Jype

A while ago I saw some Spanish newspaper linking Navas to us and it said that if he came to Chelsea he could live with Mata to help with his homesickness. Probably not a reliable rumour but an interesting read nonetheless.

Liverpool now have two of their goalkeepers Reina and Doni suspended for FA Cup semifinal against Everton. :lol2:

So let me get this straight. Balotelli survives with just a pat on the back for that horror tackle on Alex Song and now Ivanovic is the only one facing a ban when he had a fight with Maloney and they both hit each other? The FA is a joke. Of course Ivanovic deserves to get banned for that and it was a stupid thing for him to do but one would hope to get equal treatment for other players as well when they fuck up.

Sadly for us Drogba, Kalou and Bosingwa will all be leaving for free if they're not offered contract extensions so no income from letting them go. OUT: Drogba Kalou Bosingwa Meireles (8-10m) Malouda (4-5m) Essien (no clue on how much he'd go for considering the injuries and bad form) Cole (5-10m) IN: Kakuta (loan) De Bruyne (loan) McEachran (loan) 1-3 wingers a CM a right back a left back Kakuta, De Bruyne and McEachran all at least for a minor role and they could get a decent amount of minutes in the Europa League and through rotation in other games as well. At least a couple of new wingers and a new "creative" central midfielder are needed. Players like Jovetic, Kagawa, Lavezzi, Hazard, Hulk, Di Maria, Gaitan, Lucas Moura are all dream buys and to get even one player like that and then some decent squad players like A. Johnson or Albrighton etc. in addition to that would be very good business for Chelsea. As for the central midfielder I'd just want someone who has at least half a brain and can pass the ball quickly to wingers and the one playing in #10 role. Perhaps bring in a new striker too if Torres were to be sold. Haven't decided yet whether or not I'd like to keep him or just cut our losses and sell him to any club willing to pay at least 20m for him and then use that money to buy a striker who can actually score goals. Bertrand could easily take Cole's place in the team and then just bring in someone with smaller wages than Cole to rotate with Ryan at LB. When Bosingwa is gone then another right back is needed too to cover for Ivanovic but nothing too expensive because Brana would still play the majority of games and a secondary RB is not a priority at the moment. Don't know how all this would be viewed regarding the FFP rules. Just hope they don't fuck things up and we can't buy any decent players.

80k a week I think.

If we somehow miraculously do win the Champions League I'd rather not finish in the top4 because it would be twice the fun when Tottenham or Newcastle fans would have already celebrated their CL spot only to watch it being taken away from them when Chelsea qualifiy through winning the 2012 CL.

Second half was disgraceful. Same old slow and uninterested Chelsea, always conceding silly goals in the final 10 minutes of the match when leading only by a one goal margin. At least now we can focus only on the FA Cup and Barcelona in the CL. No point wasting energy trying to compete with Arsenal next weekend between the CL matches because it would make it much more difficult to challenge Barcelona and even if we were to beat Arsenal there's absolutely no guarantees it would even matter. Seems like 4th place is finally slipping away permanently. There's just no way Spurs and Newcastle both lose more points than us in the last five rounds and it's looking more and more that we're playing in the Europa League at most next season. Other than the fact we're missing out on a lot of money by not qualifying to the CL I'm not that bothered about it. The Ropey League would be a good opportunity for Lukaku, McEachran, Kakuta etc. to step up and get some minutes and if even a couple of the more experienced players would play at the top of their game there's a very good chance for us to end up with a new and shiny mickey mouse trophy. (That is if we don't win the CL this year and qualify for next season through that. Stranger things have happened. )

Would have preferred that fake lineup. Romeu back in the side and Torres & Drogba together would have been much nicer than the confirmed lineup. But hey, at least Bosingwa is back on the bench where he belongs.

Holy mother of fuck, that lineup looks very good. Nice to see Romeu getting his first minutes under Di Matteo and Bertrand starting two league matches in a row. Also Drogba and Torres together

Ivanovic can still play tonight and if he's going to get banned it will be for Tottenham, Arsenal and QPR games. If (when) Iva is banned for those three games I'd rather have Ferreira at right back and Ramires on the wing like Benfica 1st leg. Ferreira is slow as hell so he stays back at all times and Ramires does twice as much work to cover for Paulo and also support the attacks. If Bosingwa is to play then whoever plays on the wing will have to do triple work because he has to cover for Bosingwa and the guy covering for Bosingwa (someone from midfield) as well as do his own work. Even Ramires couldn't handle that much.

Agreed. If he stays next season it could turn out to be a catastrophe like Dalglish's second season at Loserpool or it could be brilliant. Guess we'll never know if we're not prepared to take the gamble with him. If there are no viable options (Mourinho etc.) around in the summer I wouldn't mind sticking with Di Matteo because at least the players know him and apparently like him. Don't know if he can be trusted with a large transfer budget to rebuild the squad in the summer though.

Haha, that's the spirit. Totally ignore his MOTM-worthy performances in recent months and concentrate only on that one silly mistake which didn't even result in a goal for Benfica.

Almost 8 hours till kick-off so you can easily go to sleep for 7 hours and then wake up to watch the game.

Cech; Bertrand, Terry, Cahill, Ferreira ; Mikel, Lampard ; Kalou, Meireles, Sturridge ; Torres Maybe Ramires could start too but the most important thing is that Mata, Luiz and Ivanovic don't play at all.

Not an excuse or anything but I think Maloney punched Ivanovic earlier in the game so maybe that was just revenge. Clever of him to do it behind the referee's back but it seems Daily Fail want to get him suspended so they made that news article of the incident and now he may be facing a ban anyway. Losing Ivanovic for at least three games is not something we can afford.

Actually Henry came to Arsenal from Juventus. Did play in Monaco for five years though but that's not the point.

Who's to say we can't do both?

A bad performance but still 3 points so can't complain. Ivanovic's goal was a clear offside though but I don't give a fuck. Bertrand MOTM even though Wigan's equalizer was partly his fault. Other than that a faultess performance. He must get more playing time in the near future because Cole simply can't play every match when there's so many important games coming up in such short time. Also I fear he will leave this summer if he can't play at Chelsea and I'm sure selling him would come back to haunt us sometime soon.

Torres on for Malouda to partner Didier up front would help break Wigan's defence and would also allow Bertrand to be more involved in our attacks. His crosses have been excellent and if Malouda would just fuck off he could dominate the whole flank on his own.

4-2-3-1 Cech ; Bertrand, Cahill, Ivanovic, Ferreira ; Essien, Lampard ; Malouda, Meireles, Sturridge ; Drogba Yes, I really said I want Malouda to start. Shocking.

I'd guess Barcelona would just have to fuck off then. Wouldn't it be similar to players who have release clauses on their contracts and triggering the clause just gives the buying club permission to negotiate a contract with the player and the selling club can't do anything to stop the transfer if the player really wants to leave? The player can still of course reject the contract and stay with his current club. That is if they haven't already negotiated the terms and put pen to paper on a contract which would only become active if Barcelona were to buy him back. Then I suppose he'd have to go whether he wanted to or not. But this all a bit pointless because we all know that if those catalan cunts really want him back there's no way he'd say no.

He still has 8 goals this season (more than Torres btw and 5th highest from the whole team) and he has played the majority of games in midfield and lately a few matches on the wings, which is not even his natural position. His main job isn't to score goals so can't blame him for occasionally being a bad finisher. Having said that, his miss from yesterday is still horrible and that has got to haunt him at nights.

Didn't your sports director Andoni Zubizarreta confirm AVB's claims in February by saying Barcelona have "first option" on Romeu? That is different from a buy back clause as far as I know. No matter what the clauses are it's been confusing these past couple of months. First he was a first team regular, then he is "injured" despite clearly being in training with everyone else and now we haven't seen him even on the bench for a very long time. It's like he doesn't even exist anymore. I get the feeling we aren't being told everything about this matter.

Voted for Mikel too and mostly for the same reasons. Also a foul on him made the referee give Maxi Pereira a sending off which turned out to be a key moment in the match. Chelsea hardly kept the lead when playing against 10 men so I don't even want to know what could have happened if they had 11 for all of the match.

First leg is on Wednesday the 18th at 19:45 and second leg is a week after that on Tuesday at 19:45.