TorontoChelsea

That was handball!!!

Fernando!!!

Boy, Rafa really likes these defender for defender subs. How about...Benayoun for Bertrand or Ba for Torres? We do need a goal!

Oh Turnbull...

Yes we is!

Oscar!!!

Better start

Awful first half. The pitch is the cause of some of our play, but we have to be able to take the play to a 1st division club. No excuse for that. Chelsea were terrible.

Who didn't see that coming?

The pitch is just awful. Especially in the middle of the pitch...which makes some of the bad passing understandable...some...but no excuses for not winning.

Oh Jesus...

I hate these low camera angles, So hard to see the game properly.

Makes sense. Chelsea have Torres and Ba already at striker. Benayoun is cover for 3 positions. He's not going to be long at Chelsea, but I'm fine with him playing in this sort of game. I would have liked to have seen Ake start at midfield instead of Lampard who must be exhausted. Hopefully, we can go up early and rest a couple of players.

No, I can't. Because you can't be elated at winning and also thinking "I'm unhappy with the way we won". You don't have to try to explain more because I am not going to get it.

Umm...maybe, yeah. I understand when people want a better overall style and are unhappy with something that is less than beautiful to watch (that's for you Roman) but I don't understand how any Chelsea fan felt anything less than unadulterated joy when we won. I was jumping up and down like an idiot when Torres scored/Drogba scored/Cech saved a penalty/Drogba scored the penalty. I didn't think "well, the football we played was not aesthetically pleasing so this is less than satisfying." I can't imagine a Chelsea fan feeling that way. In fact, it's shocking to me that anybody would think that. T

Are you seriously complaining about us beating Barcelona? Had we tried to out-pass Barcelona or something, we would have lost 5-0. We played the only way we had a chance to win and we got lucky and we won. The people complaining were mostly either Barcelona fans or people that hate Chelsea. Nobody could call that game anything other than thrilling, even for neutral.

??? You said that Arsenal didn't rest their players. They started with five regulars on the bench. That IS resting players even if they come on as subs for 20 minutes.

Arsenal didn't start Cazorla, Wilshire, Walcott, Gibbs, or Sagna. They didn't rest their entire squad, but they certainly rested players.

I have an autographed picture of Sellane from his rookie year. Would have been great seeing back in Winnipeg, but he'll always be appreciated there anyway. (76 goals for a rookie!!!). I understand why people didn't like Yakupov's celebration. It was very over the top for what was a fairly small goal in the scheme of things. A celebration that side should be reserved for a goal that makes a huge difference. I mean, you have to leave some room to go more crazy, right?

Reminded me of this. Of course, Fleury's goal was against their biggest rivals in overtime in the playoffs not in the 3rd game of the season. This is my favourite all-time celebration. ((And it makes me sentimental. Winnipeg versus Quebec and I miss the blue instead of yellow along the boards. Only two arenas had that. Now, none do).

I've gone through all this before. You're trying to make it out as if teams are always struggling for keepers and it's just not true. Maybe a top team will take a year or two to find the right guy and even then, they could still win..Brazil's #1 keeper is the goalie for the worst team in the Premier League. There are more top goalies than there are top teams and unlike say, striker, you can win fine with just good goalies. Arsenal had their invincibles season with Lehman in goal. ManU is going to win with De Gea in goal. Besides, It makes no sense to sell Cech and keep Courtois. Cech would bring in maybe around 7M pounds in a sale if we're lucky. Courtois would bring in probably 20M. Courtois is an impressive keeper but people on here are overrating how good he is right now. Right now, Cech is a better keeper. Courtois plays in front of the stingiest defence in Spain. They allow the fewest shots on goal of any team in the league. He saves 2 shots a game. (by comparison, Cech saves 3, De Gea saves 3.2) He's playing very well and again, I like his future very much, but who's to say he wouldn't have problems adapting to the English game? (Which is different even for keepers) It's just a pointless risk to satisfy peoples' obsession with potential. We have ,RIGHT NOW and for the next few years at least, one of the best keepers in the world. A player who has captained our side, who is well-liked, who has never caused a problem and we're going to get rid of him, Why? Because it might cost us in 5 years. You don't make decisions for five years down the road at a top club or you will always be rebuilding. What's the worst thing that happens if we sold Courtois? We have to spend 15-20M pounds on another world class goalie in 5 years? So what? We'll just buy Ter Stagen or whatever new keepers have emerged or maybe we could even buy a keeper who is 25 or 29. We got Cech for 7M pounds. He's been utterly amazing for us. We got Cudicini for 160K. He was our player of the year and one of the best keepers in the Premier League (always felt sorry for him that he got stuck behind Cech when he could have been starting almost anywhere). I'm sick of this masturbation to prospect porn, drooling over our potential players in five years. I'm tired of sacrificing the present for the theoretical future. While we're thinking about what could be, ManU are very likely going to win the league and are still in the CL because they are thinking about what actually is. We're talking about how we can work in our youth into the starting XI next season, and they're talking about whether to start Kagawa or Rooney or Valencia or Nani.

The betting houses have it Brazil, Spain, Argentina (almost tied with Spainl), Germany, Holland, and England. Spain at 5/1 is pretty decent odds but if I had to put money, it would probably be Germany 8-1. They are strong everywhere and have depth and a lot of their players play together on Dortmund and Bayern which helps...Brazil to me is an unknown. Being at home is a massive advantage, but the quality of their team is really not that high. How many players on the Brazilian squad would start for say Germany or Spain? Not many. They have a lot of potential but a lot of players are going to need to improve in the next year.

The league is the priority. If we get into the latter stages of the FA Cup and our CL place is secure that could change, but an FA Cup would be nice and missing the CL next season would be disastrous.

We couldn't score a single goal over 2 games against Swansea. Even if Ivanovic didn't screw up, then what? Extra time? Penalties? The way we were playing, do you think we had a chance to win? Ivanovic had a brutal game and made two terrible mistakes (although the first goal was also Turnbull and Cahill's fault) but the team lost the trophy. We didn't deserve to beat Swansea.

The game is in our blood. Seriously, Canadians are obsessed with hockey. I lost interest for a while when my Jets moved (stupid Bettman, Americans in warm climates don't care about hockey!!!) but was ecstatic to get them back. Good young team. Probably a couple of years away. Living in Toronto and watching the Leafs fail every year is pure joy.