Kostas

I know it's just football. I fully realise sports should not play an important part in one's life. But this ranks as one of the best moments of my life.

What you say is true but I'd rather not let definitions get in the way. Unless you believe that nepotism is a one way process and someone who's repeatedly depended on it is somehow better than the nepotists themselves.

Fast tracked through Ivory Coast's football due to his brother. He was brought into Europe by a club for which his brother had been a pretty important figure. He's also been sucking up to Drogba ever since he arrived at this club.

Nepotism has played a major role in his career. He won't be getting much respect for me.

Where?!

4th choice striker/ 3rd* choice winger? Doubt it. *Come to think of it I meant 3rd on each side rather than 3rd from all our wingers.

Even though Meireles left Porto after 6 years as soon as AVB took over? I won't be convinced by articles/talk after both switched teams. If you've got any source prior to both moving then I'll be convinced. Even if that's not what the contractual talks are about it is clearly that by which managers are judged by (and sacked for). AVB (or anyone before him) wasn't sacked because of his transfers (or lack of them). He was sacked because he group of players he had to manage could do better than 1.70 points per game and it didn't look like an improvement was possible. Arguing this would be useless since the appointment of a manager and a couple of 1st team transfers can change the situation but I think the majority of our transfers in the last 2 years and the players that could potentially be important in the future don't suit this approach. Ramires,Sturridge and Torres are players that need space to thrive (the pace of the first 2 is practically wasted in any other situation), Lukaku is The Next Drogba™ and Mata failed as a winger under that "philosophy" because never did his part in our pressing (nor did Sturridge). Oriol became relevant only after a major change in the defensive high-line.

But I obviously am! Meireles left Porto for Liverpool just after AVB assumed power, I'm not sure if Raul even played a game under AVB. Either you weren't aware of that fact or we have a different understanding of how footballing relations work. The fact that Meireles did very well in a mid-table PL club and his hard-working footballing profile/style counted more for the club than his short familiarity with AVB. On Romeu: Again I find giving the credits for his signing to AVB rather simplistic. Scouting Barcelona's reserves is definitely something than more than a couple dozen clubs do and signing a 2nd defensive midfielder to strengthen an extremely weak and thin midfield doesn't take a genius. Collective decisions. The last manager who threw a tantrum over power games was Mourinho. The very prospect of being one of the highest earners in football and having a team that you could potentially turn into winners while experiencing the very highest level in club football is enough to attract the biggest names, ask Ancelotti. The myth of a manager who has absolute power is dispelled in our case and while managers will always strive for greater control and unless you are Ferguson, Mourinho or Wenger you are extremely unlikely to be given the sort of power football managers traditionally have had at the top level. It is at that point that you see that managers are seperated into those who react to failures by blaming their superiors (Benitez) and those who handle the situation with "dignity" like true diplomats (Ancelotti). I've been looking for an excuse to post this brilliant article for 2 years. I think you should give it a read to understand the difference in our viewpoints. Football philosophy may sound great and beautiful in interviews and books but is too abstract in itself . If you are referring to extreme high-pressure + possession football I would say that both AVB and the club realized that our squad was not capable of pulling that off fairly early in the season due to numerous (already documented) reasons. Edit: It is important to note that unlike the man who Emenalo supposedly succeeded (Hint:the most hated former Chelsea man in the summer) Emenalo does not hold a position in the Football Board and has little to do with out academy despite being the head of our Scouting Department. Again this change in personnel/role was another case of taking the power from a single person/role and in favor of collective decisions. Tactical knowledge (see this) is irrelevant for Emenalo's role. On the other hand the degree of Sports Administration he holds is not.

Not to sound offensive but that's bollocks. He's been playing in the PL long enough for all professional clubs to know his quality. On top of that his wages are closer to what the first striker of most PL clubs gets rather than the sub he could at the very best hope to be. Most of the transfer stories regarding him are laughable. It's most likely his manager trying to create an image that would help him in any ongoing negotiations or a poor journo who got his hands on the list of Chelsea players whose contract expires and is forced to come up with something on Kalou because his editor has given the story about the true Ivory Coast footballer to a more experienced hack. I frankly can't believe anyone could buy that Wenger's Arsenal would ever be interested in him, he's absolutely nothing like a Wenger player. The only clubs which is less likely to get him that Arsenal is Everton and afaik he's been linked with them too. Mind elaborating on how he's a role model/idol? Apart from the self serving little talent+lot of effort what else could there possibly be?

No club in the PL was willing to waste a foreigner's spot on him and pay him wages even close to what his pals got him at Chelsea? I'm shocked. Wonder if his brother/he still holds connections at Feyenoord.

The club signed Mata and Meireless. AVB's input and role in our football board is unknown. The only thing we do know is that all moves are collective and therefore a mere change of a single person is not going to redefine our goal. As I said losing the 2 most influential and important players of the style we've had since Mourinho is going change the situation more than any manager could by himself. The club has been planning to replace them by mega-signings like Mata and Torres and it's only a matter of the club finding the person to create a winning team with the assembled squad and the players performing to their abilities. Getting rid of primitive labels such as beautiful/attacking/negative/ugly football is a must if we want to make progress with such discussions. We're not journos and we can do better than them.

Just like you can't give all the credit (or even most of it as far as I'm concerned) for our incredible CL run to the manager.

Isn't that what's going to happen with Drogba?

The next manager will have his hands tied even more than AVB did. With Drogba leaving and Lampard approaching 34 he will be practically forced to make our other set of players (anyone included in the current board's plans) work and win. It's as simple as trusting a man with a proven track record on similar jobs over anyone else*. *Availability is extremely important. I've no doubt we'd go for someone like Mourinho or Wenger if they were available.

Sure as long as we can annually donate ~20m pounds and convince Jim to tolerate Gourlay and Buck.

I strongly recommend Stardock's Fences if you are having problems relating to space on your desktop. I've tried every desktop program there is but that app struck the perfect balance between productivity, looks (in terms of having a light desktop), and not being resource hungry.

Are we really talking about taking risks with "young" and "talented" managers when we chewed and spit away the best managerial prospect in Europe no longer than 2 and a half months ago?

Direct Drogba-centric play. Concervative play from central defenders and reduced overlapping from fullbacks. A goalkeeper who keeps lumping the ball to oblivion. Heavy reliance on set-pieces, Wide forwards who are on the pitch to be direct and defensively disciplined rather than creative so that creativity falls on a couple of players in the in the middle. That may not be true for Ancelotti's Chelsea but we were far from consistent in getting the results even in his first year. BTW even Kalou would chuckle at Grant having tactics. Then again I wouldn't expect you to see tactics as long as we kept getting the results even if you were hit in the head with the tactics board.

We've had our best spells result-wise since Mourinho left when we regressed to Mourinho tactics, anyone who's pretending to care about different football after AVB is a hypocrite.

FYI I had to turn my speakers up a notch to hear Shon3x but I could hear everyone (almost) clearly.

Loled at Shane's remark on our #9.

I will.

I saw that vid yesterday. Can't say I've ever watched a football related video that was so strong.

I'm genuinely curious about how the club will attempt to avoid the PR disaster that would be sacking him after we have won the CL. They'd have to wait for natural disaster to release an announcement.