Tomo

Multiple crash. 10 deaths, 18 serious injuries, 10 of those life-threatening/changing and 40 taken to hospital, being described as the worst traffic accident in UK history. Im praying there aren't any more deaths As i live in Devon im hoping no one i know was involved. R.I.P to the people who lost their lives.

I would rather it be 3-1 in the closing stages than 1-0, purely because my stream won't work and ill be watching final score and when the game is tight and you're watching final score it's unberable. Every time Gabby says Ewood Park tommorow with the game close my heart will skip about 10 beats.

We need to try and get him a championship loan aswell. I'd be gutted if he does not eventully make it, he has passion, commitment and best off all is a Chelsea fan. He is turning 20 this month i think so we need to make his progress high priority for the next 2 years.

At worse Barca will activate this clause in 2013, so for now he is ours and lets make the most of him, starting tommorow at Ewood Park. Im by no means a Mikel hater but Oriol is on another level, IMO we have to start playing him in the PL. Who knows if/when Oriol goes back to Barca a certain Conor Clifford might be ready to do his job.

Luiz should step up, ok he missed one but every one misses them and it wasn;t a bad penalty imo, if the keeper guesses right he always has a chance.

Luiz was class again last night IMO.

You are right about Cleverly and Welbeck but they are both in their 20's, when they were 18 Welbeck was a spare part and Clevely was not involved at-all. Even so they spent a year out on loan before Fergie trusted them he didn't just throw them in at random.

Andre has to make a statement with this lineup ---------------------Cech---------------------- Ivan---------Luiz----------Terry---------Cole ----------------------Romeu------------------- ----------Meireles------------Lampard------ Anelka-------------------------------------Mata ----------------------Sturridge-------------------

Essien was shocking last year but lets not forget what he brought to the party before last year. At times his mere prescence use to inspire the rest of the team (especially Mikel).

It's easy for us to play football manager and xperteleven, promote youth players into a winning team and carry on winning and it's even easier for us to say AVB should play x,y and z on x game, y game and z game but in reality it's a lot more complicated than that. Yes we should have produced more since JT but since then which big club has produced that much talent and when i mean talent i mean at the club since a 8 year old (In England)? Have United brought any one through since Fletcher and O shit? they probally have decent CB's in the youth side but Fergie still opted on signing Jones and Smalling for a combined £30m. Martin Kelly is the first Liverpool youth product since Gerrard, im not even going to count Spearing as he has not even played 20 times for Liverpool and is already 22. If it weren't for unfortunate injuries i have no doubt Sammy Hutchinson would be partnering David Luiz by now, ive still got quiet hopes of him pulling off the unthinkable, Jose and Carlo could not speak highly enough of him, and we would all be drolling over our academy for producing such a gem. Another thing we have to remember is the academy was in a real state when Roman came in, he (Roman) has invested heavily in the academy but it was never going to be a overnight job. With McEachran and Chalaboh waiting in the wings and a U15 group winning numerous trophies, according to a user of another forum im on the U12's (which includes) Josh's brother George are unbeaten for 2 years. Slowly but surely our academy is improving and it won't be long before we reap the rewards.

wow bit of a over-reaction there. Roman does not sack managers solely on PL and CL success/failure, the managers departure's ran deeper than that, i explained imo why he doesn't it in detail in another thread and really cba to do so again tbh. Don;t think we can say Josh won't make it on the basis he is not playing week in week out at the age of 18, Iniesta was still awaiting his Barca debut at the age Josh is now.

Im going to add a bit of realism to this. We need a point in the last 2 games to be through, more often than not 9 is enough. We won our home games drew our away games which is the main rule in football. We just need to go through i could not care less if it is first or second if we want to win this we will have to play and beat atleast two of the elite teams anyway. Disapointing result yes but lets not go overboard qualification is still well and truly in our hands, its not like this result has left us on the brink.

My opinion that we should have brought Falcao in the summer holds more substance now, Torres has done ok this season but with Falcao we know what were gunna get, goals and lots of them.

I don't buy this Abramovic itchy trigger happy finger i really don't well not to the extent every one thinks. Claudio Ranieri - Nice man he undoubltably is, can you believe it was a coinsidence we stopped our little run of domestic cup wins when he got appointed? Jose Mourinho - Great 3 years but slowly and surely we were declinining and Mou was constantly causing boardroom battles Rafa would be proud off and his football is the opposite of Roman wants. Avram Grant - On the outside people remember the CL, can't speak for you guys but all i can remember is awful tactics, constant throwing away of leads and horrendus man management. Phil Scolari - Out off his depth, exposed as a one trick pony by Benitez and never recovered. Guus Hiddink - Caretaker, had no intention of staying and made it clear from day one. Carlo Ancelotti - I wanted him to have one more season but you could see Roman's worry, last season was horrific and if it got worse it could have been tragic. Out of the managers Roman has sacked, the future didn;t look partically bright with any of them. For argument's sake if we end this season with a younger fresher squad, Kaloudanelka heading for the exit, 3rd place with a domestic cup and exit the CL kicking and screaming basically things looking really good could you see Roman sacking him really?

TO be fair Ballack had his critics at Chelsea and Malouda ended 09/10 on fire.

Positives: Juan Mata and Frank Lampard were absolutely outstanding.

Speaking of the transfer window any time i sign a 7 rated player these days thy instantly go down to 6 rated once ive signed them, its annoying.

fair point although Carvalho was a serial giver way of free kicks too for us. Im happy to admit he can be reckless at times but the comparision with and without is alarming, had it been the other way round im sure some of us, rival fans and especially the media would be first to pick up on it.

I know this Luiz threads are growing old and there he has somewhat split opinion on this forum especially, sorry to do another one but i thought these stats deserve a serious mention. Looking at the stats in games with and without David Luiz on the pitch since his arrival on winter transfer deadline day, its looks even more than his "liabilty" tag is harsh. Season 11/12 so far with Luiz playing Played 7 Conceded 4 Clean sheets 3 Season 11/12 so far without Luiz playing Played 8 Conceded 13 Clean sheets 1 Season 10/11 with Luiz playing Played 11 Conceded 7 Clean sheets 4 Season 10/11 without Luiz playing (after his arrival) Played 9 Conceded 10 Clean sheets 2 OVERALL with Luiz Played 18 Conceded 11 Clean sheets 7 OVERALL without Luiz (after his arrival) Played 17 Conceded 23 Clean sheets 3 I included Liverpool at home in without Luiz as the damage was already done before he came on. Interesting that we conceded as many goals in 1 half against Arsenal than we have all season with in the 7 games David "liabilty" Luiz has played In those 7 games Luiz has played this season only Saha has scored against us from open play. The contrast is astounding, if this don't prove that David Luiz is one of our if not our most important player i really do not know what does. Imagine if he was not a "liability"

Despite what the media and rival fans like to think Roman does not sack managers solely on trophies, i think he cares about progression just as much. Lets say for argument's sake we finish 3rd this season with 80+ points, playing better attcking football, go out of the CL kicking and screaming and pick up one if not both the domestic cups and have younger players looking more ready, do you honestly think Roman will sack him? He sacked Carlo because we were labouring and stagnating, Scolari was sacked because for a supposed flair anager the likes of West Ham and Stoke were coming to SB and containing us with ultimate ease, we are creating numerous chances under AVB, i would be more worried if we were not creating them (ala Scolari final days). I still don't think the league is completely beyond us, if we can claw back a 18 point deficit in March to 3 im May, we sure can do 9 in November.

He is well on the way to another 20 goal season even with a "lesser role", if anything he is getting better with age.

Even as a Carlo fan i would not go that far, when Carlo teams click they are devestating but they don't "click" consistently as we found out. The annoying thing last season is when we were 5-0 up we were puping and pressurising teams like we were losing and when we were actually losing or drawing we were cruising like we were 5-0 up.

Last time Essien played against Arsenal he was the worst performer on the pitch tbf.

1. David Luiz is a must against any half decent opposition, especially Arsenal. i was worried when i saw him out of the lineup, you can go on about him making a few mistakes if you like but would he have made as many mistakes as any of our backline did today? Infact i will go as far as saying the first, second and fifth goal would have been prevented. The 2 RVP goals he would have intercepted (especially the first one). 2. Bosingwa must never play a big match again, he has played against Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool a combined 14 games and we have won twice (one of them he came off the bench late on) and lost 11. I said it before he returned from injury and it was laughed off infact people blamed that stat more on Scolari but it is proven now beyond doubt that Bosingwa at right back in big games won't win us any points. I cannot believe this is a coinsidence, especially when we do much better against the big teams when he does not play (IE he did not play when we won 6/6 against the "big four" in 2009/2010 and even more so considering the fact our record against the "big four" prior to his arrival was unrivalled). 3. Juan Mata and Frank Lampard are class, if the rest of the team today played half as good as this duo Arsenal would not have touched us. 4. Romeu has to start playing reguarly, i am by no means a Mikel hater far from it but Romeu is more suited to the way AVB wants to play and is a battler, has big game player written all over him and is made for games against Arsenal especially. 5 We are not ready to play big teams at their own game, i said a few weeks ago we have a long way to go before we take on the likes of Arsenal at the you shoot we shoot match and i got pasted for it, they have been doing it for years we have just started. For the return match at The Emirates atleast we must go back to the counter attacking rough them up tactic that got us 6 points against them with relitive ease in 2009/2010. It works against Arsenal it makes sense.

Torres (bar the 4-4 draw against Liverpool at Anfield) has never really done anything against Arsenal so no need to look to deeply into this display.