capriccioso

JT. I think he can be a good taker, given practice. His penalty at Moscow was near perfect, he sent van der Sar the wrong way. And I'm not taking the piss here.

I can't see it, We hate Scouse. This is excellent. The bloke who made this deserves a medal. No offence to war veterans.

Why did you change your avatar manpe

The good vibes are likely a result of the players seeing di Matteo as 'one of the boys'. That will stop as soon as he puts his foot down. I can foresee some kind of situation where the players start acting like dicks and lose their motivation once they start saying to each other, "This Roberto chap eh, he used to be cool, do we let him off with this or wot?" One advantage he has is that they can't get him sacked, he'll lose the job in 4 months anyway. So he can do absolutely whatever he likes, make the powerbrokers in our club train with the u-13s or something.

Out: Malouda Meireles Bosingwa Torres Lampard Turnbull Hilario Drogba, if he refuses to accept the 1 year contract. Cole Paolo Ferreira This may be controversial, but I want Sturridge out as well. He hasn't got long on his contract and we can't risk him walking away for free as he's currently being a bit of a dick in negotiations, or so rumour has it. In: Quality, young replacements. We may not need replacements for Turnbull/Hilario, we have Thibaut.

He may be shit but he's better than Malouda and actually gives a fuck, which is why I'd rather have him over Slo Mo Flo Mo any day.

Was be born as a guaranteed starter? No, he had to make his way up from the bench. Why can't he accept that now? Scholes and Giggs adjusted just fine, and thats despite rubbish like Anderson and Carrick playing ahead of them. At least Lampard is being kept out by players of a higher quality than him (except for Meireles, of course).

If you're referring to the 3 players standing next to him running roughshod over the club once Jose left, then yes, that is likely to repeat itself.

Please, anyone but Rafa!

Not a chance. Apart from a "Oh you scored? That's great, but will it get us our manager back?", I will not react at all.

AussieDan, a legend does not put his own interest ahead of the club. A legend is not supposed to be selfish. A legend is supposed to know whats best, and what was best for the club was to let Villas-Boas give his project a go. Now he's been denied of that, in acrimonious circumstances. And no-one, from a player, manager, owner, board member, down to the cleaner is bigger than the club, regardless of how much money they've ploughed into the club, regardless of how many goals and how many trophies they've won. This was an enormously selfish act, him and his cronies could not accept the very easily acceptable fact that they were over the hill and it was time for them to wind down their careers. So they got benched once or twice, thats no reason to go have a fucking sulk. If you are truly a legend you'll either work doubly hard in training and in the matchday opportunities you're given to force your way back in or you'll accept it and not complain. Just look at the Australian cricket team. Ricky Ponting did far more for Australian cricket than Frank Lampard ever did for Chelsea, and the selectors had no qualms about ending his ODI career after 3 or 4 poor performances. He is widely considered to be the greatest batter we've produced since Bradman (who for those of you who don't follow cricket, is by far the greatest player in the sports history), a football equivalent would be Napoli terminating Diego Maradona's contract. Why did they do it? Because there is no room whatsoever for past glories in sport. It's all about now, if you focus on what people have achieved in the past, you're only going to hurt your own chances. Why is it that a manager gets asked questions by the majority of us after 3-4 bad games but the legends rarely do? Its not his fault, its the players fault. We can't afford to carry a 150k a week (or whatever he's on) burden on a 34 year old who's gone around the block a time or two. Think of what we could do with that money, we could easily entice a far superior player, maybe even Schweinsteiger, or anyone who'd significantly improve our team. There is absolutely 0% chance we will improve as a team if Lampard keeps playing for us, he's hit his peak years ago and now he's nearing the base of his abilities.

If that is true, our squad are unfortunately not only bad footballers, but awful human beings. I hope they leave the club in kind, with not one supporter wishing them good bye, good luck or thanking them for the memories.

Just pretend he wasn't involved in the coup, and look at him objectively: he offers little to the team apart from goals, if Lukaku matures or we buy a decent striker his role is redundant. Terminate his contract in the summer, and Raul Meireles' for good measure, and sign a couple of decent young midfielders to replace them. Or we could use Romeu/McEachran instead but we could use the depth.

Drogba is by no means neutral, he was responsible together with Ballack and Cech in the sacking of Big Phil. But he's accepted he's not quite good enough these days to play at the highest level regularly. I doubt he was involved in the Villas-Boas coup, because he seems resigned to the fact he's not an automatic starter anymore. His temperament has improved no end since Torres joined, and thats great for the club.

I'd hate for that to happen, but sadly, it'll be the likely course

Not at all, its just that none of us want Rafa, Capello or Guardiola near this club. Bielsa would be Villas-Boas all over again, Hiddink's just got a job. Doesn't leave us with much else to vote for.

Would rep, but I've run out

JT is Chelsea through and through.

My first work for uni is due in on Wednesday. I'm fucked, I can't make any sense of stone age economics.

The one thing you can never fault Salomon for is effort. Even when the whole team (or nearly the whole team) couldn't give a fuck, Kalou comes on and at the very least plays with motivation. With the situation as it is, he deserves a start.

4-4-2, up and at them! Mikel and Meireles in the middle, Kalou and Malouda on the wings!

Drogba wouldn't be an awful choice, he virtually managed the team from the bench during the latter months of Carlo's reign. He has a massive personality and brings his will to bear through sheer determination, and has the unrelenting respect and liking of the squad. But I'm not convinced as to his tactical and coaching abilities, although he seems to be a fine motivator and leader. Lampard is a bit of an unproven in both departments. In any case the board would have to be raving mad to give the job to either of them.

I'm all for healthy debates, but give him a break mate, let it slide.

I don't know, he just looks like the shifty type who'd side with whoever represented his best interests. At this point, his best interests would have been a promotion so I wouldn't have put it past him to have picked a side to ally himself with within the dressing room.

Yep, we've certainly had enough weak, indulgent managers at the club. Time for someone to put his foot down, if necessary do to any dissenters what Andre did to Alex and Anelka, and really show this mob of wannabe politicians who runs the show.