5 minutes ago, Dixons said:

The football gods do seem to have it in for Chelsea atm.

Only one person to blame for all this, and he's no God.

6 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Imagine being the player to pick up a potentially career changing injury in a friendly just before a major cup final. It's frustrating enough picking up an injury on the training field or in an important game before a cup final, but to get it in an ill timed friendly must be sickening. If I was him, I would be so pissed at the club right now. They have been telling him all season that he can't play every game because of a back issue, and then we play him in this game of all games which ends up giving him a much worse injury.

I just can't get my head around the utter stupidity of it all. I'm sure the board members and Roman Abramovich would have known this game was a major injury risk, of course they would know, you would have to be an idiot to not see that, but the fact is that they just didn't care. For me, this is where the issue lies with our club these days, it's business before football.

I think Roman has pushed for this game on the back of his Israeli citizenship if im being honest. Preseason was already arranged, so we tried to squeeze it in post season. Playing after the EL final might have been an issue, it couldve meant players staying in training doing nothing for 3 or 4 weeks, if we hadnt made the final. I dont think it wouldve gone down too well delaying holidays. Then there is also the internationals coming up aswell. So i can see reasons for why it was played on this date. 

Surely the most logical thing wouldve been to play it next year and work our preseason into it, but i also think there are political motives for this game. 

Disappointing, but unfortunately not suprizing these days.

Should have been done after the final.

I'm furious that we won't see him in the final as he would have bullied Arsenal's weak midfield.

Not good news that, get well soon Ruben.

Are our board retarded? Who on earth thought this friendly was even close to being a good idea.

22 minutes ago, abramovich said:

This is just pure idiocy.

Who the f**k decided it was a good idea to have this pointless friendly at this particular date across the ocean on a piece of sh*t pitch?

You did. 

FYI the pitch wasn't bad. I don't know why some of you are focused on this. The pitch was fine. 

3 minutes ago, Hazard STAY said:

You did. 

FYI the pitch wasn't bad. I don't know why some of you are focused on this. The pitch was fine. 

4G wasn't it? f**kin awful for picking up injuries. Fresh damp grass or nothing.

43 minutes ago, abramovich said:

This is just pure idiocy.

Who the f**k decided it was a good idea to have this pointless friendly at this particular date across the ocean on a piece of sh*t pitch?

Look no further than your avatar

Oh what sh*t news ... hope he is able to make a complete recovery.

Unbelievable that both our breakthrough academy players do an achilles in the space of 3 weeks ... hopefully they can spur each other on in the recovery process.

With the Hazard going and the transfer ban, he's become so important for us next season that i'd happily take a 6-0 thrashing in the final in exchange for the injury not to be a serious one and have him fit for the start of next season.

1 hour ago, Hazard STAY said:

FYI the pitch wasn't bad. I don't know why some of you are focused on this. The pitch was fine. 

The players were literally pulling up entire sections of the turf. Do they look particularly impressed? 

It was an awful playing surface. 

. 

Edited May 16, 20197 yr by ForeverCarefree
Double posted.

And to have played this match against a team owned by that letcher Robert Kraft, who was caught in a massage parlour/brothel scandal recently.

Absolutely disgusting.

5 minutes ago, Phillip said:

And to have played this match against a team owned by that letcher Robert Kraft, who was caught in a massage parlour/brothel scandal recently.

Absolutely disgusting.

Where's the scandal here?

Huh?  It was somewhere in Florida I believe.

 

I am pretty sure I misunderstood the intent of your email.

Edited May 16, 20197 yr by Phillip

He's ruptured his achilles. Same injury as CHO.

Absolutely horrible news.

And while i understand the manager was under some kind of stupid instruction to play several starters i can't believe he risked Loftus Cheek on an absolutely horrific pitch with his injury record.

Totally screws us over for next season this.

We won't know the extent of the injury until RLC gets back to England and is fully analyzed by the medical staff. If we want to look for signs of optimism CHO seems to be on target for a much earlier return than originally predicted. But I think it is almost certain that RLC misses the final now unless the initial reports were way off the mark. Gutted for him.

11 hours ago, mwblue10 said:

Posted in the friendly thread too, but Ruben just went down and it doesn’t look good.  Leg gave out on him, I’m pretty confident he ruptured his Achilles just like CHO.

You called it. I was hoping to wake up and find out you were wrong but sadly is not the case.

Gutted for him, he has worked so hard on getting his back better and forced his way into the side on merit of good performance after good performance. 

This news has taken a lot of sparkle off the final for me now. Lost its importance. Ruben is one of us, someone to identify with and enjoy watching him ply his trade. He did not deserve this.

For those I upset on here last night with my comments out of anger as I lashed out at the club and manager, long term forum members, I do apologize.

Great, just wonderful news.

Getting so serious injury in a f**king friendly game before the Europe League final. 

What was Sarri thinking about?

That Kinsella bloke works for Goal.com, who are not a reliable news source. I doubt RLC is even back in the country yet.

8 minutes ago, bluedave said:

That Kinsella bloke works for Goal.com, who are not a reliable news source. I doubt RLC is even back in the country yet.

Kinsella is such a twat.  Always pointing out that he's not a Chelsea fan.

3 hours ago, Hazard STAY said:

You did. 

FYI the pitch wasn't bad. I don't know why some of you are focused on this. The pitch was fine. 

The pitch was awful. You don't lay sod down a few days before a match of any magnitude. That was stupid as hell. Also, when they were passing the ball between players, it was bouncing as it rolled over the pitch. That tells you how uneven and craptacular that pitch was. Was it the sole contributing factor? No. Did it play a part in it? Yep.

That injury was probably happening regardless of the playing surface but the surface was absolutely terrible. 

4 minutes ago, chiefBlueCFC said:

That injury was probably happening regardless of the playing surface but the surface was absolutely terrible. 

I am not so sure.

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/videos/v/2019/05/16/second-half--final-whistle-on-hate--new-england-revolution-v-che-AzcnRzaDE6feHxSIjmEsbYTmmWuOMu9Z

After 25:03 you get a close look at the situation. To me it looks like he steps on some rough patch of the grass and then his left foot somehow gets stuck in the grass which leads to his injury.

28 minutes ago, Sindre said:

I am not so sure.

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/videos/v/2019/05/16/second-half--final-whistle-on-hate--new-england-revolution-v-che-AzcnRzaDE6feHxSIjmEsbYTmmWuOMu9Z

After 25:03 you get a close look at the situation. To me it looks like he steps on some rough patch of the grass and then his left foot somehow gets stuck in the grass which leads to his injury.

I watched the game on TV and my immediate thought was how terrible the playing surface looked. It is fortunate that none of our other players picked up injuries. 

7 hours ago, dkw said:

Give it a bloody rest, how is this the managers fault in any way? I realise you have some kind of pathetic pathological hatred of a manager who has taken us to 2 finals and top 4 with an incredibly unbalanced side but this is ridiculous even for you.

You were right to call out my comment, it was an out of order reaction based on anger of seeing one of players that makes this Chelsea side enjoyable injured in, in my opinion, an ill timed friendly on an appalling pitch.

The purpose of the match had noble intentions, and the winner was certainly not Arsenal, that was wrong of me to say. There was no winner, only those who lost in this situation, RLC the worst affected. Poor guy must be heartbroken.

So for my anger in posting that I do apologize. You do me a disservice DKW though, you think you know me based on a reaction and use the word hatred against me, ironic in a friendly match that was dubbed "the final whistle on hate". I do not hate Sarri, nor did I hate any Chelsea manager before him, Rafa included. Nor have I ever hate any of our players. Some I have adored for the joy they have brought to me watching them ply their craft over the years, Zola, Hazard, Lamps etc, some I feel are simply not good enough to play for us and would rather them had moved on or be moved on, Willian, Pedro and Kovacic being the most current. But hatred, no no, I feel no hatred in my heart for any of them. They are our team, once they are out on the pitch, whether I agree with the choice of the manager or not, if I was in the stands their would be nothing but support for team and manager during the game.

I am probably guilty of over-estimating the importance of Sarri in all this, he could very well have been told to use all our respective available first team players, Ruben included. If so that seems backseat managing from whoever did it an undermines Sarri's job. The coach should pick the team, the subs made, not the owner, nor the club. If that is not the case then he is completely blameless in all this.

5 hours ago, Valerie said:

Oh stop being such a drama queen.

I hold my hands up, I was angry and the comment was out of order. I apologize for that. It was a disservice to our fan base and to Arsenal FC, there was no winner from this, only those that lost. RLC being the greatest affected just as he made himself one of the first names on the team sheet.