Elliott

Is Belletti injured? Just thought he was being left out of the team for Ferreira. After Paulo's performance today, he deserves to come straight back into it.

Welcome

So, yeah, we did have back up then.

I don't really remember what was so great about Ashley Cole at Arsenal, but he's a very capable player and he's better than Bridge.

He's done pretty well yes. I don't think he's a great player or anything - lacks a bit of pace and I also think he could think a bit faster, but he's still a very capable player and a much better back-up than what we had last season.

Great goal, but a lacklustre performance overall. Cech: 8 - Pulled off some great saves Ferreira: 6 - average Ashley Cole: 6 - average Alex: 7 - looked fairly good, had the odd jitter though Carvalho: 8 - Good performance, had the odd jitter too, but overall good Mikel: 6 - had a bit of an off day I felt Essien: 7 - got forward a lot, in fact I think he was generally playing a more advance role than Lampard which is a bit odd Lampard: 7 - by far from his best performance, but he tested the goalkeeper twice Joe Cole: 8 - had a good day and scored the winner Kalou: 7 - never got the chance to show himself in front of goal but a fantastic pass for the goal, absolutely sublime Shevchenko: 6 - he missed a very good chance and didn't have much else he could do Subs: Hilario: 6 - terrible with the corners, but did make one very good save Wright-Phillips: 6 - never really got into the game, almost forced an own goal with a great cross though Pizarro: 6 - didn't have a chance to do anything Man of the match: Carvalho.

Sounds like to me he's pre-defending himself from future bad signings. If he signs a bum player, I bet he says "well we wanted x, but we were priced out".

Ah there we go then Where are you from exactly, out of interest?

4pm, like it says in the topic subtitle I'd translate that to your time, but I haven't a clue which timezone you're in! It starts in 45minutes from when I posted this then.

I think next season is a long time away I also think I wouldn't be interested in this (too tedious trying to guess 10 scores a week), but that many others would so go for it.

Haha, awesome.

I never meant to suggest you needed to be a good manager to be a twat!

Most good managers are twats then.

Nobody's perfect. Fact is, we're in a much better position with Abramovich than without so he gets my respect.

Of course we wouldn't have. We were going down the drain in terms of finances; had Ranieri not got us into the Champions League the summer Abramovich came in, we would have probably done a Leeds. I'm absolutely serious that's the difference. Abramovich made this club swim when it could have so easily sunk.

Er, all managers are biased towards their players, all good ones anyway. If you don't support your own players, you'll soon lose their respect.

I don't think it's anything new or have I missed something? We are talking about the away goals rule here right? Away goals don't automatically count as double, that would be ridiculous.

"The only thing I can think about is that he (Crouch) spoke about the players who play in his team. He knows the foreigners in his team very closely. I don't think he knows much about other foreigners." Grant got himself a + in my opinion with that!

Not quite the same though is it? That's very much an issue of identity, but I wouldn't have said a Ghanaian could claim to feel British instead of Ghanaian.

Are they really entitled to dual nationality? How does that work? If they were born in a country that has now severed it's links with it's former colony, I don't see how they could qualify automatically to be a British or French or whatever national.

I'm absolutely certain badboy's right here, and the program would be ignored, at least by the officials who are actually able to do something about it.

I'm willing to bet plenty here don't have a clue where Slovenia is

...Oh. I thought it was up to January. That explains that then.

Kalou got around alright, but he had no end product. He's played better. Starting to become a frustrating player, although I still have faith he can be an excellent player for us in the future. He's certainly got the ball at feet technique. Well if Pizarro was off with Gerrard, he'll be back for the weekend hopefully, which means we will have two recognised strikers at least.

And now Sinclair too as we called him back.