Kostas

Nah I double checked my post

I think Arnesen's sacking may change this. Or is it wishful thinking?

Weird.He wasn't at the Bridge on Sunday so I figured it had to do with his loan. What about this: Des amis partis en prêt m'ont raconté leurs entraînements, parfois c'est n'importe quoi ».

:lol: Can't believe I missed this!

In hindsight, that CL game against Marseille was probably our best chance to either play the kids or experiment with our starting XI. We ended up starting Ferreira on the left-side and witnessed Drogba being lovestruck with Marseille.

Calculated risk. Did anyone believe that we were going to go throughout the season without long-term injuries? With 7 players >30?! Apparently whoever thought that having 16 outfield players was a good idea did.

Surprisingly good piece of journalism. I feel that 3, 4, 5 are beyond his power but he does take blame for 1 and 2. I wasn't even aware that Kakuta has got a PL start ! Even if he has that's only two freaking starts (+ does Sturridge have any?) disgraceful number for a man who said that he was going to promote youth players during the summer.

Good thread I laugh at anyone saying that we shouldn't have had that summer clear-out. Even Ballack, who I've argued that we could have kept , is 34 years old and injury prone, we can't expect such players to play week in week- out just like we shouldn't have gambled on Drogba's fitness. On the other hand I believe we should have never loaned out so many players. Not after realizing that some transfers were going to fail and that we were going to start the season with 16 senior outfield players. Having Matic or Cork when we were forced to play Zhirkov and Malouda in the midfield might have saved us. Keeping Mancienne for rotation might have averted Mikel getting exhausted after so many games, the same goes for Bertnand and Ashley Cole.

JT was hated even before the Bridge scandal. Guess it has something to do with being a vocal icon for the most hated team in country.

^I'm glad that the stats support my view. Anelka needs to be dropped. Actually we should have had this discussion in mid-November. I can understand Ancelotti's unwillingness to drop him as the next one in the pecking order is Salomon Kalou but he can't do worse than 0 shots in 90 minutes. As a matter of fact neither can Sturridge, Kakuta et al. I argued back before the Sunderland game that Bruma couldn't do worse than ol'Paulo, his performance against Villa proved me right.

Good call.That was the last time he had a truly impressive performance. Blame the players all you want but there's something wrong with the one picking them when a player who has been bad in the league for over 2 months still starts.

Any thoughts on Essien>Mikel @ DM now?

They have numerous successful well run businesses across the world. They have to be smarter than we give them credit for.

You don't really believe that City bid for everyone they're being linked with, do you?

The league is gone, get over it. Of course we can hope that we will fluke the Champions League but that's not the way proper teams should be planning. From now on our priorities should be: 2nd or 3rd spot in the league, 2nd may be hard but 3rd is still very much reachable.Winning the FA Cup and having yet another trophy-less year is the difference between us and Arsenal. We can still make history so we have to give it our best.CL semi-finals. There we will get eliminated without losing our status in Europe.

Starting the same hopeless attackStarting FerreiraNo subs at HTTook off probably our best player at the time (Ramires) for his 2nd substitutionAllowed Anelka 78 minutes on the pitchAnother worthless 10 minutes for Sturridge And you know that I would have posted the same list had we won. I saw no tactical masterstroke today.I'd love to give him credit for what he does (like finally starting Bruma) but those two were just the changes he always makes. I'm pretty sure that it's been a while since we had the same RB for the whole 90 minutes and even if it hasn't substituting a RB for a RB is his second most used sub after (surprise! surprise!) getting Kalou on the pitch. He took off Ramires only because he was behind Anelka and everyone else in the pecking order, just like he used to sub Mikel last year, Benayoun earlier in the season and one of the kids whenever they started.

Depressing.CA may have won the dressing room but he's doing his absolute best to lose our U21s.

Finally something interesting for a change. Puts that whole "new challenge" bs in perspective. Doubt it's going to happen though, their youth setup is well ahead of ours when Arnesen took over.

So before I get the label of being an Anelka hater I'd like to remind the regulars that I admire Anelka for his talents and what he has given to the team. Now that we got that out of the way.. I've forgotten the last time he was actually good and offered much to our play. Since October Anelka has been our WORST starter by a fucking landmile. While there are others like Ferreira and Kalou they were never guaranteed starters and haven't got nearly as much playing time as he did. Drogba has been atrocious as-well but at least one can say that he has been battling both Malaria and lack of service. Anelka on the other hand has been mostly healthy. I've said in the past that he has developed an alarming allergy to the penalty box and now combined with his obsession on slowing down our play,dribbling only to eventually end up on the sideline trying to beat his player has led us to endless shocking pefrormances and a true drought of goals. He looks like the exact opposite of Malouda who -inconsistently- tries for 90 minutes to make something meaningful happen with quick passes and 1-2s with Cole,Drogba or Lamps. I'm really sick of his style, his dribbling and himself. Disclaimer: This isn't meant to be an Anelka bashing thread.

Give Anelka a fricking ball or two and let him enjoy his slow dribbles at Cobham. Yeah at the moment I'm in favour of Anelka getting benched for Kalou, Sturridge, Sala, Ancelotti, Emenalo..ANYONE

Edit: Wrong thread. Give youngsters a chance but don't take too many risks. We are still on track to making history.

Exactly.Is it mentality or that fricking bad moment? Whatever. I'm disgusted. 89 points is the best we can do right now. As much as I'd love to hope I can't see us dropping less than 9 points in the next 18 games. Title lost.

On the bright side we all saw what happened once Anelka fucked off..

Fuck off. At least we scored 3 ...

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL TERRY