capriccioso

I was too young to watch either of them play much. I think I was 11 the first (and only) time I saw Geremi play, which was a 10 minute spell at the end of a UCL match. I never saw Babayaro in a Chelsea shirt and assumed he was one of our failed youth products who went on to have a decent career elsewhere.

Enjoy it mate; before you know it it'll be the last day and you'll be depressed for a few days or even weeks Currently I'm doing Arts (first year) at the University of New South Wales. I've been dicking so far this semester, I've really got to pick up my game if I stand any chance of transferring into Commerce/Arts next year. I am unemployed, last job I applied for was at the bookstore at UNSW. Got rejected on the basis that I don't have enough experience

I agree, there's something strange about Cavani that makes my skin crawl as well... maybe it's the hair.

It speaks volumes about our club that a club which only accepts Basques still produces better players via the youth academy than ours can with unrestricted worldwide reach.

He joins our legions of 'did they even play for us?' along with the likes of Geremi, Jarosik, Huth, Smertin, Babayaro, Boulahrouz, Pizarro, Ben-Haim, Sidwell, and others.

Bringing the thread back on-topic, what's the future now for Fabrice given he'll at the very least retain his mental qualities? Apparently he's some kind of maths whiz, and has a passion for accounting. And he can always go into coaching. He won't become a quadra/paraplegic will he?

I don't think many teams, especially us in present condition can afford one let alone two luxury players who can be devastating once in a while but are rubbish more often than not. We've got two of those kinds of players; Sturridge and Torres. One of them must either leave or adapt their game so even when they're not having a great outing they can at least hold their own. For Sturridge this may be tracking back and helping the defence and ignoring his selfish nature, for Torres this could be putting in a Rooney/Drogba like performance where he hassles defenders.

Torres is on one goal per 11 hours at the moment. That's really not good enough. If we can get a decent run with him in these remaining few games of the season (say, 10 from 15) we can pull off a heist by pretending he's back to his best. If that happens we could easily pick up 30 million for him. I think we all agree he's not cut out to lead the line for us next year. I may be proven wrong, of course. What if he hits a hat trick against City and then follows it up with a goal a game all the way up to the Champions League Final? In that case I'd have to flip on my current position.

The thing with Netherlands, according to Football Manager anyway, is that it only takes 3 years to get a work permit. I think it takes 5 in other EU countries.

I agree with Sheva.A win is a win, and particularly this season, we can't afford to be picky over them. I'll take a 1-0 own goal win where Man City have 90% possession and have 45 shots on target at this point.

There are some really sick, twisted fucks on twitter. Edit: I removed the link.

On the subject of Portuguese stadiums, Braga's stadium is probably the most beautiful sporting arena anywhere in the world: It's cut out of a mountain! How awesome is that!

Hasn't Saviola been bad for years now?

I don't think Scotland can afford that 120 million hit, thats nearly 1% of their economy wiped.

What a character our Salomon is

Oh dear Salomon

He's speaking So he won't be a vegetable now will he? So there is a correlation? That doesn't sound too good for us. Our team has quite a few Africans and people of African heritage.

The thing with AVB still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

My apologies if it this sounds a bit racist, but this sudden heart attack appears to affect African footballers far more than others. There have been no fewer than 11 such incidents (Muamba included) in the last 20 or so years involving black players. Lillian Thuram went through his whole career without knowing he had a heart defect, as well.

Oops

Come on mate, he's still a Chelsea player and deserves our backing at least on the pitch. I've grown to dislike Lampard the man but I would still cheer him on on the field.

Not at all. I think Roman had no choice but, when the manger is hated by more or less the entire squad you've got to move him on for the short term good of the club. I'm still a supporter of Villas-Boas though, and he should have seen this coming and shipped out the troublemakers in summer 2011. I agree, there are a lot of people who are obsessed with the idea of one-man teams, particularly Santos and Benfica. Most people think it was all Pele and Eusebio. That's true to an extent, some times those 2 players, particularly Eusebio carried their team but most of the time they had ample support. It's not the same as Barcelona and Messi, though; those two players were the particular stand outs of their team wheres if you took Messi out of Barcelona they'd still be able to quote.

It's because I don't follow Portuguese football. I kind of liked Porto, because of 2004 and the great football they played last year. But I'm still not really a fan of any of the big 3. There is a great quote about Eusebio, by António Simões, who said: Of course, Benfica were already established as a top club before 1961, but you have to agree Eusebio took a very good club, into a great club.

That's great, I'll join up sometime today or tomorrow I'm not much of a Benfica fan but I love Eusebio, does he still work at the club?

No way. Drogba must start, its the big games where he usually puts out his best. Torres can start but he'll have to cut inside from the wing.