strong centreback

Exactly mate, not every foreign fan is a plastic johnny come lately, but there are enough to make the stereotype stick, if a person can change the club they 'support' than they are not a real supporter merely a fan of football.

If you think for one second what the club is going through now is bad then do abit of research about chelsea in the early eightys, that is bad, boycotting the club because your not happy with something is one thing, I personally would only follow our results if rafa benitez ever became our gaffer till he was sacked I certainly wouldnt stop supporting the club though, but to say like swedish house mafia that they will support someone else because they dont like the way things are currently panning out stinks of being a johnny come lately who has no attachment to the club, a real supporter rides the rough with the smooth (regardless of what country they are from).

Like I said in england it is commonly thought, rightly or wrongly, that the asian continent in bulk supports man utd, south americans support barcelona, africans support us, that tottenham have a high jewish following, arsenal have a large percentage of black supporters and that we have alot of wealthy fans that would be the typical answer from your average football fan that comes from england.

Most definately, not every foreign fan can be tarred with the same brush, its just people like swedish house mafia dont exactly help break the stigma of foreign fans not being as committed, the common view in england on asian fans (especially) is that they support the team whom is winning the most league titles, and that view is backed up when you consider how much our 'fan' base has grown in asia during the roman era, now its citys turn now to get about 50-100m new 'fans' over night I expect them to 'come out' on the 14th may

No offence mate but your reasoning in your own words behind why your a fan, your not a supporter, and not a plastic makes you sound even more like a johnny come lately, I personally could never understand supporting a team that are in another country from myself, have no attachment to on a local/family level I know that might sound elitist but how can someone from china/australia/malaysia/dubai etc have the same kind of support/emotional ties in a club compared to somebody who grew up in what would be considered the clubs catchment area? Im not saying all foreign fans are not as important as local ones but people like swedish house mafia hardly give them a good name. No matter how bad the football is, no matter how poorly the club is run, no matter what league we play in I will always and only support chelsea fc, I dont know any different that was the way I was brought up thats the way Im bringing my son up, your football team is something ingrained on you from an early age in england and once it is, its there for life, kinda like a marriage without the divorce option.

I personally think the reason avb has gone public with the 'player power' 'not everyone believes in my project' is a clever way to get the message across to the fans that some of our players are being less than professional in their behaviour and not putting in a good shift on purpose, there have always been rumblings of player power in the dressing room from jose right through to avb and I think the worm has turned amongst the supporters, alot of fans are seemingly changing their minds about it being avbs sole fault for the current state of affairs. If we have players in the dressing room literally putting in half hearted performances on purpose to get avb the boot than that is bloody sickening, they are a cancer in the dressing room, if there are a few unhappy then they may try to persuade others to follow suit, I do think a couple of players who will leave in the summer may be someone you thought wouldnt be a bad apple though, expect leaks between now and season end. Lets look at the bright side of this unsavoury affair, at least we look to be getting the much overdue and needed clearout this summer, the new spine appears to be taking shape, in potentially courtous if we bring him back in summer, luiz, ramires, mata and torres if he finds his scoring boots. Malouda is definitely one of the players not behind the project and probably told he is on borrowed time, hence the attitude.

Were talking about a squad of workers being paid handsomely to follow orders from someone a step higher in the foodchain, they are paid to do as the manager sees fit whether they like it or not, the question of is the manager good enough gets asked by the people higher in the club than the gaffer not lower.

Bring courtous back to give big pete a massive kick up the sphincter, get a proper rightback the kind that can do both the basics defend as well as attack, get somebody with a quick football brain in the centre of midfield that can ping a pass/through ball without holding onto the ball for 10 seconds too long, get rid of malouda and kalou and bring in competent wingers to rotate with mata and danny, and least but by know means least SIGN A BLOODY STRIKER WHO CAN SCORE!! we wouldnt be in half the mess we are now if we had a striker who was scoring half regularly.

The problems at chelsea currently run deeper than the manager its been a stagnation of the playing squad thats built up over a number of years and has only recently been started to be addressed, now whilst avb has made some mistakes during his tenure with us not everything can be laid at his feet, and anybody that does is incredibly narrow minded imho, as fans we have been calling out for a proper freshening up of the squad for how long now? an artist is only as good as his materials, picasso would struggle to make a master piece out of a picture if he had to use crayola crayons. The problem is the players or more to the point a certain handful in key positions, cech has been shaky more so than a long time, our rightback position is an issue and has for a while, our left back position on ashleys current form is becoming an issue, our central midfield has zero creativity and fails to get the ball moving fast enough and our star striker we shelled out 50m for cant score! Im not trying to make excuses for avb as he has to take some share of the blame, he loaned out josh without giving him a fair crack of the whip when he was someone who potentially could bring some much needed invention and quick play to our midfield three, he hasnt given bertrand a chance instead preffering to stick someone out of position out left, he should of in the summer said to the board our attacking options on the wing are not good enough and seemingly panders to the players wants in regards to dropping the high line high tempo football (at least if we lost we were bloody entertaining). What the major problem is, is that the board have only recently (last 2-3 windows) began refreshing our squad ie: Ramires Luiz Torres Mata Meirieles Romeu Cahill, now hopefully they are gonna keep this up as whilst its taken them ages to start doing it besides torres they have all worked/able to contribute in a positive manner if even only as a squad player. This summer coming will be a big changer if the out of contract players all as it seems leave (drogs kalou malouda bosingwa hilario) as that will leave a gapping hole in the squad that needs filling with better quality than that leaving (other than didi easily achievable) the main thing is avb gets us to top 4 and back in the champions league for next year if he does that than im happy, when we are bad we are bloody bad but when we have been good (even in defeat sometimes) we have been very good, for what is a squad in transition I dont think avb is doing that bad not great either but I sincerly believe that when (if given enough time) it all comes together it will be a very good team capable of challenging on all fronts with style and thats what the owner wants. Anyone who thought we'd win the league this year or would even finish 2nd is deluded, my expectations were always to finish top 4 ideally third whilst we regrouped and rebuilt as man city look to have raised the bar (watch them go on a run once yaya toure is back) something which we done in 2004/05 and look at how ferguson at united reacted over the following few years, thats the prototype we need to follow to get back to the top.

Fuck the media Fuck the FA if I were him id retire for international footy, I kniw its playing for your country but when the press bay for your blood permanently why bother?

Only thing im gonna say about our youth team/set up is this, before roman came in our youth setup was for lack of a better term an after thought, it may as well of been stopped due to the amount of neglect it recieved, since roman came in he has built world class facility's for the first team through to the youth team, the whole psychology of the club towards youth football has shifted from what it was under gullit/vialli/ranieri, the current crop of u15 youth team footballers are apparantly one of the best in the country for their age group, these are players that have benefited 100% from the better facilitys, the better coaching on offer and the right frame of mind from the upper management lets see over the next 5 years how many of them make it into the squad and then judge how the club has done, as at the moment we are judging the youth set up on arnesons signings when he went down the wenger route of signing 16 year olds and trying to polish them up into first team squad players, which with a multitude of managers coming and going hasnt helped.

You forgot to mention that he also said that he hopes to keep drogba and kalou until the end of the season, "They will return to this club from the African Nations and hopefully we will hold on to them until the end of the season," added Villas-Boas. "That's our intention, and I think their willingness as well." Which hopefully if read between the lines means although kalou would stay until the summer the club/avb are not looking to keep him longer than that.

Deja vu is that for the last 5 years with 4 different managers we have gone through a bad patch between the two transfer windows first part of the season, then pick it up in the new year and finish relatively strongly, call me cynical but that is the m.o. of players protecting their high salarys over collective glory. Now dont get me wrong im not saying they are all at it, but the guys at the tail end of their careers are certainly protecting their pockets, the squad has needed freshing up for nearly half a decade now and we have kept the same core of players who have peaked and should have been phased out, where is lampard, terry and drogbas replacements in the current squad? ferguson would already have their replacements in place, the only player he has failed to replace is scholes, now obviously the blame for the lack of squad freshening falls at the feet of the board who either get the wrong manager in or dont provide the funds to perform a squad overhaul. Cahill might well be the second time the club have brought a player in not just to play along side the old spine but eventually to take their place, unfortunately torres probably was drogs but it just hasnt worked out and modric was arguably going to be lampards.

would be 24 id assume, 2+4=6 that seems to be the way some players get their numbers if they cant have their position specific number, all but done now so id assume alex will be gone within the first week of jan.

Id say realistically for next season: -----------------------------------------------------------------Cech/Courtious------------------------------------------------------------------- Ivanovic/Hutchinson/New Rightback---------Terry/Cahill---------Luiz/Kalas/Chalobah---------Cole/Bertrand----------------------- -----------------------------------------Romeu/Lampard/Josh---------Ramires/Meireles----------------------------------------------------- -------------Sturridge/New Winger------------------Meireles/New Playmaker---------------------Mata/New Winger-------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------Torres/New Striker--------------------------------------------------------------------

If players are showing descent in the ranks then it shows that they are trying the player power move which has been done in the past and worked, however this time I think the upper management are not giving into them, why should players as good as they are or not as the case maybe like alex anelka kalou malouda lampard or any other player be able to pressurise the manager into playing them? AVB should be the only one making the choices not the owner not the players. If the players dont like it ship them out who ever they are, no player is bigger than the club, thats the mantra in football, and its no different for our club, the players seem like they in the past have kicked up a fuss and the manager has buckled either of his own accord or from pressure from above, that needs to stop, the manager is in charge the players fall in line, if malouda and kalou are not happy not playing, ask for a transfer, its players like them who go to the media who kick up a stink that are the cause of bad morale, they are like a cancer, ive got a feeling that anelka and alex may well of been like this and hence why AVB has done as he has done with them. Im expecting quite abit of movement over the next two windows and expect that the players who seem to be part of an apparent clique (drogba, malouda, kalou and anelka) are cast a side and new younger hungrier players ala mata and romeu are brought in to replace them.

What suarez said was negrito which apparantly translates literally as little black fella, problem here is as he is from a latin country its gonna be nigh on impossible to judge conclusively wether or not he meant it as a racist term or not, gus poyet is staunchly behind suarez and says that it is a misunderstanding as in uruaguay its not deemed racist, now if thats the case its a cultural difference and suarez must have thought (rightly or wrongly) that he was doing nothing wrong. Now as over here everybody just assumed he meant ni**er, you got to ban him, on appeal he will say his piece about what I wrote above and the FA will have to reduce it to something less severe, but not totally quash it due to there being the chance he did mean it racially. Boils down to evras word against suarezs word with the FA trying to make sure they dont look soft on racism.

Apparently sky have got other camera angles of the incident and from the bit of info I just got told by a mate, the FA are going to absolutely crucify JT, my mate is a removal man and the firm he works for does more up market clients, they done a member of the FA today and he was talking to him and as he is a liverpool fan he got talking about the suarez ban, the guy said they had to ban and fine him as while it was a cultural mistake they couldnt just let it slide but he will get it reduced on appeal, he also said if you thought that was a tough sentence then wait until you see the other one, he wouldnt say JTs name but was obviously refering to him, apparantly their is concrete evidence against him and the FA will have to nail him to the cross because of it, obviously take with a hint of salt just incase, but if true he is in big trouble and id very much doubt the club will be able to back him if found guilty in court.

Burn him burn him with fire, he has twice been rude to fearne cotton at the big weekend and on her show, and from what other people who have interviewed him say he is a right arrogant bastard, couldnt care less about whether his music is mine or yours cup of tea, there is a way of behaving to people and he goes about it all the wrong way.

Basically the spine of the team, and likely to be the players that AVB will need to jettison in order to bring his style of play to the club (except maybe cech).

Might be away by the club to stop him going to the ACoN, ghana might have other players but they will pick him if avaliable the last time he went to the ACoN just after injury he done his knee again, might well be the clubs way of preventing lightning striking twice.

Great short article from the express http://www.express.co.uk/football/view/289850/Senior-Chelsea-players-warned-Madrid-mutiny-is-not-an-option? which goes along with the idea that AVB is here long term and is going to be given time to build his new team in a new style of play (the only time you can drastically change the style of play), hopefully this is the case as I greatly admire AVB for what he is trying to introduce here and how he is starting to adapt his tactics till he can bring in his players, im gonna stick my neck out and say in january we will be selling anelka (already gone), kalou, alex and possibly one of mikel/malouda with replacements coming in for each player that leaves.

At the moment it seems that the high line has gone and like AVB said a medium block is in but with the defence taking it upon them selves to drop deeper if necessary, in the short term the high line wont be back id expect over the next few years for it to be a touch further forward than it is currently as the players either adapt or are replaced, and the attacking football to develop as well. We have to remember that AVB has only been here 6 months or so yet, he is working with a team he has inherited which is still largely mourinhos and only recently has started to have investment in it (ramires luiz torres etc) so there is work to be done before it starts to fire on all cylinders, but from what we have seen when it does work, it is going to be something special, lets just hope the club gives him the time (which I think they will) to perform the overhaul of the mourinho philosphy in the team to his way of playing.

We look better with meireles in the team as an attacking force imho, and whilst I agree a playmaker is a must id sooner the club get the right one instead of the best we could get in january, in the summer we are more likely to get our preferred targets ala modric if spurs fail to get into the champions league for example.

I personally think kalas is the better prospect than bruma, and as such with chalobah getting more to the age where he may start getting the occassional run out in the cups feel that we should look to sell bruma, get some money for him and stick a buy back clause/sell on % clause in there just in case, but I dont think he will make it for us, whilst kalas and chalobah still have a chance as they are younger and arguably alot better.