not suggesting that the club is to blame in all of these controversies, especially the sacking of AVB, which would have resulted in no Champions League trophy had we stuck with him. But what I am suggesting is that in our avid and far too common defence of our club, we have created a mentality which can blur our perspective of what is right and wrong for our club. Since winning the Champions League, I’ve decided to be more of a realist. I don’t want to constantly stick my neck out in situations that will simply get me shot down by my friends – arguments that can’t be won. This leads me perfectly to my point; Fernando Torres.
I have defended Fernando throughout his whole time at Chelsea. He is someone who has been put in countless difficult situations during his turbulent time at Chelsea and I will never, ever forget that moment when he scored at the Camp Nou last season. I will always try and remember him for that moment and not for the points I am about to list. However, it genuinely pains me to write that I think it’s time we considered selling Torres. Before you write a list of negative messages to me, please read on. I thought it would be good to start with a comparison of Torres’ best season in the EPL – Liverpool, 2007 and compare this to his first full season at Chelsea, 2011/12. Now I know that it would be silly to compare two season that everyone knows are at opposite ends of the form spectrum, but there were some positives that we took from Torres last season, wasn’t there? Take a look:

2007 2011 Matches played: 33 32
Goals: 24 6
Assists: 4 4
Shots: 96 62
Shots on goal: 61 23
Crosses: 34 41
Fernando Torres played as much football as he did when he was at Liverpool in his most successful season, than he did in his worst. There is an excuse that he did not play enough football as our leading man (mainly because of the Drog), but you can see that this is not true. He didn’t play against the best teams, in the big games, because deep down the management knew they couldn’t trust him. What’s clear is that he played in the ‘easier’ games, against the worse defences, and well and truly bottled it.
The one positive that was taken from last season was that he adapted his game and became a better all-round player – this is nonsense! Torres got the same amount of assists than he did in his best season and even then, they’re poor. For someone that spent so much time down either flank, I would expect more assists.
He pretty much had 1/3 less shots than in 2007 which to be fair, isn’t really a surprise. What is alarming though is the fact that only 23 of those shots were on target! That’s a difference of 38 shots. I don’t even need to elaborate on that point.
Last, but not least, the crossing stats. This links in with my point about his assists. He only made 7 more crosses last season! 7 more!! All he was doing was taking the ball away from the penalty area and wasting it. His job is to score and I bit my tongue on plenty of occasions when he would run toward a defender and end up wondering toward either side of the area. Torres has a job at Chelsea – to score goals. I don’t mind him supporting the team by creating space for others or getting assists, but I do mind when this starts to detriment to our cause.
It’s clear to me that Torres didn’t actually become a better ‘all round’ player last season. He’s simply wasting a position that could be filled by a far more prolific player and is definitely one of the biggest flops, living off his own ego that was blown up in one good season 5 years ago. Liverpool well and truly got the best deal of the century when we paid £50m for him and clearly, Abramovich hasn’t wanted to admit he made a monumental mistake when we signed him. His patience will wear thin though, I have no fear. I think we’ll be seeing a new striker in the ranks come January – or Chelsea will not win a major trophy this season.
Although there were some glimpses of form returning this season, I can’t see him ever getting back to the standard we paid £50m for. With Torres, we have a player who tries his hardest and I will always appreciate that, but there has to come a point when you cut your losses. Torres’ hardest is no longer good enough. Chelsea is on the verge of a really special team, a team that could be our best yet, but I hate to say that this will not be the case if Torres carries on leading our line. We’re all entitled to our own opinion and I would absolutely love it if Fernando proved me wrong – honestly! I’m just making the point that perhaps Torres was never worth £50m and there comes a point when you just have to hold your hands up and admit, we were wrong to pay such an over inflated price for him. Thanks for all your efforts Fernando, but from this Chelsea fan, I think it’s time we said goodbye.
Kind regards
The Egg Man

my thoughts on torres this season are:
-he's playing well, and links well with the three behind him.
-he repeatedly seems to choke / delay when he's through on goal. and this needs to change.
-his performances are good enough to justify his place in the side given the squad we have
-his performances are not good enough to warrant the club not improving the squad in his position
I think he's doing "well". to save his chelsea career he needs to be doing better but in the context of how we are playing there are bigger issues.
oh and it is entirely legitimate for people to be criticising his performance yesterday. he had a shocker.

I don't think it's about the price tag, I think it's more about what he was bought in to be/do. He was bought to be a superstar striker (a goalscorer if you will), to replace the ageing Drogba and to help maintain the club at the highest level. That first half a season, although he wasn't really fit when he arrived he was backed, by the manager, the players and the fans - let's be honest as a club we wanted Torres, we wanted a player to take over from Drogba who by that stage was clearly on the wain. He played the first game and looked woeful, his touch was off, he wasn't fit and he didn't look like scoring. That trend continued for the rest of the season, during which time Drogba became first choice again. The support of Torres from the terraces didn't change, next season with a good preseason and with the right support we'd see the real Torres!
And so to his first full season, there was a bit of an issue with the style of football we were playing not really suiting his game, we were still set-up to attack to Drogba's strengths. But he didn't create anything for himself either. Now I've got to say at this point that some of the chances that haven't gone in for Torres at this stage, he'd done everything right and only the fates seemed to be against him. There was no doubt in his first full season that he was fitter than the half a season prior but not much more useful. So much so that most of his good work happened out on the wings. He'd completely lost his bottle, didn't want to be in dangerous positions and didn't know what to do when he got there.
Role on to this season, backed still by the fans in the stands (more than almost any other player), backed beyond all reasonable limits by the manager - we're going into the season without a challenge to his starting position! Yet here we are again discussing his merits or lack of. Yes he's scored a few goals so far this season which is a dramatic improvement, yes he's had some nice touches beside that - he also causes many many attacks to break down - and he generally looks fairly fit. He's still not anywhere near the quality of player that we need. At some point in the season we're going to go through a spell where we're not playing well, that's when you need a striker that can dig you out of a hole if you want to win anything, I'm pretty sure even his biggest fans don't believe that Torres is that man? United have been sh*t for most of this season, yet in Van Persie they have someone that frightens the life out of defenders and delivers regularly.
I think it's great that our attacking play is so fluid and free-flowing at the moment but I don't think it will see us right through a long hard season. We need an edge and Torres has never and will never give us that.
I was so excited when we signed him (I was with Sutton as well!) but we're not Torres Football Club, we're Chelsea and Torres isn't doing the job that Chelsea need him to do.

No it's not about toeing the party line. The problem is that any discussion about Torres seems to lead to an inevitable polarisation of opinions. At the one extreme you have those who concentrate only on what he doesn't do, what he does badly, and at the other those who leap to his defence, often I feel as a reaction to the inordinate amount of criticism he's received since signing for the club.
I say "inordinate", it is of course that £50 million fee that's responsible for the strength of opinions on both sides. The anti-Torres brigade have trouble seeing past what they think we should be getting for that kind of money. Which might be a fair point, except that it's been long accepted that we paid well over the odds for the player.
Torres is not a £50 million player, never was and never will be. Neither is he completely useless. Last night he was poor, his worst game for some time, but the same could be said of almost every player in a blue shirt. As a team can and will play a lot better than we did last night, but along the way we're also going to have a few stinkers. The same goes for Torres.

I will back Torres the whole time he is blue but I now think replacing him in January is best for everyone.
He is not suited to our style of play, we need more of a link up man with a good first touch who is creative around the box as teams are sitting in and defending deep. Torres has always been more of a striker who plays off the shoulder and more suited to a counter attacking team - although I'm not sure this would even suit him any more as he has lost that pace.
Replacing him with with a top striker (Falcao please) would clearly benefit the team and as much as I would love for us to stick with Torres and for him to come good I just can't see him doing it on a regualr basis any more.

These are the cream of what i've come across so far on facebook lol

YESSSSSSSSSSSS
the date is 19 05 fellers, it was written

What a match and what a cup run this has been, nothing short of phenomenal. Was at my uni pub watching the match and was on my knees just absolutely numb when Drogba slotted home his penalty, the culmination of so much work and pain for the longest time, just the most amazing feeling.
Thoughts on the match, firstly absolute brilliance by Robbie D regarding Bertrand, was shocked to see it at the start and no doubt a huge risk but it made a lot of sense, a really defensive minded left winger just to help and shackle robben down that flank and he also provided a good attacking outlet.
Next the performance of some of the players, Mikel, Drogba, Cole and Cech espicially were just absolutely immense. Mikel was a monster in the middle of the park and made an absolute mockery of all the people who have been calling for him to get sold for the last few seasons, Was great work by Robbie D to bring him back into the fold after AVB had frozen him out and he has repaid him 1000 times over. Ashley Cole proved that he does have a real claim to being called the best left back in the history of the game not just the current era, his consistent high level of performance over such a large period of time defies belief and during this cup run he has been nothing short pf phenomenal.
Drogba and cech I dont really think anything needs to be said. The big moments in big matches and these guys contiunally come up with the big plays. Just think of the FA cup final in 2010, petr saves a penalty then moments later Drogba fires in a free kick. It is time and time again, both absolute Chelsea legends and this final was the perfect example of this.
Luiz and Cahill were also nothing short of miraculous in this. Their first match in weeks, the pressure is just huge and they were so resilient. I saw one moment from Cahill where he could so easily have been mistaken from JT the way he threw his body on the line and I think we really have a great player on our hands here. The fact they managed to get through 120minutes is just from sheer determination and willpower.
A sidenote in the middle of talking about the match, really struggling to see why so much of the media and people on twitter have a problem with JT getting into his playing gear. He made a unbelievably stupid move in Barcelona, he has paid the price dearly for it but without him we would not have been in this final, he is our club captain and he deserved to be out there celebrating and in my opinion he can do it any damn way he wants to.
As far as extra time goes, I hate to say it but that was a penalty on Ribery, he went over very easily but his ankle was certainly caught. however mere moments before that i'm 100% sure that Torres got brought down for a penalty as well and only the fact that he got straight to his feet and tried to carry on stopped this turning into a big incident. Thought fernando was actually very good, had some very important moments defensively and was quite the livewire with some of his runs. Quite disappointed with this whole outburst (which the media is blowing way out of proportion) If these things need to be said best keep it in house and if it is going to happen publicly maybe just time it a little better. I can understand where he is coming from, seeing bertrand get the nod in the starting 11 whilst he had to take his place on the bench must have been a real blow but he is an absolute proffesional and he performed very well when he got his chance. Here's hoping there is a lot more good times ahead for him in blue in the coming seasons.
As far as the shootout went, watched it about 20 times over since then but I just had so many flashes of deja vu to not just Moscow but nearly every chelsea shootout of the last 2 decades. The fact that it was also down Bayern's end and they had first shot makes it all the more impressive. Lahm scoring and mata missing jsut felt like a nightmare and when they were 2 up and Luiz is starting his run up from the other end of the staidum I could just see it getting blasted right over the bar. But it was a highly impressive penalty as it also was by Lamps (of course his was perfect), Cole (wow what a penalty) and then lastly Drogba. To have another chelsea legend miss a penalty that could have won us the cup was more than my poor heart would have been able to bare, however there was no risk of this with Didier Drogba stepping up. Ice running through his veins he dispatched it so cooly it almsot makes me wonder why i was nervous about what the outcome would be.
That feeling when it went in was just phenomenal, I was on my knees, could barely cheer just absolutely numb and teary and the feeling of pure ecstasy. Was one of the most fantastic moments and the type of thing you only dream about.
This season has certainly been a mixed bag, once more manager coming in, manager going. Worst domestic campaign in god knows how long, some terribly shocking performances in the league but along that a cup run that just defies belief and makes you truly believe in a higher being, God sitting up there in the clouds, Drogba jersey on, Chelsea scarf draped around his broad shoulders just helping us with one divine intervention after another. Going back to the group stages and conceding that late penalty to Valencia, losing that matchin injury time to Leverkusen, drawing with Genk for heavens sake!! Having to go into that last round of fixtures needing a win (where who else but drogba scores a brace). Then we venture onto Naples and that crushing loss, where if it hadnt been for Ashleys glorious intervention we would have been facing a gigantic mountain to make it to the quarters. Even the quarters was a struggle with the tie up in the air for the last 5minutes.
That leads onto Barca and if i went into detail on that I would be sitting here for a very long time typing and then the final, to have gone through all this and fallen short just would not have seemed fair considering Chelsea fans must have aged around 10-15 years each through all the other matches. Not only did we win it but we did it in a fashion that seemed so fitting with everything else we went through. Provided ultimate vindication for our precious golden oldies and absolute redemption for that horrific night in Moscow.
So proud to support this club, Chelsea has been a part of me since I was 5 years old. Back then we were 11th in the league and I could never even begin to comprehend the success that would come and this amazing path that we have trodden, So much to be thankful for and just so proud to be a blue.
KTBFFH
European Champions!!!!!!!!!

These are the cream of what i've come across so far on facebook lol

These are the cream of what i've come across so far on facebook lol

These are the cream of what i've come across so far on facebook lol

These are the cream of what i've come across so far on facebook lol

These are the cream of what i've come across so far on facebook lol

These are the cream of what i've come across so far on facebook lol

These are the cream of what i've come across so far on facebook lol

My Champions League winning dinner.
I'm so tired...

These are the cream of what i've come across so far on facebook lol