Jonty

I'll normally wear one around the house as it's comfortable and breathes well (always f**king hot here), and I wear it too football training and to indoor football, but rarely wear it out and about. If I lived in England i'd probably wear it even less, often you're just asking for a fight if you're out by yourself wearing one.

I posted this in another thread. I think most people's first choice would be Klopp but I doubt he'd come here.

Ref couldn't have been in a better position to see it either, what a joke lol.

I agree, people blame the FSW when we play badly, and say he had nothing to do with it when we play well, people's opinions about the manager are getting in the way of common sense. The player's aren't performing at the level expected of people earning their wage, commanding their transfer fees and playing at a club of this caliber, there's no bite to the team, Mata has looked exhausted for weeks now and we've been reliant on him for the entire season which is why we're now struggling to break teams down. Then if we drop him we lose because no-one else picks up the slack, and then the manager gets blasted for resting him (QPR), and then he has to go back to playing an ineffective Mata, it's a lose-lose situation, but people don't seem to mind so long as they can use it as more wood for the anti-manager fire. I want him gone come the end of the season but I want us to keep winning until then, and to say it's all the manager's fault is ridiculous. Our squad of 20 superstars has 1 player performing at the level expected (Mata), and now like Silva last season for City, he desperately needs a rest, but everyone else seems content to just pick up their paycheck and be done with it.

nearly 2000 replies and 100 pages, how many ways can people say rafa out? jeez

Well you just said he was overrated in the last line of what you just said, being given undue praise is generally the definition of overrated. Defensively he's been the best left back in the world for a decade and has kept some of the best players of all time in his pocket, saved us countless times last season (you said he'd been poor the last few seasons), particularly in the CL. At no point in either of our fixtures this season against Swansea was he given a hard time and I haven't heard any excuses about his ankle coming from anyone. I've seen him play some very good crosses in a blue shirt, recently he hasn't so much but i'd say thats more because of the change in style we've made because of the three amigos and Torres, back in the day when we were a powerful team scoring off crosses for fun, Ash used to play some quality balls into the box. I certainly wouldn't call him physically weak unless you put him up against a winger like Hulk, even then you rarely if ever see someone barge through him, and as for your complaints about his marking, he's not going to win a header against a big centre forward, it makes more sense for him to not jump and back into them to prevent them from getting their header away.

I think we'll pick up against them, our troubles of late haven't been that we've played badly (except maybe in the match yesterday, but i'm talking QPR/Swansea, etc.), the problem has been we haven't been able to break teams down at home that have come and parked the bus. Arsenal won't defend as deeply and I think we have a real chance, i'm predicting another 2-1 to us (assuming Ba starts, if he doesn't i'll say a 2-0 loss).

Did Scholes get a red for that? I should bloody well hope so, don't know why everyone always seems to find it funny when he does that when if anyone else does it they'd get blasted in the press for the recklessness, Marin got a bollocking in the papers after his tackle at QPR. As for the discussion about feeling sorry for Michael Johnson a few pages back, if i had the talent and opportunity that he had there's no way in hell i'd have wasted it like he did, and theres thousands of lads around the country that would feel the same, really can't feel sorry for the idiot.

Let's have some respect for the man that brought Roman and his billions to the club!

Our style of play isn't set up to play crosses. Mata is one of if not the most accurate crosser of the ball i've ever seen, from corners, free kicks out wide and the occasional cross, he can normally put it on a dime. However he's not instructed to drift out wide and try and play a cross, and neither are our wingers, Oscar/Hazard/Moses/Marin whoever is playing out there is instructed to cut inside. Bertrand if played on the left wing is probably the only exception, but he rarely gets them away. The wide aspect is left up to our full back, Cole/Dave/Iva, none of whom are renowned for their crossing, although Dave and Iva have both showed that on occasion they can play a good cross. If you actually put Mata on the left wing and Hazard on the right so to go on their strong feet they have to go outside the full back, you'd see our goals from crosses skyrocket. However this would take away our strength in the middle. Keep in mind this team was set up to feed Torres, a player that would struggle to muscle Sebastian Giovinco off a cross.

UK only? nevermind then :\

So we're fixing games to make enough money off betting agencies as to buy multi-million pound superstars as opposed to our billionaire owner financing them as he has done for the last decade? Still a better read than the Daily Mail.

I don't agree, both Marin and Hazard can do this and Moses probably could too, and if you're talking about on the counter then Ramires also does this.

Hasn't been so impressive this season but to say he's been overrated his whole career... just no. And he wasn't even on Muller for that goal, he had to cover Gomez who had gotten away from Luiz.

is it worth registering an account to watch this

I guarantee you FSW won't be on another season, even from their executive boxes they can see how poisonous the atmosphere is around the Bridge now, they aren't that stupid. This also affirms what I already thought about Pep, and that is that he knows deep down he is vastly overrated, the only easier job he could have taken on domestically is PSG, still at Bayern he will have no competition financially and theres only 1 team in the same league as them quality wise, it's just Barca/Real all over again with Bayern/Dortmund. And Dortmund are far more likely to lose players than Bayern are, Lewandowski already on his way out apparantley.

The two of them are both sent flying numerous times a match, Oscar rarely gets pushed off the ball and if he does it's normally a foul.

No blame can be put on him for today, he at least looked like he wanted it when he came on and was far more energetic than Hazard or Mata for those last few minutes. The manger's fault for putting him so obviously out of position. I mean has he not watched a single Chelsea game for the last 2 years? Has he not seen Torres's touch or passing ability? It was always going to fail, I was actually curious to see how the two of them would work up front together, Ba winning balls and setting up shots for Torres could actually have worked, but no put him on the right f**king wing where he can do sh*t all.

Doubt Arsenal would want him when they already have Gibbs coming through, i'd be much less surprised to see him go to United, a club that values young English talent and that clearly needs to replace their aging left back that has decided to give up on defending and become a goal scorer this season. Even if we do buy him we won't see him play for a few years, I doubt we'll play a teenager as our first choice left back and I don't think Bertrand will take over from Ash as first choice either, so i'm guessing we're going to buy a left back in his mid-late 20s which would push him further down the order.

Cahill and Dave both had shockers, may have been distracted by his son being born all of 3 days ago, at least he was trying to make up for it by becoming a centre forward for the last 15 minutes of the game while he made Oscar go and play centre back... Ba & Hazard both played well, Luiz was hot and cold, played some fantastic balls but was also wasteful at times. Gotta say Luiz and Ba were the only ones that looked up for this game, Frank too, he seemed well pissed at getting taken off. I understand why he took him off for Torres, but I don't understand why you would put someone with the touch of a rapist on the right wing.

I haven't seen his performance dip, he wasn't playing like he was against Juve every game, that was his standout game but apart from that he's been pretty consistent. And if anything i'd say he's adjusted to the EPL easier than Mata or Hazard have/did, he looks far more capable of dealing with the physical side of things.

Are you Rummenigge in disguise?

All that being said we'll probably end up with Roberto f**king Mancini

I'm honestly glad Pep has gone to someone else, although I would have preferred it if he'd gone to City or United, because then that would make the prospect of Jose returning here more attractive to him, I get the feeling he has unfinished business with him. I think saying no-one wants this job anymore is a bit of an exaggeration. I'd still say we could take our pick of just about any manager outside of the current United/City/Arsenal/Real/Barca/Bayern/Dortmund/Juventus managers. There's a lot of quality managers out there that many of us have probably forgotten about, and many managers in less known teams that have really transformed their teams, and are ready to step up to the next level. What works against us is that in the summer when we're looking for a new manager, we'll be 1 year off from the World Cup, so any quality national manager such as Low or Deschamps (who i'd like to see back here one day, imagine how different things may have been if Monaco had beaten Porto) won't be interested, unless there's a complete catastrophe in their qualifying groups. I'll name a few people i'd like to see take the job, not including the likes of Klopp, Conte and Jose who I all doubt will want to touch this with a 10 ft stick. 1) Fabio Capello (Russia) - Probably the best England manager in decades and had he come along a few years earlier I think we would have had a realistic chance of winning something. Speaks fluent English and seemed to like living and working here, the man has probably a better resume than any other that would even think of coming here. Milan, Real Madrid, Roma and Juventus, 5 Serie A's, 2 La Liga's and a Champions League, enough said. Lot's of experience and he stuck by JT when the entire country was on his back, i'd love to see him link up with our captain and I think they'd do great things together, he'll instantly have the backing of the dressing room. I don't know the exact details of Roman's relationship with him & the Russian national team, but I think if he wanted to he could work something out even if Russia do qualify for the World Cup (which looks likely). 2) Marcelo Bielsa (Bilbao) - I'll admit I don't know much about him, but Pep called him the best manager in the world last year and that's got to count for something. He manages a team that has a policy of only playing players from their region and he still managed to knock out Man Utd in the Europa league, and get to the final only to lose to Falcao & co that had a far, far stronger squad. He's supposed to be a very innovative manager who is very meticulous in his methods, which sounds a lot like another manager to come here from the Iberian peninsula. 3) Mircea Lucescu (Shakhtar) - I hate to say it but he and his team gave RDM & our lads a footballing lesson in Ukraine, and were very unlucky not to take anything from the Bridge. He's won 6 Ukraine league titles since he got the job 8 or so years ago and a UEFA Cup. Before that he won the Turkish League with Besiktas while only losing 1 game, and before that he won it with Galatasary while also getting them to the QF's of the CL with a pretty weak team. He's also won two UEFA Super Cups (beating Real & Inter), so he can go at it with the best. He's previously managed Inter & Romania so he has a wide range of experience and I think we could do far worse than him. They're still in the CL and it will be interesting to see how they go against Dortmund, if he can outwit Klopp then I think he's proven he's ready for us. 4) Walter Mazzarri (Napoli) - On any other night at the Bridge we'd probably have gone out, we were dominated like I haven't seen us dominated in Europe for a long time in the first leg, and only the superheroics of Drogba, Lamps, JT and Cech got us past them. They only lost 2 games in the CL last year (away vs us, and away vs Bayern with 10 men), they twice outplayed City and Villareal, and got a convincing draw at home against Bayern, a team that rolled us for 85 minutes. I think he's done a better job with Napoli than Simeone has done with Atletico, for starters he's actually got his side qualified for the CL, and has performed far better in the league. He also handed Juventus their only loss last season, in the Coppa Italia final. He hasn't managed outside of Italy yet but I think he has a lot of promise. Other manager's people have mentioned such as Pellegrini and Simeone would be good choices, but those would be my top 4, in order.

My respect for Hamann only increased through that