Closed Chelsea v Cardiff

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

I love how the vast majority of our managers, even though they all inevitably get sacked in the end, still genuinely like and support the club. Just today I was reading in the mail 'Arry complaining how Ruud Guillet went all crazy when we won the CL. Hearing Carlo saying: "I'm still a Chelsea fan" is so great. Even Butch still supports the club and has a season ticket at the Bridge.

Says quite a lot about our board and the whole Chelsea staff as whole. Maybe even a little about the fans

Probably because "being fired" as a manager is always hyped by the media. It is not too bad for s.o. to get a multi-million paycheck. It is all professional and does usually not get personal. It is not like your life is hit by being fired like normal people's would.

[Special Juan 28,141]

To be honest I would love my previous jobs had I been given millions to be fired.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Age is just a number? Certainly not in football I laughed and stopped reading your post right there but in order to educate a little from facts i surrender to your post. Experienced coaches like mourinho, sir alex to name a few always make emphasis on the importance of age which brings about more confidence, knowledge, experience and maturity some like mourinho even believe a peak age is about 25 to 29 and i don't think you are a better coach than them. I even fail to see how any player can get more experienced without the natural sequence of age. Some players like messi/etoo/rooney/owen/torres where already incredible when they where young but became even better footballers with age except those that had serious injury problems like owen (may be) which results in a natural retardation in a players development. Lukaku isn't an exception and he will definitely get better with age - experience wise also as we are talking about football which is what the loan will provide him in a better and more competitive club than his last loan spell.

What I'm saying is that you seem to be conflating age, experience and maturity and reducing it down to just a number. You're ignoring things like character and mentality because it's easy and looking just at a birth certificate.

But we'll just agree to disagree.

[bushman 2,043]

Age in any sport has a lot to do with it. The older you get, the slower you react. See Federer, for example, lately.

Cech is getting there. Therefore, his reactions will be seen a bit slower. Courtois all the way for me here.

As for Cardiff. Nothing, but one sided affair, for me. Hopefully, BA or Eto´o are finally scoring in this game.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Cardiff are the new EPL set piece specialists

[Rmpr 8,977]

In fact, the opposite is the case. In England, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and most european countries, we got infrastructure already. There is no event that completely levers out the economy. It is all highly commerzialized of course, but all the people can choose to participate or not. The stadiums are already there, there are no slums that have to be eradicated, no shops are forced to shut down during the game. It is all routine. The boards might be corrupted, but they have less to decide. The infrastructure is there, the competitions are already established, no need to promote them for the cost of human lives. For the WCs in Brazil and Qatar hundreds and thousands of people are made homeless, killed and enslaved. On the other hand decades of Premier League seasons have gone without anyone being harmed.

90% of what you wrote is untrue!

But anyways, this is not the place to have this discussion...

[hjperdeath 2,226]

In fact, the opposite is the case. In England, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and most european countries, we got infrastructure already. There is no event that completely levers out the economy. It is all highly commerzialized of course, but all the people can choose to participate or not. The stadiums are already there, there are no slums that have to be eradicated, no shops are forced to shut down during the game. It is all routine. The boards might be corrupted, but they have less to decide. The infrastructure is there, the competitions are already established, no need to promote them for the cost of human lives. For the WCs in Brazil and Qatar hundreds and thousands of people are made homeless, killed and enslaved. On the other hand decades of Premier League seasons have gone without anyone being harmed.

I'm not sure what the debate is about, but the line involving Qatar, where I live right now, is highly untrue. People aren't homeless, there are labor camps set up. You technically cannot be homeless in Qatar, as you can just walk up to your respective embassy and live there.

Western companies have a lot of blame to shoulder... All the contractors providing services out here are (for the most part) Western. A lot of money is tied up in the projects. If they don't go ahead, many companies could be out of pocket and risk bankruptcy. Pulling out is not an option either because many have committed millions to these projects already (and risk huge penalties for pulling out). These are companies who are putting an awful lot of hope in the Middle East for revenue generally as things have gone tits up in Europe and the States. Incidentally, this could possibly have consequences for people at home.

I think even in Qatar, many doubt that they can pull it off - what needs to be built and the sheer intensity of the work schedule means that bad working conditions are a given (independently of the 50 degree heat situation). Qatar and UAE are not alone in being in the situation - China and Russia are growing too fast too soon.

There are many laws in Qatar and the UAE aimed at "protecting" workers. But as many know, these are not well enforced. Enforcement via penalties for all parties involved from the lowest sub-contractor to the highest contractor/developer. The problem is that given the size of the projects - so many of the separate tasks are sub-contracted that it becomes very difficult to control who is responsible for what.

The real problem however are the labour agencies. These are the guys that the labourers are ultimately indentured to - but these will be Nepalese, Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan - these are people effectively taking advantage of their own people to make a lot of cash. What really needs to be regulated or handled appropriately is the use of labour agencies who push people into servitude. There should be obligations on contractors to ensure that they do not use such agencies - but ill educated labourers are lied to and are told to lie when they get the jobs and it will take immense political and commercial will to change this.

Added to this are complex immigration and visa rules that add huge penalties to people working illegally which often trap them in a cycle of poverty from whence they cannot leave without charity (and therefore cannot leave the country). There's an awful lot of people out here who will give a lot of their time and money to help these guys and the great job (including lobbying) that some of them do should be supported.

There is also fundamental disregard for Health and Safety rules (again lack of investment and education given the short time frame etc) which could be improved. But that's not typical to Qatar - people working in building sites often where flip flops in India, Indonesia and other parts for example.

Meanwhile, not everyone with brown skin is treated like a dog in the Gulf and there a serious over-generalisations (including conveniently overlooking the fact that Indian and Pakistanis in the Gulf - there are more of them than locals - in some cases treat their people worse in some instances). I for one am brown and Indian, I was allowed to be the memeber of a staff at a local football club too.

There is a much broader view than just saying a country is killing people to build a bloody stadium. Sorry if it goes off-topic, the mods can shift this, but the matter had to be answered.

[Marco_Marley 0]

Is anyone selling tickets for this game at all?

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

90% of what you wrote is untrue!

But anyways, this is bit the place to have this discussion...

Is it? I have not seen any people killed in bid to host EPL games, but in Brazil this happens every day. Doesn't help denying that. There are millions of pieces of evidence of the brutality the Brazilian government applies towards their own people to force through this tournament.

[zolayes 14,489]

IS this the match thread??

[Sidzeret 2,257]

IS this the match thread??

Apparently we don't have a WC thread....Acting as the temp thread since this is an international week

[zolayes 14,489]

Apparently we don't have a WC thread....Acting as the temp thread since this is an international week

I suppose there is some logic in that since they are Welsh

[Sidzeret 2,257]

No injury from international matches?

No..just a lot of goals.

[ChelseasMessiah 304]

I can't fecking wait to watch us play again. I think we might even go full strength on this one, most of our lads on International duty will be back by Wednesday, as the game is on Saturday, there's plenty of time to rest and sharpen up for the match. Although as I was thinking earlier we could rest a few for our CL match as well.

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

I can't fecking wait to watch us play again. I think we might even go full strength on this one, most of our lads on International duty will be back by Wednesday, as the game is on Saturday, there's plenty of time to rest and sharpen up for the match. Although as I was thinking earlier we could rest a few for our CL match as well.

We will most definitely rest a few. The program we got in the next 4 weeks is cruel and will test our squad depth to the limit. I'd even give KDB a start in this game.

[Blue Gino 377]

It'd be nice to see a forward score a goal or two to momentarily get some of the egg off Jose's face for letting Lukaku go.

[AndersonBLUE 819]

Yea we need our strikers getting more involved with the goals. Ba against Norwich was a nice start lets kick on from there.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

I think Ba starts for this one because of his good performance against Norwich and because he didn't have international duty and would be the freshers and also because, with Torres out, Jose would want to save eto'o for Schalke.

[robsblubot 3,595]

We should be able to get the win with whoever starts. Honestly the difference in quality (and price) between the squads is just too great.

Since many players will be returning from International duty this could perhaps be a good opportunity to give a chance to the well-rested ones. On the other hand - managers need to be aware of this too - it is somewhat unfair to start a player against a difficult away game and then start a different one against an easier opponent at home.

[Stingray 9,441]

I think Ba starts for this one because of his good performance against Norwich and because he didn't have international duty and would be the freshers and also because, with Torres out, Jose would want to save eto'o for Schalke.

I agree + hopefully keep Hazard out of the starting 11 - I think he will play tomorrow as well, so with the nagging injury a rest would be awesome. Depth enough anyways!