Jase

http://www.goal.com/en/news/1716/champions-league/2013/04/29/3940582/mourinho-i-never-told-klopp-i-was-going-to-chelsea?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Not totally but think it might be the plan, just like we did in the 1st leg. Don't think it would be wise to attack them, we don't have to anyway, and leave ourselves open especially with Basel having the players to trouble us with their quick, pacey and direct attacks.

Surprisingly this hasn't been posted in here. Hazard has been in the league's TOTY for past 4 seasons. Ligue 1 Team of the Year 2009–10 Ligue 1 Team of the Year 2010-11 Ligue 1 Team of the Year 2011-12 PFA Team of the Year 2012-13

Oh Choulo....have already posted that news 2 days ago.

Suarez booed at PFA bash And according to Mata in his latest blog, he didn't attend the awards ceremony last night. Spent the night celebrating his birthday. Good decision...

Hardly a surprise and I'm not even sure whether Mourinho had actually said to Klopp that he's returning here!

Meh....

It was a non-story from Bild. They were just trolling us about Dzeko and his pilot license. Can see it on Bild's Twitter or Raphael Honigstein's one.

Hazard voted 3rd best young player.

Worth pointing out that Cole is suspended for this one while Bertrand, Ramires, Mikel and Luiz are all 1 YC away from potentially missing the final, if we get there. Hope Luiz and Ramires sit out of this one especially. Rest and keep them fresh for the important games in United and Spurs.

Posted a few posts above yours. Benitez said he just had a dead leg. Should be fine for Thursday's game.

Nope. They still gotta play Swansea at OT. Yes but instead of just looking at the refereeing decisions then, we dropped the points there mainly thanks to some diabolical defending.

Win with ease, I don't know but certainly can't see us losing the tie from here. That is unless the players suddenly become all complacent and switches off. Still need to be wary of their threat but if we do our job properly, we will get to the final.

For starters, we would be sitting more comfortably ahead of Arsenal and Spurs had we not pathetically threw away those 2-0 leads against Southampton and Reading!

They played a very strong team too, forgot to mention that. Sommer, Degen, Dragovic, Stocker, Diaz, Serey Die, Frei and Salah etc all started.

Yes. That thought had been lingering in my head for hours now making me think, what could have been. Just gotta hope we don't rue all these dropped points in a few weeks time.

True and if we win our next 2 games against United and Spurs, we would already finish in Top 4. 6 points clear of Spurs then with 2 games left and have a way better GD than them(16 goals better), which they are unlikely to make up. To be certain though, we obviously then need 7 points from last 4 games but 1 or 3 of those points must come from the Spurs game! Otherwise, there's no point us picking up 7 points from other 3 games when Spurs could just easily win 4 out of last 4 games.

Basel today got hammered 3-0 at home by Luzern, who are 28 points behind them in the Swiss league...

Chelsea vs Basel PRE-MATCH DISCUSSION AND LIVE CHAT Europa League Semi Final 2nd Leg 2nd May, Thursday 2013 Stamford Bridge 20:05 Kick Off (UK time)

Chelsea vs Basel POST-MATCH DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS Europa League Semi Final 2nd Leg 2nd May, Thursday 2013 Stamford Bridge 20:05 Kick Off (UK time)

Ooh right. That had completely slipped my mind. Thanks for pointing that out.

Considering that now United can't break our record points tally of 95, you gotta wonder how motivated would they be when we play them next Sunday. But on the other hand, they can play with no pressure and have nothing to lose while we are not in that same situation. Meh.

Here's how the latest UEFA country coefficient looks like.. http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/index.html

Wooops. You're right on that. My bad.

Current league standings: 3. Chelsea - P34 65 points (GD +33) 4. Arsenal - P35 64 points (GD +30) 5. Spurs - P34 62 points (GD +17) Remaining league matches: Chelsea - Man United(A), Tottenham(H), Aston Villa(A) and Everton(H) Arsenal - QPR(A), Wigan(H) and Newcastle(A) Spurs - Southampton(H), Chelsea(A), Stoke(A) and Sunderland(H) Two tough games await next. Am slowly cracking up for that. Hope we can get at least 4 points from those 2 games and we certainly can't afford to lose that Spurs game. We just can't.