pachman40

If you asked me Friday I'd say no way in hell, but there's too much smoke in this one for there not to be fire. I think he's coming but that's just my opinion. Plus, there's no doubt that the media in Portugal are all over this story because they love to destabilize Porto. Destabilizing Porto means helping Benfica, and Benfica are the true darlings of Portuguese media.

Falcao is, without a doubt, the best value out there with a current release clause of 30mil (until he renegotiates this summer). The problem is that we have Torres and don't need him although I'd blow my load if we got him. Hulk, as others have said, would be the perfect player for us right now and will tear up the premiership in this situation. The stars are aligned for Hulk, not Falcao. What an awesome problem to have.

Pretty interesting parallels between Chelsea's current situation and Porto's situation last year. Porto had just sacked their coach (Jesualdo Ferreira) for basically not being able to motivate the team and finishing a disappointing 3rd after winning the title the previous season. In comes AVB and basically keeps the same players that Jesualdo had and kicks their asses into gear and they go the whole league season undefeated. All of us here were saying all last season that Chelsea had the best group of players bar none in the league and Carlo couldn't get them playing to the best of their abilities. If the parallel continues, then AVB will come in to Chelsea now and basically takes the same group of players minus a couple of tweaks and take them to a convincing league title this season. Its truly a very comparable situation for him, everyone in Portugal were waiting for the pressure to get to him and for Porto's form to cool off but he proved us all wrong.

HA! Overpay eh? Ramires, not overpriced, Luiz not overpriced, DiMaria, not overpriced, and if anything Coentrao is undervalued. He's currently top 3 LB in the world. You don't find world class players for less than that. And for everybody saying we'd buy him as a left wing, that's hilarious. He's been changed to a wingback and will not return to his former position when everyone knows that while he was very good as a winger, he's out of this world in his current position. All that being said, I agree with other posts that we have more glaring needs right now and while Coentrao is a fantastic player and would be a great signing, I personally think we need to spend that money elsewhere.

That's what I mean, its our responsibility to let him know when he's wrong. Obviously he has a bunch of yes men surrounding him, but banners in the stadium, songs that tell him when he's wrong, good old fashioned protests etc... those are always available to us and its our choice whether or not we use those. If he thinks we love his decisions he'll continue down that path. Once again, he signs the cheques but its up to us as far as what our club is and what it stands for.

When Roman bought the team, he bought the right to make all decisions including right and wrong ones. It is our responsibility as fans to let him know when he's wrong but at the same time we must accept his decisions. I don't agree with how Carlo was treated but that doesn't make me blind to what Roman has given to us. I respect him for what he has done but I will lose respect for him if he ignores the fans that will eventually determine if this club remains successful or slides into obscurity. Let's all make our voices heard but let's also remember who signs the cheques.

Good points but my perspective as a Porto hater is that he's as ready as Mourinho was when he left and the quicker he gets out of Portugal the quicker Benfica have a chance to win again. To be honest, when Porto hired him this season all the papers and all the talk in Portugal kept hammering his youth and inexperience and questioned how he would handle the pressure of a "big club". Well I'll tell you that he handled himself better than anyone expected. He ate up every single challenge that was placed in front of him. He went in and destroyed his arch rivals AND outcoached his 50something year old opponent. This guy is special and I've gained a lot of respect for him throughout the year. Plus, he has that arrogance, that cockiness that his rivals hate but his players love. FYI the president for Porto was interviewed on national TV about an hour ago and said AVB's release clause is 15million and wasn't under any illusions that the clause doesn't scare anybody off, but he's convinced that AVB's love for Porto is so high that even if the clause was met that AVB wouldn't take the offer. He's so confident about this that its sickening. Hopefully we make him eat his words.

No offense to everybody that's got a special attachment to SB, but its called progress. The bridge has been expanded and modified endless times since "the beginning" to the point that it bears no resemblance to its original incarnation. I've never been there so some people will disregard my post but its a no-brainer decision to take our club to the next level. The question is will the designers be smart enough to incorporate enough of the bridge's atmosphere and qualities for the diehards to consider it "home" for them? If they can do that then the club as a whole will be the better for it and that's the main point.

For all the people riding Villas Boas' balls, I say yes take him to Chelsea, that'll make it easier for my Benfica next season....but honestly its a massive gamble to hire him. Yes he's been fantastic at Porto this year but its completely different in the EPL. He may very well be the perfect choice but I think its a better idea to go for someone more established in England if we end up canning Carlo.

No

Man up boys!!!! Stop yapping about corruption and refs and the like. They scored on a nice play and it was deserved. The ref could've easily allowed that first goal as it was really tight but they got it right. Bottom line is we gotta suck it up and we have 45 mins to score 2 goal. Bring on Drogs for Anelka, Bring on Yossi for Essien...and if that doesn't help then bring on Zhirkov for Alex in the last 10 minutes. Now its balls to the wall time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Malouda's playing really deep (looks like a tactical decision), Anelka's playing behind Torres, and nobody out wide on the right. We're too narrow and predictable right now, gotta open it up and play wider. It seems like this is all by design with Carlo plugging up the middle, we'll see if it turns out right!!!!!!!!! Lets go boys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shockingly correct call on the offside goal from the linesman, keep it up boys Ramires has been fantastic and Anelka has been horrible. We're playing well, lots of control, just gotta be careful cuz hernandez is sneaking in there. Keep it up boys!!!!!!!!!!!

I watch my beloved Benfica every chance I get and the other big Portuguese teams. I love to watch the international matches, interesting friendlies with England, Brazil, Argentina, Holland and all qualifying/competitive Portugal matches. I find myself watching almost all Barcelona and Real Madrid league matches but don't watch many of the other teams. I hate watching ManU but they're the only other english team that I'll bother watching unless Chelsea's involved. Serie A is too boring, Budesliga games are usually too early where I live in Canada. Champions League is where its at for me, I'll watch minimum 3-4 games per matchday. Just imagine, I watch all this and still watch NHL hockey and NFL football. Busy busy!!!

Don't want to jinx anything but the ref for this game is a shit ref from Portugal...Benquerenca. He's horrible, but in general he's universally horrible as opposed to favoring one team so hopefully the ref element is a wash. I don't understand how UEFA picks these refs, what standards they use, cuz if they asked any fan from Portugal they could name 3-4 better refs ahead of this guy. Anyways, just thought I'd throw that out there. I have a quiet confidence about this game, I don't know why but I just have a feeling we'll have our game of the season and win 2-0 with both goals scored in the first half. We can hope can't we?

You guys are hilarious, bunch of chicken littles crying like a bunch of schoolkids. They haven't played that bad, had some chances, and WILL win this game. Stop complaining and always looking for the bad out there. We have some positives and can take these 3 points easy. "Won't even finish top 4" my ass.

Completely disagree. We have to look out for the best for the team and that means Torres in form. He will never regain his form on the bench period. That being said, he should not be an automatic starter but for the rest of the season he start in tactically advantageous situations depending on the opponent and also start on the bench and come on as a sub when the opponent dictates based on their strengths. Instead of trying to ram Torres or Drogba down people's throats we must use their individual strengths to our advantage.

I can't think of a more clear-cut example of a transition period than this one. There have been many posts / threads about this subject and we are clearly looking to rejuvenate the team. Everyone can see that the likes of Drogs/Lamps/Cole/JT and before them Ballack/Carvalho/Deco etc... are soon to be the past for us. We are clearly planning for the future which is a good thing. The question becomes is Carlo the man to lead this new-look team going forward? You've stated some valid arguments against him (I think you're being harsh but that's besides the point) but in the end I think that aside from the Torres purchase we have been picking up players to fit in with Carlo's mold for the future. For me it then becomes obvious that Roman is looking to Carlo to stay for the long-term. Carlo may not be the best coach in the world and he may end up dispatched like yesterday's newspaper but he has the pedigree and he's obviously convinced the man who signs the cheques. I agree with some of your reasoning against Carlo but I think he's not getting enough credit for his and our successes while getting too much blame for our disappointments. He obviously felt the pressure to deliver CL football and ended up relying too heavily on our established stars as opposed to our youth. He clearly could use a hand with tactical substitutions but he's been hamstrung by injuries and players in poor form. I'm not here to make excuses for the guy, just trying to keep some perspective.

Holy smoke, just read through this thread and I'll never get those minutes back in my life. If I can summarize, some people like Carlo and think he needs to be given some more rope because there have been a lot of issues beyond his control. The feeling is that he deserves that out of respect for his results last season. On the other hand, there seems to be the other side which gives the players more credit for last season's results and don't consider it a big accomplishment given the teams we beat for the cup and the amount of points we finished the league with. They see our team struggling to compete this season and place the blame at Carlo's feet for not being able to get the most out of his players. Personally, I think that neither of the above arguments are as important as they seem in the grand scheme of things and neither of these arguments will be the basis for the decision on whether or not he stays. I think we can all agree that our team needs to change in order to continue as a top level club. We have players getting on in age, we have new players coming through, but the styles of these two different groups contrast with eachother. It has to be determined by upper management (Roman) what type of team we are going to go forward with and only at that point can it be determined if Carlo is the right manager to take us through. Most of us will agree that JT has a few years left, Lamps is on the downward slope, Ash isn't getting younger, Drogs and Nico are ready for a change in scenery. We are already installing new elements in Luiz, Ramires, Torres and I think that the idea is to change our team and philosophy under a vision shared by both Carlo and Roman. I think they both recognize the importance of remaining competitive while we undergo this transition but I don't think either of them believe that Chelsea must win a trophy every season. As long as there is a vision and a light at the end of the tunnel then I think Carlo is Roman's man. That being said, I think the straw that would break the camel's back for Roman is if we finish outside the top 4. I believe that's his minimum requirement every season and so long as Carlo's vision is on the same path as Roman's than I think he will be our manager. Once they start looking in opposite directions its over. I'm not here to accept mediocrity and I'm not willing to accept whatever results Carlo brings, but I am willing to accept that some year's its just not our year and I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

That's a head-scratcher of a reply. I never had anything to say about anyone bud, I wasn't on the forum or on any other Chelsea forum. If you wanna pick a fight on someone you might as well keep walking cuz I couldn't give a crap. In general terms, I'm not someone who goes bashing players and then cowers in the corner if they play well. I will stand up and say that I misjudged him and he's won me over. The fact that Malouda never won me over doesn't mean I'm wrong, its just my opinion. I have opinions of everyone on the team and they aren't necessarily the mainstream sentiment at that time, I have a brain and can judge for myself. Regarding Ramires, always liked him. Regarding Mikel, has won me over and is simply a victim of a couple of other players coming into form and competing for his spot. He'll be back.

Dude, I signed on to this forum recently so I was never here to discuss his "glory days". Bottom line is I never rated him. If you want to make assumptions that I only talk about this when he's playing like crap then that's your problem but "I just laugh when people say something like this". He had some good games but he's never won me over, believe whatever you want.

I respect Brano and I'm thankful that he's on our team. He's a vital solid player. I guess some of my posts may have come across as undervalueing him simply because I don't bow down to him but I just think some people overvalue him. That doesn't mean I hate the kid. As for the glassmen/stability question, I'd rather have a balance. You can't have one without the other. I also happen to think that Cech and JT are far from glassmen and actually fit your definition of stability.

If we're going for a non-boring non-JT vote then Cech is a fantastic choice.

That's understood, and when I used Lamps, Drogs, and Cole as examples I didn't for one second mean to suggest they deserved consideration this year. I just have a hard time considering players of "lesser ability" for an award like this. I just think that's a sad statement about the rest of the candidates. I know that sounds like I'm bashing Brano but I honestly like him. His performances have been very good this year, no doubt, and its great that he's getting recognized for his importance to the team, but it just boggles my mind that people would say his performances have been better than JT's or Cech's.

Agreed....solid player, important player, likeable player, very good player, but in my opinion if he's Player of the Year ever for Chelsea then that says more about everyone else's level that year than it does about his.