Viper22

Knew that'd happen

Fuck, that would have rounded off this game perfectly....

Fact of the matter is lads, as proved live on TV, that if you frustrate a team and get under their skin they will eventually do something stupid. They were so afraid of Costa that they were hacking him down at every opportunity, and Dean knew it. You don't need 10s of shots on target to be playing well, we were solid, and frustrating them. City were a ticking time bomb and Zaba was the martyr in this case. Then when they're down to 10 men we have more space, which should result in a goal on the counter. Exactly what happened tbh, now just to close the game out Jose styleeeee.

Any of the pessimists left about?

Tbh other than Willian I think we're looking good. They're frustrated, knackered and our defence has looked extremely solid.

Get the fuck off of the pitch Willian. You're playing like a Man Utd player. Get Andre on, no need to wait for HT, now.

Yaya Toure's lack of energy, Aguero's constant injuries, no Negredo and Jovetic, half fit Dzeko and finally and most importantly... Demichelis.

We are indeed. Have you ever been to England and seen one of the fascinating things that apparently confuses the fuck out of non-British people? Like: 1) Spontaneous queueing without any signs or physical objects in an extremely orderly fashion. Queues get started EVERYWHERE. 2) We call dessert 'pudding'. 3) Tea. We love our tea. 4) Washing machines in the kitchen. 5) Crackers and paper crowns at xmas. 6) Bollocks means bad. Dog's bollocks means great. 7) Saying "You alright?" as a greeting and a reply of just "You alright?" is accepted as a response and ends the conversation. I love this country, the rest of Britain are even weirder.

It's a parody of the British phrase "He couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo". It's like "Couldn't hit a barn door if you were sitting on the handle" or "Couldn't hit water if you fell out of a boat". It means you've got terrible aim. It's Irish in origin I think, and it used to be shovel rather than banjo, but changed due to a banjo being a type of shovel in Ireland. Phrases often levelled at Torres during his time at Chelsea and more so at King Heskey. So it's obviously a play on that... Poor guy .

Eidur was and still is my favourite ever Chelsea player. He was exactly the reason that you can still have faith in footballers - a model professional and one of the best and most underrated players of the PL era.

Well if he's right then that's just even more exciting!

For Euro 2020 Final and both Semi Finals: Wembley, London, England [90,000] For 3 group games and 1 quarter final game: Allianz Arena, Munich, Germany [to be expanded to 75,000] (New) Baku Olympic Stadium, Baku, Azerbaijan [proposed 68,000] (New) Zenit Stadium, St Petersburg, Russia [proposed 69,500] Stadio Olympico, Rome, Italy [72,698] For 3 group games and 1 last 16 game: Telia Parken, Copenhagen, Denmark [38,065] Arena Nationala, Bucharest, Romania [55,600] Amsterdam Arena, Amsterdam, Netherlands [to be expanded to 56,000] Aviva Stadium, Dublin, Republic of Ireland [51,700] Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland [52,063] San Mames Stadium, Bilbao, Spain [53,332] (New) Puskas Ferenc Stadium, Budapest, Hungary [proposed 68,000] (New) Unnamed National Stadium, Brussels, Belgium [proposed 60,000] Unlucky to Minsk, Sofia, Jerusalem, Skopje, Solna and Cardiff who missed out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29251585 Pretty happy about this. Hopefully showcase how much of an atmosphere we can create to force FIFA to give us a world cup to host soon. What does everyone else think?

Please god no Mikel. We know how it goes when Ramires and Mikel are on the same pitch and it's not well. And Ramires HAS to start against City IMO. So no Mikel until late in the game when we're 1/2-0 up ;P.

Damn if Izzy Brown isn't exciting. That finishing....

That Lohmar kid makes Balotelli and Suarez look like nice, decent, well rounded individuals. Prick.

---------------Courtois---------------- ---Azpi-----Cahill-----JT-----Luis-- -----------------Matic------------------ ------Fabregas-----Ramires------- --Willian-------------------Hazard-- -------------Diego Costa------------ The walking goal/MOTM machine that is Costa simply has to start. We really need Ramires and Willian for their legs and tracking back ability to deal with Navas/Toure/Silva which is frankly terrifying. Rest of midfield picks itself. Luis at LB as he proved last night that he deserves a start, Azpi at RB because as good as Ivan has been going forwards this season defensively he's a liability. So i'd prefer Ivan at RB in games against smaller teams but Azpi against teams with quality LWs. Cahill, JT and Matic need to pick their shit up and play their best games this season so far if we're to come out of this match with anything, and tbh I think they will. Heart says 1-0 to the blues, brain says 1-1 or 1-2 if we play Ivan. Quitely confident though .

I'm sure that fact won't be repeated in the media daily for the next fortnight.... >.<

Courtois - 7 - Decent when called upon and couldn't do much for the goal when his defence opened up like the goddamn red sea. Ivanovic - 5 - Always out of position, very good going forwards as usual, especially when we're chasing the game, but needs to track back more. Has cost us goals this season and now points. Cahill - 5 - God only knows what he was doing for the Schalke goal. Why would you back off that much? Terry - 6 - Decent, but no more, didn't get beaten in the air much all night. Luis - 7 - Very good starting debut, was a pleasure to see some amazing crosses coming in from our left hand side, and brilliant at 1 on 1 tackling. Matic - 6 - Got beaten by Draxler a few times which was out of character but also made a few good dispossessions in defence. Fabregas - 7 - Lost ball for the goal but you'd think someone else might bother covering for his mistake, decent goal but should have had another. That was a sitter. Hazard - 8 - Very good all night IMO. Caused a lot of problems for their defence and even tracked back a few times to help Luis out. Willian - 6 - Not his best game. His usual industrial self but no creativity and he didn't get much time on the ball. Ramires - 5 - Decent energy but like Willian didn't offer much more all game. Seems a passenger at times, and didn't even try for Schalke's goal. Drogba - 2 - Made Torres' performances in a Chelsea shirt look good. Terrible. Seemed to lose the ball at least 75% of the times he had hold of it. Oscar (sub) - 5 - No impact to the game. No idea why he was brought on though, this wasn't his kind of game. Remy (sub) - 7 - Great cameo, unlucky not to score and get an assist in the time he was on the pitch. Costa (sub) - 6 - Didn't do much. Drifted out a little bit too much for my liking but didn't have long and Schalke were already in ultra defensive mode by then.

I'm craving line up news, curious as to what Mou is going to do here.

Simeone is great. But Wenger (as much as I hate the man) is a good manager. Don't forget the 02/03 season, Wenger achieved something amazing - the invincible season. Simeone is nearly there though, and with another La Liga/CL win he would jump up another 2/3 places. EDIT: Yup about the Capello/Hodgson thing. Woy doesn't embarrass me and I don't think he's bad but Capello was good for England IMO. If the FA had left well enough alone and not undermined Capello with the whole JT thing then I reckon we'd have done a hell of a lot better at this recent world cup.

If you include Ferguson and Heynckes seeing as they've only just recently retired... These are the top 18 in the world right now IMO: 1) Ferguson 2) Mourinho 3) Capello 4) Ancelotti 5) Louw 6) Heynckes 7) Klopp 8) Guardiola 9) Lippi 10) Wenger 11) Trapattoni 12) Simeone 13) Del Bosque 14) Lucescu 15) Hiddink 16) Conte 17) Bielsa 18) Pellegrini EDIT: So in answer to your question, yes I think Simeone is in the bracket of top class managers.

Everyone here forgetting about Capello? His England tenure doesn't immediately make him a bad manager. He's won Serie A 5 times with 2 different clubs, the Champions League, La Liga twice and the Italian Supercup 4 times.

---------------Tibo-------------- Azpi---Zouma--Cahill--Luis ---------Mikel----Fab---------- Willian-----Oscar----Hazard --------------Remy------------- Still a strong team, but would like to see Remy and Luis have a start. JT and Matic should be dropped cos (as much as I love them both) they've been a little bit dodgy at the start of this season and need to reminded that they're not invincible, as well as giving Zouma and Mikel chances to stake their claims. We ideally shouldn't rest more than 1 of our most important trio at once (Hazard, Fabregas & Costa).