pluto

I've been predicting since they started to slide in the table that Benitez will be out at the end of the season, despite all the scousers marching on Anfield, holding pictures aloft and screaming "in Rafa we trust". I just thought to myself, just you wait until Rafa gets you 5th in the table and about 20 points off at the end of the season and kicked out the CL by Inter! You know it wouldn't surprise me if Mourinho took the job there IF Rafa goes - just to be vindictive not towards Chelsea but just because he never got on with Benitez. It would be pay back time! God I love Liverpool fans and their hopeless addiction and blind trust in a man who will clearly never win them a league title no matter if he stays there another 20 years! Long may he do so.

I can't believe this man has an inspirational bone in his body frankly. We were poor first half and if so he should have yelled. A journo summed it up for me when he said today in his report that "it is not easy to like cold fish Avram Grant" or words to that effect. He's right there - the man is about as exciting to listen to and watch as having root canal work done.

Despite the points haul, I'm still with Fulham Broadway, Grant is just winging it and making it up as he goes along. He was praised for the Mikel sub like it was some genius decision, it was a good one yes but considering it was blatently obvious to all and sundry that is what was required I fail to be that impressed with his tactical nous as yet. And Fulham last year were 12th in the league and a far stronger proposition, this season they have just sacked their manager and are 19th and look like being relegated! Newcastle - ditto - team in crisis and a current soft touch, lacking confidence. So Grant yes has done better over Christmas than Mourinho no question but he did not face the same quality teams in at least two cases. And he played Villa at home and drew, Mourinho played Villa away last season - always a difficult place for us to go. As for the many injuries, how many of those players Grant has had available now would you say he would pick in normal circumstances? I would suggest SWP, Joe, Mikel, Essien, Belletti, Paulo, Kalou, Ballack. Bridge can easily sub for Ashley and in fact I think he plays often better. Did we really miss Sheva and Malouda? The only players that really count for us that were out are Drogba, Cech, Riccy, Lamps and Terry. Lamps appeared out of form just prior to his injury so Ballack as his sub is more then a good replacement and Alex is doing a great job for us. Grant was lucky that he met a weak Newcastle and Fulham when he did otherwise we may have had a much more uncomfortable time of it I'll wager. So yes he did a good job no question but I'm not doing cartwheels over his obvious managerial genius just yet and our injury woes though bad are not quite as horrific if you look at the calibre of players he can still call upon. As for giving Mourinho stick when things went wrong, from what I can recall he only had to get a few draws or lose one in the odd game and the moaning was endless. He hardly got a free pass when he failed, people expected great things of him and were not happy when it went wrong. Same thing will apply to Grant, how can it be any different? We have become used to setting high standards for ourselves now.

Jesus Adam your avatar is so bloody scary of Grant turning into dracula! I'm going to bed having nightmares about that now.

I wonder if MU are going to f**k up today, they had that bad result against West Ham and Birmingham on their day can be a handful. Arsenal look home and dry already but if we could breathe down Fergie's neck that would be good.

I agree, he has been generally lucky but he needs to be because he is less talented I feel. He's been generally lucky with fixtures, meeting weak teams when we have been weak through injury, getting critical decisions when he's under pressure a la the Newcastle game, getting players back from injury after Mourinho left like Drogba, Lampard and Riccy and on it goes. In Israel there was a joke that went around at how lucky Grant was during the World Cup qualifying campaign, he got amazingly lucky with his results and the journo's nicknamed it something that in English translated like "Avram's lucky arse". So you are not imagining things that even when things look like not going our way, usually they will because of the luck he's got hanging over him. A great thing to have and he's going to need it. Although Grant would no doubt say the harder I work the luckier I get. I guess it depends if you feel you make your own luck in this world or just some people are born lucky.

Agree, good sub by Grant but an obvious one as frankly Sidwell had done little and Fulham were winning everything. Mikel should have been on from minute one but at least it shows Grant can make subs earlier if he feels like it.

Perth, Australia. Chelsea fans really do come from all over don't they? Come on Fulham, off to sleep now and let us have a few goals in the second half please.

And a Happy New Year to you too. I'm almost into my second day of the New Year here!

Thanks for the run down, I cannot get access to anything and so I'm relying on someone telling me how things are looking. I'm sure we will pull one back, we do have better quality man for man than they do and that should tell in the end.

Sweet! But how the hell do they know? Has he phoned up to tell them! Still, he can watch the new style Chelsea under Mr Grant being put through their paces can't he. Wonder what he will think of it all. Come on guys!

The way Grant's luck is going at the moment he may well do so. Whenever he looks like getting in the sh*t he always comes up smelling of roses due to some dodgy decision being given. So on that basis he could be right - we could win it!

Man you made me laugh with your description of Grant but it's so true! Okay none of us knows who is giving what advice to whom but you look at Grant whenever the TV goes to him when a decision is being made and he just sort of stands there with this expresson on his face like "what me?" and Clarke looks pi**ed off and Cate is perhaps getting up and yelling or something and Grant is still standing there, hands either limply hanging by his side or on his head, mouth hanging slightly open still thinking "what me are you sure? I need to make a decision?". We could all be wrong about this and may be underneath it all he is a master tactician but if you asked me who I would rather have leading me out into a battle - Grant or Mourinho - I tell you Mourinho wins hands down every goddamn time.

Yes that's exactly as I take it too. Grant is clever and a known media manipulator according to Israeli journo's, this mumbling old duffer routine is just a bit of a front. All these little asides like the above and again more recently just dig dig dig about Mourinho because he is such an insecure man that he can't stand on his own two feet. Here is another example: “They want to win. We’ve had so much bad news. The good news is that we’ve won a game like that. The fans have been reminding me about what happened last Christmas, that because we had injuries we couldn’t cope and lost too many points. I think they were just excited at the situation.” What this actually means in normal speak is "Jose really f**ked up last Christmas and put Chelsea out of the title race as fans have been writing in to remind me about, he also moaned about injuries and showed he couldn't cope unlike me how despite having more injuries than he ever had to contend with has already won against Newcastle." It's stuff like this that really gets my goat because I can see what he's trying to do and the more he does it the more pathetic I think he is and the less I like the guy. And as for "we played good attacking football better than BEFORE" rubbish he spouts after every game. Argh! Grant can afford to be optimistic because he has taken over by sheer accident one of the world's best teams with excellent players to choose from. And to add insult to injury he is being paid a fortune for doing so. He's hardly taken over Derby.

The awful thing is that if we do win the CL with Grant this season it will mean we are stuck with him for good. Now I hear you ask what is wrong with that? Well Benitez won the CL by some fluke very early on in his Liverpool tenure and where have they been in the league running since he's been with them? Nowhere. Winning the CL meant the fans were stuck with a coach who can manage cup competitions but the league (which for me is the really important thing) he is hopeless at but all everyone says is "oh but he won the CL he's wonderful a genius etc". Big deal, it's a glorified knock out competition which any team on form for a given day can win. I'd be very pleased to win it of course but dread the long term consequences if it's with Grant. It will not make him some super coach in my eyes, winning games consistently in your own league over a season is a sign of a great coach. As for Clarke, I would be surprised if he stayed on next season, I don't think he fits in with this new team of advisors Grant has bought in, at first they desparately needed him there to steady the players nerves and the fans. Now I don't think they care so much if he left and he doesn't look that happy to be there either anymore either - although may be he always looked like that and I never noticed. He just doesn't seem happy - period. Hope I'm wildly off base here, could well be but when you keep thinking something is up when you watch someone's body language on screen you end up usually being proved right in the end.

I do tend to agree despite our good run and everyone harping on about how Grant has shocked everyone with keeping us winning - well sorry it's no real surprise to me, the squad Mourinho left behind is a damn fine one (injuries and form permitting) and they have had three years of Mourinho's teachings to know how to battle and win games. Grant may have been the driver but he sure as hell has had to do little steering! I don't think Grant has any attacking plan personally, I think he has fed Roman a load of bull about his attacking credentials since he met him, promised that he could do the job if only it was given to him and now he's got it the time has come for him to quick make something up! He's been winging it from day one in my book just throwing all the cards on the table and hoping a Royal Flush comes up. So far he's got away with it but for how much longer he can keep telling people about our new style of football when there is precious little to show for it I don't know. For how much longer he can last on lucky offside decisions to save him again I don't know but surely it can't continue much longer. I guess Roman will hardly fire the guy - he can just move upstairs again as Director of Football. Don't we need a new one after all? When he did have to think on his feet and face the tougher teams he has failed - either a loss or draw. All the big wins and goal fests have come against relegation fodder or very poor opposition on the day that has just let us play. The only game that impressed me was the Valencia away game and even they were starting their downward spiral and seemed more Clarke's prep work than Grant's. As for whether this team will still have the same spirit continuing for a long time - I'm not so sure. Already in the recent games you can tell we lose confidence as soon as we concede a goal, our shape goes and we look lost. Teams come to the Bridge now thinking they can put a goal past us and what's more they can, I don't think they are scared of us anymore. Despite conceding few goals up until recently now we are starting to ship them suddenly during a game when we shouldn't. Defensively we look far less secure and often totally disorganised. I think that the spirit and strength so inherent in the team whilst Mourinho was there will slip away - how long that will take I'm not sure but if we buy new players in then that process will speed up I think as they will know nothing of the way things were before. That may be a good thing ultimately I don't know but if Grant manages to hold this team together as a solid and effective attacking unit good enough to win us something at the end of the season I will damn well eat my hat.

Whenever I see Steve he looks gloomy and down and isolated even when sitting next to Grant or Cate. May be it's my imagination but I wonder if he really will stick around or leave next season.

You're right things are not as bad as they seem. We are roughly where we probably should be all told - but that's no surprise since this is basically Mourinho's team, playing similar formation and similar style with no new additions to personnel. I'll stop giving Grant a tough time, when he stops rambling on about our how much better our football is now under him than it was under Mourinho - when patently it is exactly the same give or take. He's been very lucky at times meeting teams that are far poorer this season than they were last and got his arse saved again during the Newcastle game when it looked like we were heading for a draw. It's that kind of luck which has kept him in clover, that and the team he has inherited. His talk of attractive football is bullsh*t and I hate to be insulted by being told the sun is red when I know it's yellow. If he would just stop pretending that he has changed Chelsea's style for the better and stop the digs about the previous regime he woudln't bother me at all as he's so dull that it's easy to forget he even exists. I still don't think he's good enough for Chelsea, although results wise right now it's hard to argue with that he's done but that doesn't stop me being annoyed at times with the guy. But results wise I don't think we are doing too badly but I still think we are too far off the pace to bother MU or Arsenal long term this season.

Forget your dreams. Grant is here to stay for at least another season whatever happens. Roman really has faith in this guy whatever we may think. I doubt we will be getting any big name manager as a replacement unless things seriously go wrong i.e. don't qualify for CL next year and I doubt very much that will happen.

Whilst I agree that probably it's Roman who should take the flak, Grant is being paid to be the whipping boy and has taken the job quite willingly so my well of sympathy runs thin. Arnesen - what the hell has he done to justify his salary in the years he has been here? Isn't he in charge of the youth academy or something? He seems to have Roman's ear for just about everything. Zahavi, De Visser - all these super agents that surround Roman, what do they do? Kenyon is an embarrassment whenever he opens his mouth. What a mess.

He sacked Ranieri and the fans were upset. He sacked Mourinho and the fans were even more upset. He hired Grant and the fans were shocked and upset. You're right, he couldn't give a toss what the fans chant. Doesn't make it any easier to take though.

Yes I was worried for Avram too poor lamb. It's no surprise, Grant unlike Mourinho has no deep well of affection and respect from the fans to tide him over when he makes a mistake or looks like losing, his "well" is more of a puddle really! So actually it's no surprise that even this kind of result which looked like it would be draw initially was greeted by chants and dissatisfaction, for all the PR guff the club know that Grant is hardly beloved. No matter how good his run of games has been.

That's what scares me, against low key opposition Grant is fine because the team can operate almost on automatic pilot so his lack of tactical knowledge and abitity to risk take is not a liability to us. However, when we are facing tougher opposition he just looks ineffective, he reacts to events already happened rather than being proactive like Mourinho would do. Under Mourinho you felt he would make instant decisions almost before the game turned to avoid certain scenarios or make a change instantly when something happened - take a risk to change the game. Grant for all his talk about bold attacking footbal seems to be me very docile as a manager and ironically no where near the risk taker with his subs that Mourinho was. Mourinho was not scared to change a game even if it meant it could go wrong, Grant looks lost most of the time when we are struggling. Short term he has not been found out but long term I think he is a liability. Good enough to beat Derby, Bolton, Wigan and Newcastle et al but not good enough to outwit the likes of Wenger, Moyes, O'Neill or Fergie and as for Liverpool they had their reserves out almost so jury still out for me.

Grant's general lack of tactical nous and lack of leadership qualities is starting to gradually be uncovered as we move into the thick of things. When we were beating all the relegation and in crisis clubs those deficiencies were hidden but now you're starting to see his managerial qualities as time goes on - and it seems to amount to standing their looking lost and open mouthed hoping that something anything happens to resolve the situation without him having to make a decision. He got lucky today, if we had drawn I sense the fans would quickly have turned on him, even with the good run of results since his takeover, he is still skating on thin ice, he has no reservoir of good will from the fans at all to tide him over. It only takes one or two poor results and the heat is on him immediately.

Ironic that Kalou should be offside for this goal but we did not get the goal at the Blackburn game because it was ruled offside when it wasn't.