Jype

If Robin van Persie doesn't score in his next game, he'll equal Fernando Torres's longest goal drought for Chelsea. Oh dear, who would've believed that earlier this season.

Two completely different type of players, so why not just get both while we're at it? We could do with De Bruyne in midfield but recalling him wouldn't rule out getting Schürrle who would offer us much needed depth and quality on the wings and a good option up front as well. Leverkusen seem to value him a bit too highly for my liking though and there are better options out there.

"Abramovich's right hand Marina Granovskaia has been sent to Madrid to sort out the Jose Mourinho situation and secure his services." (El Confidencial) On the last page there was something about Granovskaia meeting Jorge Mendes in London and now they're saying she's going to Madrid to continue the negotiations. Sounds promising, eh?

German media (Bild) reporting that we are about to offer 15m + De Bruyne for Andre Schürrle. What the fuck? From what I know Bild are usually a very reliable newspaper but if this deal really happens then whoever sanctions the deal should be sacked on the spot. I rate Schürrle but he's not worth losing De Bryune, especially with us also paying money to Leverkusen. I could live with maybe 15m + KdB on loan for a year, though I would prefer De Bruyne returning for next season. We are in a deaperate need of a midfielder like De Bruyne so why should we get rid of him without him ever putting on a Chelsea shirt in a competitive match and then go splash another 30m on a midfielder?

One of our best players today, that's now two good games for Ryan this week. Hope he can keep up this form and show us what he can do, it's not every month Ashley Cole is out for a few weeks and Bertrand hasn't had such an opportunity before.

A great game for Fernando, last time he really impressed us was Sunderland and that was nearly five months ago. Even if he hadn't scored two goals today I still would've considered his performance to be good. For once our manager will have a dilemma of who to play up front with both our strikers having great games within a few days. Wouldn't actually mind starting both Ba and Torres but no chance of that happening, I guess.

Benayoun again. Why on earth does he keep getting playing time week after week for a club like Chelsea when he was nowhere near good enough for a shitty West Ham side earlier this season and they decided to cut his loan short!

Have to watch out for their playmaker Roman Eremenko, he's the star man of the Finnish national team and usually one of Rubin Kazan's best players.

Sunderland are shit, although Di Canio's appointment could give them the much needed spark. Swansea don't have anything left to play for after they sealed their Europa League qualification by winning the Carling Cup and they've basically been gifting points to our competitors ever since, hopefully the same will continue when we face them. United will probably have sealed the title by the time we play them so they could be fielding a team of younger players and the ones they want to put in the shopping window so that fixture shouldn't be as hard at that time as it would've been earlier in the season. Fulham are always good against us, expect a draw there. Spurs, Liverpool and Everton can all be tricky, need to get at least a draw from Spurs and maybe four points minimum from the Merseyside clubs. Predictions: Sunderland - 3 points Fulham - 1 point Liverpool - 0 point Swansea - 3 points Man Utd - 1 point Spurs - 1 point Aston Villa - 3 points Everton - 3 points That'd be 15 points from the remaining fixtures and 70 total, can't see that being enough for third place and maybe not even enough for top4. Spurs have some tough matches coming up, they could end up with less than that if we're lucky but I can't see Arsenal doing worse than us with their easy run of games. Result: Arsenal third, Chelsea / Spurs battling it for fourth till the final round.

What a performance. I have to admit, at HT I doubted our chances because United had more players capable of changing the game on their bench than we did. Turns out, we didn't need any and their's were shit. Benitez - Ferguson now 2-0 this season, the clash at Old Trafford in May is definitely going to be interesting even if United have sealed the title by then. Hard to choose a man of the match today, most of the lads did great. Cech and Ramires deserve a shout, but I have to give credit to Demba Ba, mainly because that has got to be the first time this season our striker's performance reminded me of the good old Didier Drogba. Speaking of Drogba, how will we cope in the semis without the King of Wembley? Mata has been great in the FA Cup ever since joining the club so maybe he can take over as the most consistent performer in the cup and Ba can come up with another Drogbaesque performance against City.

Hazard's left foot has failed us this time.

WHAT A GOAL

Ferguson clearly getting the better of Benitez today. At Old Trafford we started with a weakened lineup and changed the game completely after substitutions but today it's the other way around, we have our best players out there already but still couldn't really control the game. Now they can get the likes of Kagawa, Van Persie and maybe Young on and the game is pretty much over. Who do we have on the bench, Torres? We should have taken advantage of our stronger lineup in the first half and scored at least one goal, now I'm not too optimistic anymore.

Cech what the hell was that, almost gave me a heart attack.

Great lineup, I'm getting excited about this match. Also, United helping us a bit by benching the rapist and not having Rooney in the squad at all, although I am sure the little cunt Hernandez will find a way to score against us once again. KTBFFH :blue scalf:

For the next game you won't need God's help, we have Benitez after all...

You prefer Benayoun?

I agree, in other words poor Marko has been ruthlessly thrown under the bus. At times Moses has been just as bad or even worse than Marin but he still gets picked to play with Hazard and Mata, making it much easier for an average player to look good. In my opinion, neither Marin or Moses are anything special but they can both do the job as a squad player when occasionally used together with the big boys but starting with purely the second string will always end up in a disaster.

I'm starting to miss Malouda Yes, that's how bad our wingers are when Mata and Hazard are out.

Moses just torresed that chance.

Hardly a surprise with that lineup. Why do I get the feelng Benitez fancies the FA Cup and the UEL ahead of the Premir League? A real trophy to his name would look much better in his resume in a few years than the Arsenal trophy, also known as finishing in the top4. To the club top4 is much more important but it's been clear for a long time that Benitez doesn't give a fuck about the club...

Sure he did but it's suicidal to rest so many key players at once, no matter how important the game on Monday is.

I'm hearing Hazard on the bench and Mata not travelling at all. What the fuck is going on?

He was never going to confirm nor deny anything as Real Madrid are still very much competing in the CL and the Copa del Rey and announcing he's already signed for another club could hurt their chances this season. Expecting to hear something as soon as the season is over for both clubs.

That was exactly my point, in modern football every big club are doing the same thing and because of that it's ridiculous to somehow glorify this Barcelona team and make them to to be any more than they are, a side built with a lot of money to compete for silverware. I consider it to be essentially the same thing if Barcelona play with half the team from their academy and the other half bought with record-breaking money and then some other team just use the same amount of money to pay for the whole squad if they don't have any academy products. End result is the same, an expensive team capable of challenging for trophies, and option A is no more respectable than option B in my opinion. But I guess that's enough off-topic, maybe there's a more suitable thread where this can be discussed further if you still feel the need.