Tomo

Will that mean one of Luiz or Oscar will be going Liverpool in January

Tbh i think Guardiola is already world class, it's easy to forget Barca were not the best team in the world when he took over, they were in dissaray. 18 points behind Madrid and 10 behind Villareal. They lacked togetherness, and apart from Iniesta and Messi, none of their team had a good season. Guardiola came in, got rid of Deco and Ronaldinho, told Eto'o to buck his ideas up and built the team around Iniesta, Xavi and Messi, a decision that is still paying dividence to this day. In 07/08 they were stagnating, Pep was the shot in the arm they needed to get back and then better their standards of 04-06. What impresses me most about Pep is he doesn't stand still, Henry, Eto'o and Messi scored over 100 between them in 08-09 but that doesn't stop him letting Eto'o go and dropping Henry for Pedro, because Eto'o and especially Henry were getting on and eventually it would have caught up with them, so he did changed it around before it got to that. Barca are as good as they currently are because of Pep, not the other way round. Ofcourse their is that element to a certain extent, but if you literally get treated and talked to like shit your going to find it hard, it wasn't just Lampard and Cole that hated him, it was most of the club right through to the reception lady. I think we cocked up just as much as well, we gave him to much control from day one, if we given him the same brief we gave Carlo, then this might have worked out differently.

Crespo was not a flop for us, far from it.

Looking back in hindsight AVB went about it all wrong. He didn't even need to have great man management just some idea on how to manage human being's. The Rafa reign completely disproved the theory that the players were at fault, i mean Benitez isn't known for his cuddly man management but managed to avoid causing a dressing room riot. He started by insisting he would access his squad, then at some point in the season changed his mind and decided he wanted out of any one over 28. You are right that AVB has the potential to be a great manager (it was the reason i wanted him to stay) but he went about it all wrong at Chelsea, all wrong. Anyway AVB got something out of it, he got a Champions League medal through the post, god knows what he's done with it

It turned out to be the winner because of Macheda's double slamdunk 2 minutes later, take the dubious goals we win 1-0, so either way, what comes around goes around. To expand on the point people are making about Carlo here, i didn't see enough of him at Milan or since Chelsea to judge, so ill comment on what i think about Carlo due to his time at Stamford Bridge. To me under Carlo it always seemed one extreme or the other, we were either irresistible and unplayable or stagnant, devoid of ideas and the easiest team to play against, it was beyond belief how quickly we went from one to the other. The end of the double season we hit form like we never have before (not even under Jose) hitting 5's,7's and 8's past teams, smashing the goal record. Malouda, Lampard and Drogba all hitting top top form at the same time, after the Blackburn game we were a team posssed and (bar the off day at White Hart Lane) won every single match on the way to a record scoring title win, it was truly a joy to watch. Then the second season, well i don't think i have ever been so angry watching Chelsea before (not even in the dark days of Scolari and AVB). Under Scolari we were unfit, under AVB we were dis-organised, in Carlo's second season we were borderline comatose, it was truly terrible. There was too many shocking games to list here but the one's that stick out, the Sunderland match (need i say more?) Torres debut vs Liverpool (the only match ever that has reduced me to tears, i felt sick with what i just saw), the "title decider" against United (which Alex single handedly prevented a cricket score in) the home match against Wolves (we won 2-0, but Cech's performance prevented the Sunderland humiliation a few weeks early), going to Anfield and losing to ROY'S LIVERPOOL ( ) and then there was the Goodison display on the last day, many many more but i would be here all day. They say the league table never lies, but we didn't deserve 2nd that season, our early games (were we were still on a high from winning the league) boosted our stats no end. Between City away and Wolves away (that's nearly 4 months worth of PL games) our goal difference was actually negative. For me Carlo is a double edged sword, i love him for the double, but 10/11 has left me mentally scarred, not even winning at OT and pulling off the title title that term would have made me feel any better about what we had to sit through.

I wonder what club Iniesta went too went Barca signed Deco.

Cavani, Lukaku and Ba will be the perfect mix for the new season.

Ranieri signed De Lucas, Sullivan, Zenden and Petit.

I wouldn't be surprised if PSG or Monaco try to get him sooner rather that later. If their is one thing you cannot fault AVB for is his ambition and he won't accept merely challenging for 4th forever.

The current situation Fernando? The one where you took 4 months to score a PL goal after we brung in some competition for your place in January?

Last summer or the summer before can't remember which i decided to be funny and tweet that Gattuso and Ronaldinho were having medicals with Aston Villa. Go for a smoke, come back and i have 10 retweets and 4 people asking for further info. Says everything you need to know about twitter and have on the whole stayed away from there since.

Im not convinced the 2003 signing's were Ranieri's. We all know how cautious Roman is when it comes to giving a manager full control over transfers, so i can't for the life off me see why he would give it to a manager he has no intention of keeping.

That's more the general consensus from what i read, although im not sure just how much say Ranieri had in signing's in his summer under Roman.

I remember Crespo was my favorite player outside of Chelsea, i couldn't believe it when we signed him. All summer we were getting linked with Vieri and i was thinking no go for Crespo then we did. I get defensive when he gets branded a flop, because he quite simply wasn't. He is the only forward that went toe to toe with Didier as an equal for that forward role.

If we sacked a manager this way, the forum would crash.

oh dear oh dear, half decent end to the season and Confed Cup and were debating whether to keep him People say he has improved well lets be honest that isn't exactly hard considering his previous form is it? Every single season he has been with us he has suffered from horrendus goal droughts, i mean this is the player that went on a 17 game goal drought, scored a few goals then went on a 24 game goal drought. This season even he went what? 17 games with 1 goal against Brentford and this is under the manager that he supposedly "thrives" under. 4 manager's have tried with Torres, and it hasn't worked, we need to accept that we have signed a dud and move on, we did it with Sheva, Liverpool did it with Carroll and it's time we do the same with Torres, its widely accepted Essien is finished as a top class footballer but yet were harboring false hope over Torres?

We had a good season in his first year and then we signed a few players (including Lampard) in 2001 and really thought we would finish the CL places but that season (apart from 10/11) was probably the most frustrating season because it felt like we were going backwards. We finished 6th, and only the form of Jimmy, Eidur and Carlo got us their, despite getting to the FA Cup final i think overall we had a poor season. We were a true 3 man team that season. 02/03 however, we recovered, got 4th and the rest they say is history.

The one massive guarentee from the Hull match. If Hull score, the camera's will zoom straight to Jose in the dugout, their so predictable.

I had a similar feeling about Jack Collison few years back I have made some shocking predictions in the past, but i think ive embarrassed myself enough already.

Oh the old PL proven thing, we could have signed Aguero in 2011 but got PL proven Torres instead

There something with us and wanting someone we can't have? When it looked for the world that Falcao was going to be signing for us, it was he's too one dimensional i would rather get an all round player like Cavani for that money. Now it looks like we are going to get Cavani, it's that's too much, he's shit for Uraguay, i would rather get a PL proven forward like Rooney. If the momentum changes and it all off a sudden looks like were getting Rooney, it would be he hasn't performed well for a year, United wouldn't be prepared to sell him to us if he still has "it", for that money i would rather go for Jovetic.

If he signs i will pray i get proved wrong, but i think he has peaked back in 2004 and 2010 i would have paid a little bit towards the transfer itself, but not now.

There are many opinion's in football that are the general consensus but are there any that you spotted before it became that ? if that makes sense. There are two for me that stand out. After the Copa America in 2007, i said Messi could become as good as Maradona. 2 years later that became the general opinion. The same year i was raving about Moutinho when he wasn't well known (i was desperate for us to sign him in 2007), skip forward a few years and he was one of the most sought after players on the market.

Some players prefer to not have a first team number so they can make it their own.