Naked Mole Rat

What the fuck? I resented Roman for sacking Mourinho and Ancelotti, but if this is true, he couldn't have chosen a worse time to support the manager. If we don't want to pull a Liverpool, AVB must go NOW. We have to somehow salvage something this season or it will be even more difficult to clear the dead wood in summer than it is now.

Away goal, hopefully no more Bosingwa for like ever. Can't complain.

Everything about AVB is hopeless. He hasn't got a plan B, his man management skills are woeful and his media handling skills are even worse. But he hasn't done any sin; he just made a whole lot of rookie mistakes. At least some of them are. Other mistakes are what even experienced managers (e.g. Carlo) can make. The biggest sin anyone's committed regarding our current crisis was to sack one of the greatest managers in the world and bring in a newbie to replace him, thinking he'd do any better.

That's a cliche but very true. If you play football, you know that you don't have to necessarily know your teammates very well on a personal level to work well with them. You don't have to Ramires' best friend to know that he's a hardworking and fast player. You see things like that and everything else that matters in football on the training ground.

Congrats to Zambia but holy shit. Who would have thought?

I don't think he's done a good job, but I feel sorry for him. He was never going to live up to the hypes and work a miracle, which was something even a talented and experienced manager Carlo couldn't do. After all, he's just a newbie, barely old enough to exert any influence on our high and mighty players. At this stage of his career, Chelsea is too big of a challenge, and he really should have stayed with Porto. Anyway, I don't really know what we should do with him now. He's certainly not good enough yet and it's probably best for him if he left, but that obviously means we're going to be fucked.

First clean sheet for Norwich this season and first two-goal game since November for Everton. We're the best combo breaker in England. Do we get a medal for that?

Precisely. He's getting picked on rather harshly. There were many other players who played significantly worse than he did and didn't give nearly as much (Bosingwa, Cech, Meireles, Torres)

You made a list of reasons (all of which were external factors that led me to believe you thought Torres wasn't at fault) why Torres is in a slump, and I had a problem with one of them. So I challenged it and said lack of confidence is not an excuse as professionals are supposed to fight off pressure and not let it affect them so much on the pitch (= his fault for letting it affect him). That's why we are having this nice little intercourse

He's a professional athlete. He's expected to cope with pressure, and it's not an excuse for him to go 20 games without a goal because of 'lack of confidence'. And frankly, I don't see how pressure alone can do that. It's probably part of it, but it's probably also because he's not a good player anymore.

That's not an excuse.

I have an irrationally good feeling about this one. Maybe it's not irrational at all. We often do surprisingly well against big teams when we're struggling.

We don't back him for his misconduct nor do we think it's all a lie. Seems like you're implying that we're being absurd here by supporting him for his misbehaving, but if you read that other thread carefully, you'd know most of the criticism toward the FA and the media is for the premature and over-the-board reactions. His cheating on his wife and alleged racial insult toward Anton Ferdinand are NOT condoned by most of us here, although to be honest, neither was as serious as people like to make it out to be. (And of course, the media and fans were not nearly as hard on Ryan Giggs, Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney who did equally despicable things.) Like I said, many people here are just really offended by the FA's premature, unnecessary (the trial doesn't even take place until after Euro) and biased (clearly, they did this just to please people) reaction to this matter that was no different from what those QPR cunts did.

Patrick Bad Ass Mother Ford Hope he does well.

They're gonna miss him so bad when he retires.

Am I the only one who tried Makelele in desperation? Anyway, I got 21. Should've got at least a couple more, though.

Only watched a little portion of the match (laggy stream, missed both goals) and not planning to watch the rest, but I find it quite funny Bosingwa's getting a stick when he got the equalizer, though I saw the highlight and it was a shit goal and I read Bosingwa's error led to the Sinclair goal (what a great goal, too). But was he really that terrible?

Please summarize what you think my points are.

I wasn't saying spending was the only way out, was I? I did specifically say that what frustrates me is that we are not taking any adequate action, whether it's spending or developing young players, to get us out of the mess we are in. And I recognize that we were never going to keep spending so much money. The board have mentioned, on several occasions, that they aim to turn things around to start making profits, and I want that, too. But if we are not going to spend, we have to at least make the most out of what we already have, and we are not doing that either, and therefore we're not getting the results we want, then we go panicking and doing some ridiculously expensive emergency deals to salvage our campaign, which is actually the exact opposite of what we want to do.

If we were like Real Madrid, who gift their talents to other clubs but still have a very formidable first team squad, I wouldn't mind a tiny bit if none of our youngsters ever got through. Why would I? It's not so much that I care for the young players, it's more that I see the young players as a possible solution to our problem. The only other possible solution to it is obviously to spend more, and we're not doing either of those things and that's what frustrates me.

Oh my god. All of our proposed kits look shit. If they are just mockups, good, but whoever did it should definitely do a better job, and if they're actual Adidas stuff, we better get a new sponsor because clearly they don't give a fuck. Those white lines on the home kit are just horrid, and like I said they look like they were put there by someone who didn't give a fuck. The away kit looks just comical with that oversized emblem in the bottom right corner and that caveman outfit pattern. The alternative kit doesn't look nearly as bad as the other two, probably because I'm kind of used to that weird sky blue/indigo combo, but I still don't like it. I really wish they'd keep all our kits simple. A plain blue shirt always does the trick, so why not that? For instance, Real Madrid's kits always look good because they keep things simple.

Is that from our game against them this season? Just making sure it's not one of those creepy shopped fake photos. He does look good in that shirt, but who doesn't really?

No we are not, and we shouldn't be. We are more than capable of producing first-team materials or making profit off young talents. We have great talents. It's just that we fuck things up all the time. Gokhan Tore is already looking like someone who's worth at least five times the amount Hamburg paid us for him. Same goes for Stoch. We made a total of 5 million pounds of profit off him, but you know what? I bet we'll probably have to pay about 10 to 15 million if we are to get him back from Fenerbahce. What about Borini? Could we have saved those 50 million pounds we spent on Torres had we not ignored Borini? Maybe a bit far-fetched, but at that time he was on fire, and we could have at least given him a chance. It's not a big ask for the fans to demand the club take some kind of action to make our investment in youth pay because we really can be doing better.

I don't see Cahill putting any immediate pressure on either Terry or Luiz, though he may be able to replace Terry in the future.

He seems to be offside to me. His feet are definitely on the right side but not his head. I think we never stood a chance and decided not to go for him. Unfortunate that we didn't, nonetheless.