dumps

I totally see you where you are coming form but i don't think its THAT bad. I agree that the league has become money driven, but i think thats because its been a huge buisness for the last decade. BUT its not going to deterate. you mentioned Italy spending big... but this league is hte best in the world, has been for a long time and will continue to be. I had a conversation the other day with a mate who was claiming the english league is going down the pan because of how early the english teams went out the champions league....... awful arguement. I wouldnt worry about the league - it will always be over priced and full of foreign super stars until some wage I think international football is going to be a problem for a while. I dont understand whats happened (i dont understand how we are so high in the rankings) i think we do have some decent youth coming up and they can be world class players. but we should have more. In recent years i think our youth systems have been heavily invested in by the FA and we should hopefully see the benefits of that in 10 years time. I think we need to go lower than youth academys within clubs. i worked with some 8 and 9 year olds at a local club for about 8 months last year, and although its supported by the FA i think some guidelines and targets should be handed out by the FA for these kind of clubs. These guys are 8 years old and i personally think the most important at that age is to build interest in the sport. keep hte kids happy, make it enjoyable and increase the chances of them continuing playing football in to their teens. after about 2 months of being there i realised hte guy running it wasnt thinking that way, he was harsh, mean and gave them complicated tactics for games. if they lost they were told off, dropped from the squad and id often see people and hear of kids not enjoying themselves and quitting which is a shame. you can clearly spot a talent at that age, and the kids noramlly dont even realise, so its important to keep them interested to give them the oppurtunity to develop and stay in the sport. On this topic i would advise you all going to jsut helping out at your local young football club. its rewarding and now im reminising about it i think ill start it up again. I tried my best to get the kids to laugh and have fun whenever i had them, and to get thanks from parents is very rewarding. I think the recent investments in youth will pay off, but i think the plans and investment should go even lower to these local clubs. On Luke Shaw, from what ive seen its hard to deny his talent. He looked great against liverpool as well. Southampton have always been good at developing young players... All those players you listed like cleverly and wilshere are still young. they will become great players for their nation

Rafa is to blame for hte poor atmosphere.... the crowd hate him. honestly, the last game i saw was against Nords in the champs league that we won easily, yet still so much hatred for Rafa makign the atmosphere fairly negative overall. Which is ok if we are winning, but when we are losing or drawing, it doesnt help. Also, not many people think about the kids that are there for birthdays and what not. people come from so far away to watch chelsea play and its a really special day to them and the negative atmosphere of recent is ruining it for them. I remember seeing us play Fulham in the carling cup last season (ET and penalties) was a small game, we played a very weak team, yet the atmosphere wasn't too bad. so I dunno what it is. When we played Shakter and won with a last minute Moses header, the atmosphere was rubbish until moses got that last second header. that was when Torres scored and Oscar scored from 40 odd yards out as well, and it was a pretty poor atmosphere. I think its how the team is playing, i remember in that shakter game, we played awful, mis placed passes, losing possesion a lot. there was a 5 minute period before half time where mata and hazard linked up so well with some silky skills, that had the crowd going. so i guess the attractiveness of the football influences it.

First leg is massive in this! like most have said, a big win at home would be ideal! When it first started out, i kind of wasn't too bothered by us winning the europa league, I'd have still liked to, but wasn't bothered. now i find myself wanting us to win it, theres no English teams in the champions league, so we may as well do well in the europa league and get something from europe. Im excited. shame about the long trip and the fixture congestion, but we should be able to handle it.

a couple of things: how do i access the mobile version of these forums? on my old phone it used to do it automatically, but I upgraded to a better phone and it sticks me on the usual site, which is good, but not as easy to navigate around on a small screen. im sure its easy but i just cant figure it out! have you guys ever considered selling a bit of space to an advertiser? i hate adverts as much as the next person, but you guys need £60 a month, and the donations are good and that, but you could cover the costs with a bit of advertising. maybe one tile on the side (like where it shows you recently liked posts) or a banner on the bottom. as long as its something that doesnt dominate the screen, i dont see why not!? just an idea. hell, you might make yourself a bit of dosh for yourself which you deserve IMO. great site, well constructed and a great community. so thanks and keep it up! thanks to anyone that guides me to the mobile version as well

What if cech is going to be like van der sar!? we will never see Courtois! but yeah i hear you, i was just saying that theres that awful 10% chance of all those nasty things happening and it scares me because it excites me when i think of our chelsea team in 2 or 3 seasons time with his name in goal.

the problem is though, if madrid stick in an offer for him, theres a chance he may want us to accept and then may go about handing in a transfer request etc. I can't wait till he's in goal for us, but at the same time you dont want to cut Cech out too early as he's got numerous more seasons in him.

If true, i think it should be his last season out on loan before he comes back and takes over from Cech. My fear is, we obviously cant have him on the bench, so whilst Cech is here we are going to keep loaning it out, and i fear he isnt going to want to come home he's been at madrid for ages now, and i fear he will want to stay. It was rumoured that Barcelona/Real were after him, i dont think he will be able to resist the temptation there...

I hate it when football does that. saying he's already signed with his next club already. why can't they release that information now! rumours do my tits in.

I would love Jose. i think we would all love Jose. The media would love it if we got Jose - they want us to get Jose! but the reality is not so simple. Jose left because he wasn't getting the control he exepcted. the only way he will return is if Roman allows Jose the power, which will most likely not happen. I hope we get a decent manager and i hope we have that manager long term. I honestly think if we still had AVB right now we would be in a good place (dont think we would have won the champions league though...). Do people think Roman is going to stop sacking managers becasue of a few bad results? or is he going to keep going through them till he finds someone who never loses?

Im all for the development of youth, and those saying Lukaku cant be in our first team because he's not developed.... he's having a blinder of a season and is playing better than Torres AND Ba... why cant he play in the first team? he is still learning and he does still make some bad decisions... but he still finds the net... look at Sterling... he's young as hell, but he gets to play first team football because he's seen as being capable. if somone is good enough to be in the first team, then they should be. not matter their age. Wilshere, Sturridge, Cleverly, Jones, jsut to name a few, all played first team football regularly despite their age. The problem is the managers. they have to like the player and see them in their plans for them to be able to play. some managers don't care on the age of the player, if he feels they can increase their chances of a win, then they'll play them. some managers are the opposite. I just hope we have a manager that isnt afraid to paly a youngster when he feels they can benefit us. and if we have that manager, then these youngsters will get their game time if they deserve it. or at least id like to hope.

as good as lamps and Rami are, in my eyes, its one or the other. Mikel/Luiz needs to partner one of them there. Luiz in defence is a bit worrying, you never know how he's going to do! totally depends on his mood! Man utd have got a fairly good team. i've a nasty feeling hernandez is going to have a good game. they are beatable though. should be a good game, hopefully rami and lamps communicate well, and we may be alright!

Shouldnt have been bertrand on that man, thats the fault of Luiz going of roaming again. Im not particularly worried. form what ive seen so far this game is ours, we just need to be more clinical in the final third. i think its fair to say Hazard is under isntructions to take it easy. so i think he will probably turn it on a bit now till we get a goal.

A player can rest even though they've travelled... the game isnt till sunday. they will be back thursday night, id imagine they will fly back after the game. friday will be a rest day. saturday will be light training and some tactics. there would be no harm in playing them in this game for the full 90 as long as the tempo wasn't so high. but playing 45 minutes would be fine. id imagine they will be on the bench, and will only make an appearance after 60minutes if we need a goal from somewhere/ or play the first half and come off at half time. I wouldnt worry about rest, they would have thought it through and planned it out just nicely. if someone picks up an injury, then its a different story!

Like most i'd rather win vs Man Ushite-ed. However would like to progress to the next round of the europa league as well. at worst, a 1-0 loss is acceptable, we cant afford to conceed too many, and an away goal would be good, we can easily do them at the bridge. most of our decent players should be rested. it wouldnt be bad if some palyed a half. if mata and hazard played till half time that would be fine. I would like to see Ake play in a game like this. HOWEVER rafa doesnt think like this, we will have a team which would most probably be best described as AWKWARD. but as long as we dont lose by more than 1, we have no injuries and our main players are not tired, it is a good result.

he can be fixed. he will never be fixed to become the striker he once was, but if he changes his game and his style he can be good. and he needs to practice shooting. cant remember the last time i saw him hit a remotely effective shot.... he needs to accept he can no longer take on someone. he needs to practice at holding up the ball. he needs to not lose it. the periods where torres was good, was when he was passing it, it went through a phase of getting a bunch of assists and creating a lot of chances. he needs ot hold it up, create a chance, or be able to recieve the ball, take a touch and produce a decent shot (just like drogba did in his last season)

I think we can all be greatful that lukaku cant play against us! really tough game this, depends if rafa sticks out a stupid line up or not. Would love to see azpi return to RB, Luiz in DM, Ba upfront, and mata, hazard, oscar/moses behind him. I think west brom can easily do us again, and with an expected bad atmosphere on our behalf, its not going to be easy. i expect a frustrating game, some poor passing from us, and then we might pick it up in the second half and get a win.

i would love to see ray wilkins take over.

we are the worst fans. someone above me listed the reason we are bad. rafa the players and Roman featured in his list. we play a huge part to. rafa shouldn't have just lost his cool. but we made how lose his cool. those saying "all i care about is cfc, fuck rafa!" fuck you! rafa is apart of cfc! Roman made a bad choice in the first place, but we should have got over it faster and shown some support.

soooo true. Losing Ray was the worst thing that happened to us.

I haven't been on here for a few weeks, mainly due to a huge work load at Uni, but also we haven't been playing too well, and these forums just get full of anger and hatred when we lose. My view is i dont think we NEED a new system or NEED a player or two, what we NEED is support. I haven't been to stamford bridge since we smashed the Nords at the bridge, and even then Rafa was getting stick. Our home form stinks because everyone is just creating a negative vibe, we have ourselves stuck in a horrible circle of negative chants, bad performance, negative chants, bad performance etc etc. I think the fans just have to accept we have rafa till the end of the season at least so just take it on the chin and support the boys. Talking of formations etc i'm not sure why Bertrand is getting time on the left wing... I know Hazard is serving a ban but surely Marin can have a run out to try and find some sort of form. Even Yossi. Yossi may be old and not the fastest/best, but he sure can give something in terms of attacking movements. I was also suprised to see us not buy another DM/all round midfielder. that 2-2 against reading was frustrating. especially as i was following that gmae on twitter and just kept seeing "2-0 chelsea, and well in control for the blues..." to then see us drop 2 points. mental - that can come down to subs again, Rafa made some stupid subs, i know we were 2-0 with 15 or so minutes to go, but never underestimate the opposition like that. My view, we can change the way we play, mix up the formation, could have bought a couple of players, but at the end of the day, if the fans aren't going to provide a positive atmosphere whats the point? 40,000 people muttering shit, chanting abuse, not showing support is going to affect performance. Look ar Frank, the support we have given him and he's on superb form... if we supported the team, management and club that way imagine where we'd be!

http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/pictures-david-luiz-has-cut-his-hair-rumour/

Im not sure about this one. for ~£27m you are expecting a key player. He seems to be better used as an attacking midfielder though i would imagine we would use him as a defensive midfielder then stick im in attacking mid during rotation. but i cant see him being worth his money and wages. dont get me wrong, he is good and i think he will be a great bonus for the team, I just dont think its good value for money. the good thing about Chelsea is that money doesn't matter.... so bring him on i guess! Maybe him an hazard will get along. and lukaku when he returns. The Belgium dip.

Jose or Rafa. like people have said, if we give it to a club Legend (Poyet/Zola) its going to be horrible for us to watch them get sacked. Gus is a great manager to be fair though and could do it at Chelsea. Jose is my dream, but as time goes on it looks more and more unlikely that we will get him. So I say stick with Rafa. He's doing good I think (should have won a couple of cups already, but oh well) and if he gets fired it wont effect my emotions

6-0 chelsea. We are going to batter them.

I would have said the line up we had against QPR... but seeing as we already did that line up and they were awful, we should change it up. The problem against QPR was too much rotation. you change too many players around and you lose your flow. Ba starting is heavily rumoured and I think it would be an ideal game for him to try and mix with the players behind him. I look forward to seeing how our team plays with someone who can actually consistently do his job upfront. I expect us to dominate heavily and win. The loss to QPR is a lesson learnt. Piazon has earnt a start as well I think. 4-0 Chelsea EDIT: on reflection, it is fair to say that Southampton carry that newly relegated underdog power with them and they play very well against the bigger teams for about 60minutes then just breakdown with fatigue. I have a feeling they won't be bringing it to us though. just a feeling. I just dont think they value the FA cup too highly, more concerned about the league I think so its possible some players will be rested for them and they won't have that desire.