lionsden

Alex is right in pointing out that the refs ineptitude was just a cop out and a convenient excuse for the mediocrity that was served up by the team against villa and for much of this season. The only saving grace is we are no spurs and jose isn't sherwood.

I absolutely agree with that and most of the blame lies at the feet of Emenalo& co. he squandered majority of our transfer funds on players who either weren't needed, weren't good enough or weren't ready (and may never be good enough either) to make any real impact and contributions to the first team. misplaced priority and gross incompetence of identify the teams weakness and addressing it accordingly.

. . to emulate Heskey

Plenty of people including neutral fans and pundits overrate our squad massively. Make no mistake about it, the table does lie and our position in the league as been mostly down to a combination of factors i,e Jose influence, luck ( in huge quantities) and ofcourse the rock solid defence and structure leading to the best defensive record in the league , this is where jose's influence has been most evident. Looking at it objectively however, most of our players including those in the starting eleven really aren't all that good and people's perception of players like Oscar, Luiz, Ramires,Lampard (current version ofcourse),Schurrle, William and co is a far cry from reality and there's no need to even acknowledge the striking situation as that will be pointing out the obvious. If we do an unbiased analysis of our squad starting with the first eleven, in my opinion, the defence which is our main strenght aside, only hazard and perhaps Matic at a push would/could get into other "top 6 teams in Europe's starting eleven. which other players in our team excluding Cech, hazard and some of the defenders would make it into the starting eleven of Bayern, Madrid, Barca,Dortmund,PSG,Man city. And other teams like Arsenal, Juventus, Liverpool et al have suprior midfield and forward than us collectively. We need to lower our expectations and realise that our squad is a combination of highly mechanical,technically deficient players, young players who haven't yet reached their prime and players who are talked about only in terms of potential rather than ability and some flat out overrated players etc. And this is why I'm always baffled when majority see us as a major force domestically and in Europe based on our squad strength. The last time I looked at our squad and felt we deserved to be rated amongst the big boys and merited the expectation that often accompanies Europe's elite was the 2008/09 season. even the double winning squad was far from flawless. To summarize it, Our squad and starting eleven is massively overrated by most.

You must be the only one that still think that. Azplicueta has been without a question one of the best fullbacks in Europe this season and Ashley cole hasn't been in that discussion legitimately since 2009/10 season.

If that PSG rumour is indeed true, I had offer my personal services and drive him to Parc des Princes myself. They can have Luiz and Torres on a buy one get 2 free offer as well as a sign of good gesture.

I only responded to your assertion that you dont see why he merits the cunt tag and I showed some evidemce and there are plenty more. Now tolerance and acceptance of cuntish players is totally different matter and not related to the original point. I wouldnt turn down the biggest cunt of them all, suarez, either but thats besides the point.

You still make absolutely no sense to me and you never have. 90% of your post consist of poor witted responses and gibberish that usually bare absolutely no relevance to the post you are responding to. The other 10 % is just you bragging about how much of an old ass fool you are and how that makes you the ultimate voice and authority on anything Chelsea related.

http://www.football-espana.net/28735/kondogbia-accuses-costa-racism just a few evidence.

What are you blabbing on about. can you atleast be coherent.

Baresi & Maldini (milan) Fachetti (inter) are the only retired frontline numbers I could think of at the top flight. The common denominator of being serie A sideaside, those players are at the very top of Mount rushmore historically (can't say the same for lamaprd has great has he's been for us) so it's very understandable.

Based on technical ability, Willian is another potential candidate but he's not creative enough which is baffling given his technical qualities.

And what are you trying to prove? that the no 10 or squad numbers no longer holds any historic value and significance or never did based on some exceptions?.

I have always believed that the no 10 should be reserved for the teams most creative and at the moment Hazard is the standout candidate. the only scenario that will make it even debatable is if we miraculously sign messi, Iniesta or Silva in the summer. It's an historic number that still means something to majority of football players, fans, pundits around the world. And lol at the oscar suggestions, we might as well give it to Azpilicueta.

You find the use of one of the greatest actors of all time as an avatar sad?.

"de niro guy". Only a mental midget would find that funny enough to attempt to use it as a derigatory term which im sire is the underlying purpose of the use. As for the drivel you wrote up there. If you are going to refute a claim and dismiss ot, the leaat you can do is to provide proof and examples that proves the contrary. Ao how many world class defenders were shaky and unreliable at liz age?. Your hero and fellow country man luiz is mentally weak and unreliable ag the back. Now go on and cry some more. The deniro guy doesn't rate my darling luiz booo hoooo

Take a deep breath. Repeat after me. Inhale, hold for 3 seconds then release. Do you feel better. Your sturridge claims would make sense or have any credibility if you can prove that I didn't rate him and was in support of his sale to liverpool. I stand firmly on my luiz stance and if in the unlikely event that he goes on to becone a class defender if/when he leaves then it would mean he would have defied heavy odds because no defender in hostory has gone from an unreliable, tactically naive and weak defender at the age of 26 to become a world class defender. That ship has sailed. Every single world class defenders both past and present were at the very least highly dependable and reliable at luiz age. I couldn't really give a damn waiting till enternity for the mythical potential that he posesses to come to fruition.

I thought he was "fatigued" hence the reason he's been playing very poorly for us in recent months. Where does he always get the energy and form from when playing for brazil?

And that right there is my biggeat issue with him and oscar. I had rather have players whose best performamces are usually at club level playing for chelsea than vice versa.

ofcourse all the fatigue, loss of form, etc goes right out of the window and him and luiz magically transform into superman when it's Brazil. if they gave 70% of the form and effort they consistently display in the NT for Chelsea, no one would be complaining.

I see some posters are still trying to convince themselves that Luiz is a good (nevermind great) defender. then again some people still believe Torres is a great striker. so not surprising.

Gil's point is that when seemingly every striker we have bought becomes less productive once they join us,bar few exceptions like drogba, then questions has to be raised about the impact the way we set up and attacking strategy has on the strikers because the sample size is far too large for it to be pure coincidence or solely the fault of the strikers. The truth is we are absolutely clueless and pathetic as far as creating clear cut chances (for our strikers) and in general period is concerned and have been for years. People wank off to strikers like suarez,aguero,cavani et al but ignore the amount of chances they generally miss or fluff on a regular basis which is indeed a testament to the creativity of their respective teams. Even some of the most efficient and clinical scorers the world has ever seen like messi and cron have a converson ratio of 30 odd percent which means they don't score the other 60% just to put things into perspective here. Our strikers don't have this luxury as they will have to wait a long while before another quality chance is created if they fail to capitalise on any rare chance they manage to get.

There's a time and place for everything and jose either doesn't give a fuck and he's constantly being an arsehole on purpose for attention or he just can't help himself. There was no reason whatsoever to make such a ridiculous and unprofessional statement in public when you know there are cameras and recording device and you are in an industry or position that demands certain level of professionalizm and less than savy comment and behaviour usually atttact bad press and unwanted attention (from the clubs prspective anyway). He's s great manager but his antics gets boring and lame after a while. Like be matured and professional for a change.

Even when he was playing well and receiving the plaudits, I have always maintained that he's massively overrated and described him as a jack of all trade and master of none and I mean that in the most underwhelming way possible.

Lampard has to go. he's been so shit