nullabletype

I'd take a guess and say it's because there's no demand for them. I have a 2010/11 techfit and whilst it's sort of novel to own one of the proper kits, it never gets worn. If you're not in amazing shape they look a bit daft.

https://twitter.com/adidasUK/status/320098513805529089 8pm reveal

Sorry, just edited the above post. His job is in marketing I believe -- hence the detail on the promo -- and he hadn't seen the shirt. See the edit above.

A guy from another forum -- who is currently working for Adidas -- informed me a few weeks back that the current Adidas kit campaign for Chelsea didn't include Lampard or Torres -- alluding to the fact that they may not be here next season. Of course, it could simply be that neither are being used for the kit campaign. At the time, he also said that the campaign would be related to players and blue paint. The little video just released does include blue paint. So he's on the mark so far. Today he informs me the campaign will include... "...Terry falling back into a big pit of blue paint...", "Also has Mata, Luiz, and Cahill being smothered with blue paint. Mata looks boss, and Luiz is pulling an almost Jesus like pose." So I suspect that the above is all we are likely to see tomorrow. More than likely some promotional crap, and maybe, at best, the home shirt. Edit: I say, at best the home shirt, because they guy I'm quoting said he hadn't seen the shirt, only the promotional material. So a kit reveal is probably unlikely.

I'm still not remotely convinced by any of the rumors. Sources had him all but confirmed today because of his presence in London even though it was confirmed that the Russian FA had invited him to their game with Brazil. Hope he's the next manager, but I personally can't see it. You never know I suppose.

Rafa is such a monumental ballbag. I'm at a loss as to why he keeps putting Benayoun out there.

Not defending Benitez as a manager. But I don't think he really has a say in the pursuit of transfers. The decision not to spend anymore probably comes from higher up. On the topic of Benitez in or out. Out sounds great and all, but who do we get in? Is there anybody who's actually available? And at the moment any good managers would be crazy to leave their current teams to manage us.

"If he actually made runs like a proper striker today...", if your granny had balls she'd be your grandad. Sorry to poke holes in your "(ir)rational analysis". But you yourself said earlier that virtually everybody was poor, you picked out Lampard and Terry for example. If we agree that everybody was poor, then complaining about Torres' runs (today) doesn't hold much weight because we've already acknowledged that everybody was bad and we simply have no idea how good runs would or would not have been. Or even if there would of ever been a decent ball to run on to. And when did I ignore how bad he's been? I agree'd that he wasn't good today. But you can't call bashing the guy who kept us in it "rational analysis" because normally he's shite and doesn't produce. When a player is bad, you criticize. When a player is good, you praise. Torres was bad today, but then... he scored! So a fair critique is to say that he wasn't great, but he did score and earned us the replay. Anyway, bye bye. Edit: and just a quick note. Perhaps we do struggle because of Torres. But the buck certainly doesn't stop with him. If he was our only problem we'd be laughing.

Can you read? It's almost as if I overstated, in the very post you quoted, that I didn't expect anybody to like him anymore off the back of this goal. Still doesn't change the fact that without his goal, we'd all be sitting here as fans of Chelsea F.C. Champions of Europe who got knocked out of the F.A. Cup by Brentford F.C. of League One. So you can whine about how much you hate him and you can whine about how shit he's been for two years 'till you're blue in the face. Doesn't change the fact that shit boy is the very reason we have a replay. So accept it and move on.

I agree he was rubbish for most of the game, but wasn't everybody bar Oscar and Mata? So why then, when he scores and keeps us in it, do we need to read post after post of people crying about him? Nobody is asking you to like him, nobody wants you to buy his merchandise, and nobody is asking you to forgive his performances of the last two years. But he did score today, and like it or not, he did keep us in it. And petulant moaning wont change the fact that today, if it wasn't for his goal, we'd be dumped out on our holes. So how about we bash everybody who was crap today. And not dwell on the guy who regardless of normal form, actually managed to save us for a change.

The only thing more boring than our woeful performances is reading sarcastic posts from mugs who still manage to whinge about Torres when he scores an equalizer and keeps us from tumbling out of the F.A. Cup at the hands of League One opponents. Nobody asks you to like him, but in a game where virtually every player was garbage, he at least produced something to keep us in it. Credit where credit is due. Thought Ba done well to get the ball to Torres, and Oscar's goal was brilliant. A terrible performance overall, though I should expect us to water them at the Bridge.

Club legend status shouldn't sway the decision to fire a coach who simply wasn't good enough. Keeping him would be nothing more than romanticism. The club has turned a profit for this first time ever, so the debt bit is hardly worth talking about. The same people who let Drogba go and persist with Torres just signed Ba and are touted to be targeting Falcao. Let's see how that pans out. Sturridge going on to be one of the best is purely conjecture. And I'd argue not likely, but that's another topic for another time. And you can't whine about this new policy of not keeping players over a certain age because it's only been implemented and we have no idea how it's going to turn out. In 5 years time we could be singing the boards praises for it. Everybody loves Lampard and most would have him stay, but if he goes he goes. Also, this notion that he is responsible for 1/3 of Chelsea's success is interesting. I'd sure like to run my eye over those numbers.

edit: nevermind

Leeds, like any team who play us, can win if they just come out and put us under pressure. It's worked for every team who have done it so far. Stop our time on the ball and we crumble. And you can bet your house Leeds will try this. Not an easy game by a long shot. But who knows, the players may put in a spirited performance to make up for Sunday. And then go back to being shit against Villa.

Pathetic performance all round. Not going to pick on anybody in particular because not one of them showed a real ounce of interest. Played with zero desire. I held off buying our shirt in the hope we'd win this and I could get the CWC and UCL winners patches. But alas... All you can do is speak with your wallet. So I wont be buying anything off the club this year. Sure it's a pointless protest, but it's all you can do. They won't be getting my money until they start putting in consistent performances and playing with some heart.

This has to be one of the most pathetic performances I have ever witnessed. Unreal.

And we're struggling against them. So...

It's on BBC HD. Note, not BBC One HD. BBC HD is another channel entirely. As I only found out myself.

Typical performance. It doesn't matter whether we play the team in 1st or the team in 20th. There is a very simple formula to beating this Chelsea team. Pressure. I'm fed up of watching us stroke the ball around under zero pressure and think were playing great for doing so, only to have the opposition decide that they're done watching us and just chase after every single thing we do. Same result every time. We look clueless. As soon as we regain possession we try to start stroking it about and can't produce anything of worth because we're constantly chased down. You can sack every manager you get, but if you're players insist on acting like clueless morons with no fight, you wont win anything.

I know this because his CV includes a season at MK Dons and a sacking by West Brom. How many managers have a CV like that and have legitimately made the jump to Champions League winners? It doesn't happen. The stage was set and he happened to be the man in charge. Arsenal and Spurs, in context, were winnable games because neither of them were setting the world alight, and still aren't. But even if we concede those two, the rest still weren't good enough. It's no use turning up against the the big teams if you can't do the routine against the mid table and bottom dwellers (which we may have done at the start, but we were found out under RDM because he had no plan B ). I also like how you opted to ignore all the perfectly valid points I made in the rest of my post. As above, Arsenal and Spurs haven't had great seasons. I'm not saying every fixture we played was straight forward, but in the PL 90% of them were. There'd be something drastically wrong if RDM couldn't just pick a starting a 11 and send them out to do the job against those other teams. My main point being that if anybody believes our PL results to be indicative of RDMs ability, they're mad. Anyway, you's will all prove me wrong when RDM is offered a job at a huge club and he does absolutely great things with them.

Because to look at it any other way is to totally ignore a number of important factors at play. Like how our league form under RDM remained patchy at very best. Surely a manager who came in and turned the team around could have us performing against weaker domestic opposition week in week out? We became a cup team. Putting in great performances for those one off games that mattered. It's then also worth noting that we done this with a squad of players who were facing their last chance at ever achieving what they were about to. No doubt RDMs man motivation helped galvanize the squad, but don't underestimate the will that that body of players showed. We had lots of luck. Messi and Robben missing penalties that would surely of dumped us out of the competition. Situations like that, that ordinarily you would never of bet against. Then we come in to the new season. The first tough European opposition we faced embarrassed us. A seemingly great start to the season was an image produced by a string of perfectly winnable games. Games that a team our standard should win 9 times out of 10, and we still didn't even manage to do that convincingly. Then we faced Shakhtar who showed us up. We tossed a 2-0 lead away to Juventus, barely scrapped a win against Shakhtar and then lost 3-0 to Juve on our second meet. Lets also remember that our league form had dipped too. 10 games without clean sheets... etc etc I could go on. The point is this. RDMs tenure makes for a great narrative, one that our fans are insistent on peddling because of the great picture it paints. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a while were I had fallen for it to. But the objective among us shouldn't find it hard to step back and look at the bigger picture. When you start to look at it, RDM was nothing more than the beneficiary of some good fortune and team who were determined to make their last crack at the whip count. I have no doubt RDM was the right man at the right time. But he didn't, and wouldn't of had the quality we need to go forward.

Jesus, more of the same. RDM may have been a classy manager. He may have been a gentleman and he may have been a good man motivator. But top quality tactician and footballing mind he wasn't. Can we accept that and move on please? Managerial longevity would be great, and it would be even better if we were able to have a club legend like RDM at the helm. But so many people are letting this idealistic vision of what could have been cloud the reality. RDM wasn't a top coach before us and he wont be after the fact. If the footballing world is convinced by his achievements then he will have no problem getting a position at a top club. However, I will be amazed if that happens. If we want to complain about the manner in which we hire and fire managers then by all means do so. But can we please stop acting like we lost one of the greatest coaches we ever had in these latest turn of events. Just today we played the Premier League champions and arguably the favorites to succeed this season too. We may not have had the best game of the season, but we kept a clean sheet - our first in ten games - due to a solid defensive performance - something we had barely seen this season under RDM - from team who for the first time in months didn't look clueless under pressure . Lets start looking forward now, assuming that the positives from today weren't coincidence, and be happy that for the first time this season we genuinly look like we have a solid base to build on.

This is what frustrates me. I'm not bothered about RDMs sacking because I genuinely didn't think RDM had what it takes. For a while I hoped he did, but I think if we're to be honest the writing was on the wall from the day we played Atletico. What bothers me is that he was hired to begin with. I don't see the point in hiring somebody just to fire them a few months down the line. Particularly when it was glaringly obvious for everybody to see that Roman never really wanted to give RDM the job in the first place. This is were I disagree with most though. A lot of people talk about Roman not caring about the fans. I think his investment in the club speaks volumes about how much he cares (not that I'm overly bothered about whether he cares or not, personally). The very fact he even give RDM the job when he didn't want to suggests to me that Roman and the board gave in to the pressure of the fans. But to say he's made a mess at the club, how? Yes it's not ideal, but it's not really a mess. And somehow Roman always manages to back up his decisions and the club gets hauled out of these "messes", if you want to call them that. And to the people who complain about club becoming a laughing stock. Well that really only applies if you place any value on the vast majority of football fans opinions. The objective fans can appreciate what goes on. Why would you worry about what a bunch of people are thinking in regard to our hiring and firing of managers? particularly when these people blissfully ignore the string of other top clubs, like those Tomo mentioned, who continually do it too.

It's not about losing games as such, any premier league team on their day can beat another. It's about the manner in which we lost. Scrappy wins over MUFC in the league cup, and Shakhtar shouldn't cover up the obvious flaws. Neither should a run of easily winnable fixtures at the start of the season. And you can talk about the the coaches that have taken this team to UCL finals all you want. I think if anything, this argues in favor of the squad being more important in those cases than the manager at the time. Avram led us to a final, what exactly has he done since and how good a coach was he before? RDM just landed in at a crucial time, and we had a lot of luck. Messi and Robben missing pens against us etc. RDM didn't win the UCL because of his magnificent managerial prowess. Rather, a bunch of players with their last bite at the cherry worked as hard as they could. Of course RDM added something, but he was not the main factor at play here. You can come out RDMs arse all you want, but we will really see how good he is as his career advances. And don't talk to me about fans complaining about specific tactics, I don't pretend to know better (you will never see me on here posting formations etc). But you don't need to be an armchair know-it-all to know when a manager is capable or not. I agree it's not about big names, but funny enough, big names are big for a reason. Anybody who thinks RDM is a great coach is fooling themselves. And wanting stability for stability sake is worthless. I'll end by saying this. I post on another forum that deals with all teams. I can't think of one other fan of another team who was convinced by RDMs UCL results. Everybody outside of Chelsea fans perceived that run to be the players will coupled with luck. Many agreed that RDM deserved the job purely for what he had overseen, but most guessed he wouldn't be up to challenge and would never replicate that success. Here we are having just sacked him, and his run this season has arguably been worse than that of AVBs. Again, most agreed that his sacking was unfair, as most sackings are, but had seen it coming non the less. The only people defending RDM are people who have their emotions invested in this club legends success because of the image it produces. In reality, RDM is a mid table manager (at best) and will remain one. That's not being unfair. That's just how it is. I'm not in favor of sacking managers every week. My problem is, in reality, RDM really shouldn't have gotten the job in the first place. Much as we all hoped he could continue to succeed. It was never going to happen. RDM is a victim of a board who hire the wrong people, he was sacked because he was the wrong man to begin with. You can reply if you want, I'm done talking about it now. I will gladly eat crow of Robbie goes on to be a great manager. I just can't see it, and would be more than happy to bet that he will never lead another top team to any real success.

Pointless comment because none of those managers came to CFC off the back of those teams mentioned. They started out with those smaller sides, and went on to have a further incremental step in their managerial careers before coming to us. RDM never got that next step. RDM left us precariously on the edge of being knocked out of the Champions League (relying on other teams to help us qualify no less.). Defeated and drawing against teams we should, by all rights, be beating. You're taking from this what you want to and creating your own narrative.