jonaaibosk

Harsh

With Southampton retaining the crown, the quickest route out of England, would be for Southampton to lose the title to Fulham and then Fulham to lose it to Man Utd and then Man Utd to lose to Real Sociedad on 5th November

Or we can at least safely crown Nish as Unofficial Champion of Chicken

Having Europe in it is part of the fun. The whole idea was created on the basis that when a team beats another team that makes them better. (It's derived from the idea that when Scotland beat England in 1967, in England's first match after winning the World Cup, Scotland became the Unofficial World Champions) It's just a bit a fun and not meant to be taken too seriously.

Norwich can't take the crown from Southampton before they've won it. Norwich beat Southampton before Southampton beat Liverpool

On the Dundee United forum I post on we have a thread called Unofficial Champions of Scotland, where we take the previous years champions and follow results and watch as the unofficial championships changed hands. It can become quite interesting when the champions usually Celtic (and previously Rangers) lose in Europe and the title ends up in a foreign country and can bounce about between some random Scandinavian teams. I thought I'd give it a shot here and we can track the progress. By my calculations, correct me if in wrong, the current unofficial Champions would be Southampton. 2013 League winners: Manchester United Manchester United 0-1 Liverpool. Liverpool take the crown Liverpool 0-1 Southampton. Southampton take the crown. By my calculations the first chance of the crown going abroad will be if Man Utd beat Southampton and then lose to Real Sociedad in the Champions league.

What are people expecting here? How on earth does anyone on here know how he's feeling and what he's thinking? The boy has been sent out on loan and he has taken that opportunity to show what he can do, without having the added pressure of leading the line at as big a club as Chelsea. This loan will do wonders for his confidence and bring him in as a player. He's still very young and has lots to learn, he'll know that more than anyone. If Lukaku had stayed and had a bad game at Chelsea the repercussions would have been much worse than having a bad game for Everton. I'm confident that he's just striving to prove to Jose that he can be Chelsea's main man and the way his loan has started I'm positive that Jose is sitting up and taking notice and liking what he sees. Lukaku is exactly the type of striker that we need and I'm sure he'll be a huge player for us next season.

It's the attitude of people on here though. It's not that I'm saying Mata, personally, is living off past reputations, it's that people on here are putting still judging him on previous performances rather than his substandard performances of this season. It may well be down to a lack of fitness, but as it stands, IMO, the best thing for Chelsea is to leave Mata out and use him sparingly until his form returns. If he can come off the bench and perform like we know he can then he will force Jose to start picking him to start games, that's really what Jose is getting at. He's not saying "Oscar is better than Mata" he's saying "Oscar is first choice until someone puts in better performances than him"

Well judging by the comments on here, he's the fucking messiah, despite putting in sub standard performances. Note you haven't even bothered to address the rest of my post. I've stated that I want Mata to return to previous form, but until that happens, there are a lot of folk on here who need a reality check and will have to realise that if Mata isn't performing then he is going to have to sit out games until his form comes back. Put it this way, if you were manager of your local boys club team and young Jimmy had been POTY 2 years in a row but this season had been playing within himself and not performing to the best that he can, yet little Billy was playing really well and was much improved on previous years, would you continue to pick Jimmy and cross your fingers and hope his form returned or would you play Billy who was putting in better performances? My original post was not about hating on Mata, look at my avatar FFS, I love Mata, it's more about what is best for Chelsea right now and what is best is protecting Mata, by not playing him when he is off form. Continuing to play an off form player will do nothing for his confidence and that will begin to rub off on the rest of the team. Mata needs to grab his chance by coming off the bench and forcing Jose to pick him, by putting in the kind if performance we know he is capable of.

If I'm being totally honest as much as I love Mata, he's not really done the business on the park so far this season, whereas Oscar has. How long is Mata going to be allowed to live off of previous seasons reputations? He has to prove that he belongs on the pitch, he's not done that this season so far. I hope his form returns and soon, but it's not the end of the world if we have guys legitimately playing better than him. The starting XI should be picked on form, not reputation

Roger Milla and George Weah were better than both of them, so you're both wrong.

It's a toss up between De Rossi, Vidal and Javi Maritnez Busquets is up there though, so I can understand why people would have your opinion. Was merely playing devil's advocate

No he isn't

I won't read the whole thread as i can't be arsed sifting through the over reactions and bullshit. What I will say is that it was a very disciplined performance from Everton and I can see them doing very well under Martinez. The fact that Baines hardly ventured forward all night shows that Everton really had to work for tonight's result and all credit to them. On another day we would have destroyed them, had we taken all of our chances. Mirallas, Barkley, Howard and Barry were immense for Everton tonight which really stopped us getting into any sort of a rhythm. The first 5 minutes or so we looked good but fell away as Everton got their act together. From then on Everton grabbed control of the game with Barry dictating the play. Eto'o looks to be a yard or so off the pace but you can see that once he gets going he will be a big player for us. Made some really intelligent runs and got into good positions. Only a fantastic challenge from Barry stopped him opening his scoring account on his debut. I though Cole really struggled tonight and Schurrle had a poor game. Other than that everyone else put in a decent shift. Our lack of a killer ball and poor finishing cost us tonight. I didn't really see anything to be concerned about. Bad day at the office combined with Everton having a fantastic game. results will come, Eto'o will score goals and we'll be challenging for the title at the business end of the season. Absolutely no need to be pushing the panic button whatsoever.

Spot on

After reading the nonsense that half the folk are posting in this thread, I'm making a conscious decision to stop reading and posting in match threads while the game is still playing. Some of you people are an absolute embarrassment

Everton were pretty much controlling the game for the first half hour or so with Barry dictating the tempo of the game. Just when it looked like we were coming back into it and taking the game by the scruff of the neck, Everton pounced on a loose ball and scored with a well worked move. That's football for you. Eto'o looks way off the pace, but has been making some intelligent runs. Ivanovic has been our best player so far. Schurrle's miss was absolutely criminal. We're not out of this yet though

Twice?

Fair enough. Maybe should have read more than the last page

This is the very reason Nathan Ake did not go out on loan. This will be his 3rd year at the club and he wanted to fall into the club trained category

I'd be happy to help

I think the point he is making is is that if he was allowed to play against us and put in a great performance he'd be taken more seriously by our coaching staff.

That's how I did it

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/336142/Juan-Mata-could-force-Arsenal-or-Manchester-United-move-by-handing-in-transfer-request

I don't get all this "Wish this thread would shut down" nonsense. Yes I may have mentioned that I wish we hadn't sold him, but I wouldn't say that's living in the past, it's just me voicing an opinion. I still like Daniel as a football player, but it seems that if a player leaves Chelsea we can no longer talk about him? Is that correct? What about people talking about Witsel or DDR? They don't play for Chelsea and are very unlikely to sign so what makes that any different? I dislike Liverpool as much as the next guy, but I can't help liking Daniel Sturridge and enjoy seeing him do well. I'd prefer it if he was wearing a Chelsea shirt, but that's just the unfortunate way of football. If it makes folk happy though, I'll stop posting about Daniel in this thread (as so many folk want it closed) and whenever I have a point to make about Daniel, I'll just hi-jack another thread