TorontoChelsea

Hell yeah! This is a philosophical discussion but if I view something as beautiful, that's the real reality! Would you date a girl you thought was the most gorgeous on the planet but everyone else thought was ugly?

Canada is shit at soccer. We barely ever make the World Cup so I get it when people would rather go to teams where they can have a chance to play in tournaments. It's frustrating because it keeps happening. We have players like De Guzman and Hoilett who won't commit to Canada. De Guzman is the most ridiculous because he is also eligible for the Netherlands but he's just not good enough to play regularly for them and he never will be. It's one of the problems of being an immigrant country. Everyone is eligible to play for multiple countries. One of the other difficulties is that if you play in Europe, flying back to North America for qualifying matches is incredibly tiring. If you're English, your qualifying matches will be all over Europe but 90% of your time with the national team will be within an hour or two of your home. If you have to go to qualifying games in Costa Rica and Los Angeles, it's a pretty big deal. In the late 90's and early 200's, we had a pretty decent team with a lot of Premier League and Championship players. Craig Forrest, Paul Peschisolido, Jim Brennan, Jason De Vos, and others...right now, Simeon Jackson is our only Premier League player.We have one player at PSV and the rest of the squad is lower divisions and league in Europe and MLS. It's hard to see a good future for soccer here. One thing I find amusing about people like Hargreaves (Or Greg Rusedski or, to a lesser extent, Lennox Lewis) they are the only people generally referred to as "British". Andy Murray is a Scot, David Beckham is English, Garreth Bale is welsh, but Hargreaves was "British" (which basically means he's from somewhere else but has citizenship in the UK.)

Not really. Sometimes they're staged in terms of both players agree to fight before the puck is dropped.It's really hard to fight in equipment on the ice though. The 70's and 80's was the glory period for enforcers...this is one of my favourites and it's only one hockey player involved. Everybody hates it when some stupid fan runs onto the field/ice/court and wouldn't be awesome if you could always do this?

Going to Cuba in a couple of weeks. Excited, not only because it will mean about a 35 degree rise in temperature but also because Havana is supposed to be absolutely fascinating and I am staying in an incredible villa for a week. Sometimes, life is sweet.

And just ridiculous levels of talent. Spain has, in the midfield, Xavi, Xabi Alonso, Silva, Mata, Iniesta, Busquets, Fabergas, Michu, Cazorla, Isco, Javi Martinez, Benat, Javi Garcia, Navas, Pedro, and Alcantara. That's insane!!! Their second team midfield would be one of the best midfields in the world.

If that were the case, I'd look at your photo and see a naked Scarlett Johansson. .

This. Malouda was under contract so the board had a couple of options. 1) try to find a transfer to him 2) keep him on the squad. Once the transfer route closed, they should have just played him (sparingly). What exactly was the point of punishing him? Malouda isn't a great player, but like Benayoun is capable of playing in the Premier League and is a better fit at midfield than Bertrand.

(SPOLIER ALERT) Yeah, I think you're right BUT I hate Dany. Just get off your fucking ass and go to Westoros. Two books of dawdling and pining after some purple-bearded weirdo. It's enough! I think Jamie Lannister will die too. In fact, I think this next book will kill off a few major characters. There are just too many people (and POVS) right now. http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/forum/58-the-winds-of-winter/ is the best speculation site for the next book.

Stannis has honour which is something seriously lacking in most characters. Of course, Ned Stark had honour too. Having noble traits usually means a quick death from Martin. I still like SOS the best of the books. Martin is at his best with plot development and political maneuvers. There's so little happening in the last couple of books which means they've really bogged down IMO.

I feel the same way...it's almost like there is a cancer at the club but I don't really know where it is either. I am 99.9% positive that Roman wants that specific attacking style. Chelsea sources have talked about it in the press quite openly (clarifying it as not being "attacking football" but rather a Chelsea style that takes the game to the opponent), but it also makes sense based on the players Chelsea buy. To me, there are three cures to this. 1) I think Roman needs some actual football people around him, rather than just suits. Yes, you need people who can do the sponsorship deals and figure out FFP but you also need people who understand football. 2) Chelsea need to listen to their fans more. That doesn't mean you have to do everything your supporters want, but there's an understandable feeling that the club is completely out of touch with the supporters. 3) Related to the first two, Roman needs to back off a little. Every Chelsea supporter appreciates what he has done for the club, but Chelsea would be better off if he backed off just a little. His impatience, his visits to Cobham to intimidate players and managers, his and his obsession with wanting something specific, etc...

That's exactly what I thought. They look like inbred zombies where you're not sure if they stumble around unable to speak or walk properly because they are undead or because they are drunken idiots.

Monreal is weird because that's exactly how how you say Montreal in French so it always make me do a double-take.

Well, if you can get 6 months for stealing a water bottle, this sentence makes sense. Of course, you can swindle people out of millions and get nothing but a fat bonus so the system isn't exactly fair. (Big surprise I know)

Most deadline days, especially the winter transfer period, are rather uneventful. Lots of minor players moving for 3M pounds sort of thing.

You're right about the need to tighten up at the back. After years of Terry, Carvalho, and Dessaily, we've become used to having top notch centre-backs and while we have a few good ones, we don't have anyone at that level right now. To me, the reason why central midfield is such a priority right now, is that we simply don't have the numbers. We have Lampard and Ramires and neither are even great fits there. It's a more immediate need.

Amels or Hutcho... but lots of good posters this month (as always).

Must mean they are going to move Begovic. This might not happen until the summer but the moves makes no sense otherwise.

I don't even think we'd need someone to chase someone as expensive as Moutinho to help is into 4th. There are many many players out there who would help us a fair bit and who are not particularly expensive.

Exactly and I don't even get it financially. If Chelsea miss a CL spot, it will be a disaster and cost the team what, tens of millions? Bringing in a good central midfielder, even just a decent one who can play a role on the club would be a massive help and shouldn't be all that expensive. We don't need to be chasing potentially elite players or prospects with every transfer. You need role players as well.

Fellaini-25-30M pounds or so. Essien-free. We need a long-term central midfielder for sure (and to me Fellaini isn't that guy), but Essien would have been a very useful player for us for this season. You think about yesterday's game. He could have started and given Lampard or Ramires a rest. He could have come on as a great defensive sub later on for one of them..

I say yes. Our wins away at Spurs, Everton, and Arsenal were very very helpful. Everton have a very difficult remaining schedule having to play away to ManU, Livepool, Spurs, and Chelsea and home to City. That's five really tough games in their last 14. We play Spurs and Everton at home which is good although the way we're playing recently, it's easy to imagine losing any game. However, once we get Moses, Mikel, and Luiz back, we'll have more quality and maybe more importantly, be able to rotate our squad/be able to bring real options off the bench.

Ba played on the wing with Newcastle so he can. The problem I have with that is that what if we were 0-0 or down 1-0 in the 60th minute (or, for Rafa, the 80th). Who do we bring on for extra offense? It's like the reverse of the problem we had today where we started with Bertrand on the wing so couldn't really get more defensive. And yeah, I think it was zonal marking except it looked like they'd all had one two minute practice to learn it. What complete mess.

Yes, but could he win at Chelsea?

To be replaced (with a nod to The Simpsons) with an inanimate carbon rod who will lead us to an amazing Premier League comeback! "In rod we trust".

I hated the starting XI because I hate Bertrand on the wing, but the team was almost as good as could have been (I would have preferred Benayoun/Marin for Bertrand and Ba is better than Torres but 9 of your best available 11 players is hardly fielding a weak lineup). I prefer Ba to Torres generally, but Torres was excellent he created about three or four very good chances, his movement was very good, and he worked hard. He was responsible for the first goal. Ba and Torres are going to rotate and I'd rather Torres play against weaker sides...and Ba is, I assume, going to start against Newcastle which we need him for. Also, switching formations is not a simple thing. Most teams don't do it during games. Players don't know where they are supposed to be, they don't know their responsibilities, their lanes, their outlets. I can criticize Benitez for doing defender for defender when we are behind and we have attacking players available. (Bringing on Ba on the 82nd minute against Brentford WAS inexcusable IMO.) but we had a defensive formation already. Although I do have to question the marking on that last play...was it Rafa's zonal marking? I watched it again...just awful, so awful, it's almost impossible to comprehend. We had FIVE players in the middle of the box...who do we put on Le Fondre? Nobody! In fact, on the far side of the net, after our wall of Chelsea players, we have Benayoun and Azpilicueta marking four Reading players. The ball falls to the first of the Reading players and Benayoun and Azpilicueta close, he heads it on and there are THREE unmarked Reading players. In fact, even if Le Fondre forces a save, there are two unmarked Reading players now on the right side and still three on the left so a rebound is probably a goal as well. Players make mistakes, sometimes bad ones. It happens under every manager and to almost every player at some point, but that is one of the worst pieces of team defending I have ever seen from Chelsea and Rafa does need to take some blame for that. So many questions: 1-Why was the opposition's biggest goal threat not being marked at all? 2- Why where the closest players to him not someone like Cahill and Ivanovic but rather Azpilicueta and Benayoun? 3-Who was supposed to be marking which player because I have no idea even watching the clip repeatedly. 4-What the fuck??? .