TacticalBlues

Extremely undeserved Utd goal, but I feel Bilbao will score.

Indeed, I must say every time I watch them played I'm impressed at the intensity of their play. Bielsa is a top coach.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...otball/17273667

Kony is virtually depicted in Blood Diamond. They should arrest the guy and leave though. That's it. It may send out a message but like mentioned before it's unfortunately difficult to kill what he does even if he is arrested. It's also very unfortunate that a situation has to get so dyar before it reaches the pubic eye or action is taken. With Uganda being one of the richest countries in oil it's understandable that these 'cynical' ulterior motive hypothesis' have arisen. Especially since this has been happening for years and we all know about sierra leone diamond industry.

Stunning stuff

Touche For me, Zidane and Ronaldo (Brazilian) are at the top. They've both won the world cup and the elegance of Zidane is unmatched today (Ozil slightly). That's not to say Messi can never reach it, because the stuff this kid does is mind-blowing. He's Broken yet another record today in being the first person to get 5 goals in one UCL game. At 24 he is poised to be the best, but for me that can never happen - as in their can never be a best. Different generations, with different opponents all created different legends. Everyone has their favourties, heck even Drogba is up their for me personally, but then again you wouldn't hear that from a United fan. Some even call Maldini the greatest, but that's defenders who can appreciate what he did. That is why, no matter how many he records he break, he can never be the best ever. It's an impossible feat even for this incredible player.

MATA!!!

Chanting Jose Mourinho

Guardiola's response to Chelsea links.

Is this why you want Bielsa as our manager: Messi: I'd like to play under Bielsa one day

I wonder how Mata feels about Lampard and co. This sacking could potentially cause further divisions, but the likes of Mata and Luiz are humble lads with dignity.

Abramovich has warned the players their will be 'massive changes' in summer. Roman has done a lot of good for this club, but unfortunately some bad too. Come to think about it we relieved ourselves of a dream team. Mourinho was manager, AVB was part of a very successful back room staff and Steve Clarke was the ever-brilliant assistant. That management team is just ethereal, how the heck did we let that go! We were a genuinely devastating force.

Congratulations francozola, well deserved. Thanks for the votes and nominations too everyone.

That's a fundamentally sickening rationale. We paid a record £50 million for this 'super striker'. He wasn't meant to be the center of our problems but a solution. If Rafa comes I will be devastated, because it's merely an appointment borne out of a selfish necessity to feed Abramovich's ego and make him think this was"50 million well spent". What rubs salt in the wounds is the fact that his acquisition prevented us from buying Aguero. He was almost guaranteed to play in the Chelsea shirt until we brought Torres.

Everybody should post this too the Chelsea board, by mail or letter. Get it through their thick ignorant heads, we are not a short term project! We've just let go of a intelligent young manager's plan that seemed to have all the ingredients of success. He was vying the right players in Hulk, Lucas, Hazard, Pato, Cavani, Neymar and looked ready to let the aging leave in summer! There are abundant sources confirming this which just rubs salt in the wounds. "Pain is temporary It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. " In this case he was sacked.

104 shorts Days 18 Hours 17 Minutes 16 Seconds at the job and AVB has ruthlessly faced the axe.His 39-game reign cost over £1m a match. Their disgraceful reactions came from being dropped initially. The media constantly backed Lampard saying "I can't understand why he isn't playing", Lampard saw that and just believed their farcical arse-lickery. The media fed a lot of their egos and the players blindly accepted. The AVB witch-hunt was enduring, but he didn't back down for a long time. I commend him whole heatedly here, the egos can't play forever - they need a dose of reality and AVB instilled that. But now, the board have f****d it all up. The players have beaten a good man while he was down and the board have given these aging, uncreative players an upper hand yet again. When will the players take responsibility for their mistakes? how can AVB manage a team which virtually coerce him into the starting them? How can AVB help Torres score a goal when Xavi and Iniesta couldn't? I've been behind Torres for a long time but I don't know why, we don't want to see anyone fail and I still don't - but if we look at the logistics, we'll see that Torres's acquisition effectively ended our interest in buying Aguero. Infact if Benitiz does join I'll be angry beyond words, the only reason for Abramovich to appoint him is to get the 50 million man scoring. At least AVB had his connections with Porto, where Hulk seemed to be eager to join. Where does that leave the Hulk proposition. Moreover, will we still be going for Lucas and Hazard? Or are we going to get a manager who'll settle for second tier? This cycle is ruthless and by no means beneficial to Chelsea football club.

Yeh I did, thanks for the compliment

AC Milan, a scintillating, enthralling and entertaining side. Today they embody all the elements of Joga bonito, but not so long ago, infact a mere 1 year, they were a side slipping down the dreaded slope to which Liverpool similarly fell from. This stagnated squad suffered a 2-0 defeat to the hands of Arsenal in 2007/08, exacerbating the problem further by dropping into the 5th place and ensuing entrance to the dreaded UEFA Cup. The very next year hey lost to Utd 7-2(agg) and just last year they infamously lost to the Sp*ds. An underlying reason for these persistently fatigued and lackluster performances lay in their aging base. Unbelievably 6 players remain in the squad which took force against Juventus 11 years ago. Not just this but they yielded the oldest squad in the UCL last year averaging an age of 29.2. Players at the end of the careers continued to arrive and this pitiful cycle saw no end. The parallels between their past situation and ours are dangerously evident. So the question emanates: how on Earth did they turn it around? Last year they dropped out of the UCL to Tottenham with the axe dawning ever closer. Nevertheless Galliani and Silvio Berlusconi stood by their man (possibly due to the success they had in Serie A). Milan eventually won the Scudetto, but were not a finished article. Inter were on the decline, and it is only until recently that Italy actually made their jump. (In many way Milans rise simultaneously occurred with Italy's rise.) Massimillano Allergi inherited a inatley bleak squad starving in flair and pace. He immediately made some shrude acquisitions in Ibrahimovic, Robino and Cassano. Slowly he began lessening the power of ageing fan favorites such as Inzaghi and co. introducing Thiago Silva, Robinho, El-Sharaawy, Nocerino, Pato, Boeting and Emmanuelson (Pirlo was a mistake though). This process took over a season and though Allergi faced his critics, it worked. Chelsea are experiencing a similair transition, with the player-power vs. manager battle potentially hitting a culmination point. Unfortunately for AVB we also have a Torres problem,who should like Ibra did for Milan, be winning games with his goals. Sturridge has been introduced, Luiz and Cahill have found their place, (Romeu was) and his most prized acquisition in Mata has done his bit. The ageing players still outweigh the youths, but it must be noted, AVB hasn't acquiesced to the influence of players such as Lampard. Nonetheless AVB hasn't shown Allergi's balls, and perhaps Mceachran, Kakuta and Lukaku should have been given more time. But in the precarious situation we are in now, would sacking AVB achieve anything? In short no. Player power would remain, and egos will be given another undeserved opportunity too prove themselves. In some ways AVB was too kind, he should have been ruthless and replaced them immediately. He could have done this, but we can't forget that quality beats quantity. We went after the very top in Hazard and Lucas and didn't panic buy (exception to Meireles). I for one commend AVB here, sure they could've done a job but who's too say that these acquisitions could of done any better than our ageing players. Buying players in January is never ideal, nobody wants to sell, and most of the time players take time to settle. AVB knows the squad and should know who's going and coming. Relieving AVB of his duties will cost the club millions and who's to say his replacement will do any better. You can't build a bridge without the material, AVB is using the shit we have and we're only getting what our quality commands. I sense a mutiny exists in the camp and the conceited seem to be unconcerned with our current state. Give AVB this season, give him a genuine opportunity to buy the players and beat the ego. He's a talented manager; yes he's made mistakes, but who hasn't? This transitional pain will be made redundant if we sack AVB and I want to give Boas the opportunity to successfully exert his attacking style upon Chelsea. We are not a short-term project, we know that. He's shown glimpses, but like Allergi, needs to be given more than a season to change Chelsea.

Ibra with a quickfire 15 minute hatrick to settle this Palermo game in the 1st half.

Lampard why do you miss?

Stop with the their goes 5th place...

FFS Sturridge better not be injured, at least he gets MOTM.

Gary Cahill scores!

France score a second, guess who scored? You guessed it, Malouda .