General Chelsea Stuff

[Vesper 30,071]

8 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Tbh it won't effect us like at all.

FIFA confirm new loan limits for next season and beyond; Chelsea Loan Army barely affected

https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2020/2/27/21156351/fifa-confirm-new-loan-limits-for-next-season-and-beyond-chelsea-loan-army-barely-affected

it will when it is extended to non international loans (within 3 years, and the FA could do it before then) and the 8 is dropped to 6 (and that is for all, BOTH in and out) in 2022

time to start selling the dregs off over the next two years to avoid it all

[Vesper 30,071]

Inside Chelsea: Why Carlo Ancelotti will always be welcome at Stamford Bridge

https://theathletic.com/1653892/2020/03/05/carlo-ancelotti-chelsea-roman-abramovich/

Carlo Ancelotti has a back-up plan ready if he is prevented from standing on the Stamford Bridge touchline when his Everton side face Chelsea on Sunday. “If I am banned (by the Football Association), I will be disappointed but the stand at Stamford Bridge is near the dugout, so I will be close,” he said this week, after being shown a red card by referee Chris Kavanagh for his protestations after Everton’s 1-1 draw with Manchester United.

The Italian’s enduring popularity with just about everyone at Chelsea is such that he could probably have his pick of any seat in the stadium he called home for two rollercoaster years from 2009 to 2011. Remarkably, this will be the first time Ancelotti has returned to Stamford Bridge as an opponent but it is not the first time he has been back. He has watched Chelsea games from the directors’ box as a guest of the club and visited their Cobham training base.

Ancelotti remains on better terms with the Chelsea hierarchy than any former manager other than Guus Hiddink, a long-time friend of Roman Abramovich, and the genuine warmth towards him from the club’s board indicates a desire to live up to the one conciliatory line in an otherwise cold statement that confirmed his sacking in May 2011: “Carlo will always be welcome at Stamford Bridge, where he will be given the reception and respect his position in our history deserves.”

No other manager in Chelsea’s 115-year history has matched Ancelotti’s achievement of winning the league title and FA Cup in the same season, though Antonio Conte came close in 2016-17. Time has only enhanced his success and the struggles of many of his successors have heightened the sense inside and outside the club that his dismissal — confirmed in the bowels of Goodison Park minutes after his last press conference on the final day of the 2010-11 Premier League season — was harsh.

The landscape of English football has shifted drastically over the past decade, and so too has Chelsea’s place within it. Frank Lampard is expected to qualify for the Champions League; Ancelotti’s brief in the summer of 2009 was to find a way to win the whole thing. But that wasn’t all. “I want a manager who gives my team an identity because when I watch Chelsea, I’m not able to find an identity,” he recalls Abramovich telling him in his 2016 book, “Quiet Leadership”.

Chelsea’s director of football operations at the time, Mike Forde, had 10 meetings with Ancelotti before his appointment was finalised, covering all aspects of his vision for the job. But ultimately what enabled Ancelotti to succeed — and then survive as long as was reasonably possible — was his willingness to compromise on his methods and embrace new ideas as they were presented to him.

Ancelotti wanted to bring several AC Milan assistants to Chelsea but accepted Abramovich’s request to see how he worked with the existing staff first. In the end, only Italian psychologist Bruno Demichelis came with him to England, while Ray Wilkins and Paul Clement, promoted from the reserves, were quickly adopted into his “football family”. “My experience at Chelsea taught me that you don’t necessarily need what you think you want,” he later wrote.

In one of his early meetings with Abramovich, Ancelotti suggested Chelsea sign Franck Ribery from Bayern Munich and Xabi Alonso from Liverpool. Chelsea then tried in vain to buy Andrea Pirlo from Milan in the summer of 2009. Ancelotti’s response to not getting a new midfield conductor or superstar winger was practical rather than political: he simply tweaked the formation and moved Michael Essien into a deeper role.

This calm, pragmatic attitude earned Ancelotti less credit than it should have within Chelsea at the time but subsequent public confrontations with Jose Mourinho and Conte over transfer strategy have cast his actions in a much more favourable light. Abramovich has learned the hard way the value of a low-maintenance leader.

Ancelotti’s plan on the pitch was to make Chelsea a dominant possession team with the 4-4-2 diamond he had deployed at Milan but, after discussions with his senior players, he switched to a 4-3-2-1 system. “The smart thing he did was look at it and realise it didn’t suit some of our big players, myself included,” Lampard said of his former manager in 2017. “I remember being uncomfortable at the top of the diamond and not so comfortable on the left.

“He changed the formation and that’s the brilliance of Carlo Ancelotti the manager. He is a players’ manager. He listens to his players and he wants to get the best from his best players because he knows that’s how you win the league.”

“Carlo was the main figure in that moment; he completely turned everything that was going on at Chelsea after Mourinho and (Luiz Felipe) Scolari,” Branislav Ivanovic tells The Athletic. “He was exactly what Chelsea needed in that moment. It was a golden time for us.

“He is an amazing person. He is a coach who can bring the best out of players. He knows how to work with the big players, he knows how to get the best out of them. He gave us some freedom in the game but also gave us some tactics, which helped a lot.”

The result was the closest any manager has come to giving Chelsea the kind of proactive identity Abramovich craves. Manchester United’s three-year hold on the Premier League trophy was broken in style with a then-record 103 goals scored, while both Lampard and Didier Drogba enjoyed the most prolific scoring seasons of their careers. Victory over Portsmouth in the FA Cup final added a further layer of gloss to a historic campaign.

“Carlo just clicked with everyone,” Clement tells The Athletic. “We scored 103 goals, only bettered once, and had an incredible attacking side, a team with a lot of maturity in every position. We had top players, competition for places, and personnel at the peak of their powers. They were late 20s, they’d won big trophies, and knew how to achieve success.

“We just tapped into that and Carlo developed a style that suited them. That played to their strengths: pace and power going forward, aggression and solidity at the back. We were unstoppable at times. Opponents didn’t know what had hit them. It was a special year.”

But on the road to the champagne were plenty of reminders of the Chelsea dysfunction that eventually engulfed Ancelotti. John Terry played through being stripped of the England captaincy in February 2010 amid media allegations of an affair with the ex-partner of former team-mate Wayne Bridge. The breakdown of Ashley Cole’s marriage to pop star Cheryl Tweedy also dominated the UK newspapers. Both men confided in their manager about the problems in their personal lives.

One week before the first leg of Chelsea’s clash with Inter Milan in the Champions League round of 16, Abramovich called a squad meeting at Cobham, in which chief executive Ron Gourlay warned the players that any further embarrassing misdemeanours would be met with severe disciplinary measures. The undercurrent of the owner’s response was the perception that Ancelotti was too much a friend to the players, and that his relaxed attitude created as many problems as it solved.

Abramovich was, at the time, in the habit of reinforcing discipline himself, turning up at Cobham to question his squad and manager after unexpected defeats. Ancelotti would receive text messages from the Chelsea owner consisting of nothing more than a question mark, to which he replied with an exclamation mark. “I chose not to meet aggression with aggression. It is not my way,” he later wrote. “I like to think through the difficult times, address the problems coolly and with reason.”

Ancelotti is flexible on many things but he maintains an unshakeable belief in the philosophy that underpins his management style. “He (Abramovich) would try to convince me, with all my experience to the contrary, to be stronger, tougher and more rigorous with the players,” he later wrote. “I’d heard it all before and I’ve heard it since but he was wrong — they are all wrong.

“They hire me to be kind and calm with the players, and then at the first sign of trouble along the way, that’s the very characteristic they point to as the problem. I know that if I am winning then, it is because I am calm. Equally, if I am losing, it is because I am calm. How can it be both? It’s a paradox but I was trapped by it at Chelsea.”

Two defeats in the space of three days in February 2010, away at Inter and at home to Manchester City, were what Ancelotti later called the “thunderbolts” that marked the beginning of the end of his relationship with Abramovich. Chelsea’s owner demanded answers after both results and criticised the tactics deployed against Inter in front of the players. Elimination at the hands of Mourinho, en route to his second Champions League triumph, only heightened the humiliation.

The loyalty Ancelotti commanded in the Chelsea dressing room averted disaster, secured a historic double and earned him a second season. But the players could not protect him forever.

Lampard, Terry and Essien all missed significant chunks of the 2010-11 campaign through injury, while Drogba contracted malaria. January spending only complicated matters. Years earlier at that meeting in Paris, a frustrated Abramovich had asked Ancelotti how to get the best out of a struggling Andriy Shevchenko and Fernando Torres, diminished by injury and weighed down by a £50 million price tag from Liverpool, presented a similar headache.

Chelsea’s dysfunctional off-field structure also wore Ancelotti down. He had generally communicated with Abramovich and the board through sporting director Frank Arnesen but when the Dane left for Hamburg in February 2010, the hierarchy lost coherence. “It wasn’t that there was nobody trying to do that job — it was that everybody was trying to do it,” Ancelotti wrote. By the time Wilkins was sacked and replaced by Michael Emenalo later that year, his fate was sealed.

Ancelotti faced a higher bar for success than any other manager hired by Abramovich. It was Champions League or bust and, when United eliminated Chelsea at the quarter-final stage with a 2-1 win at Old Trafford, it was left to Sir Alex Ferguson to console the Italian after another dressing room dressing down from the owner. “Carlo was really upset, so I said, ‘Just forget it’,” Ferguson recalled in a chapter written for “Quiet Leadership”. “He can’t get rid of you in the middle of the season.”

Looking back on the unvarnished picture painted of Abramovich in the book, it’s remarkable that relations between Ancelotti and Chelsea remain so warm. It helps that both parties have enjoyed considerable success since that inevitable parting of the ways: Ancelotti winning league titles with Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich either side of a Champions League triumph with Real Madrid, while Abramovich got his hands on Europe’s biggest prize in 2012.

Chelsea’s hierarchy has changed drastically since 2011. Gourlay, the man tasked with delivering the bad news at Goodison Park, left in 2014 and Marina Granovskaia has assumed his duties and more as chief football executive. Emenalo is gone and the technical structure above Lampard is considerably streamlined, with Cech — another stalwart of Ancelotti’s double-winners — growing into an advisory role this season.

Abramovich is also a different kind of owner: no less financially committed but more patient and less prone to harmful interference. Even if he had not delegated day-to-day responsibilities for the football operation to Granovskaia, his standoff with the UK government would still ensure that awkward semi-regular inquests in front of the players are a thing of the past.

Within this context, the enduring affection and respect for Ancelotti at Chelsea can be seen as a tacit admission of past mistakes. He may now be in the business of creating happier memories at Goodison Park but he will always find a warm welcome at Stamford Bridge — in the board room as well as in the stands.

[Vesper 30,071]

Chelsea training cancelled after coronavirus concern

https://theathletic.com/1671855/2020/03/12/chelsea-coronavirus-training-cancelled-cobham/

Chelsea players were ordered not to attend training on Thursday after someone close to the squad complained of coronavirus symptoms.

Sources have told The Athletic that the situation developed on Wednesday night and a decision was made to cancel Thursday’s session early in the morning before any of the players had arrived.

The person experiencing the symptoms — a fever followed by a dry cough, which can lead to breathing problems — had not been diagnosed with coronavirus as of Thursday lunchtime.

It is understood that the club’s training base at Cobham in Surrey is being thoroughly cleaned as a precautionary measure and there are no members of staff in the building, including head coach Frank Lampard and his backroom team.

Training is set to go ahead on Friday and Lampard’s press conference ahead of Saturday’s trip to Aston Villa is planned to take place at Cobham from 1.30pm.

The club’s preparations for the evening kickoff have been compromised, though, and their travel arrangements are now at risk.

The team were going to drive up to Birmingham on Friday to stay in a hotel overnight, something the squad do regularly for away matches. But now there is a strong possibility they will have to make the coach journey on match-day instead.

The game against struggling Villa is an important one for Chelsea’s bid to qualify for the Champions League via a top-four finish. They lead Manchester United, who are in fifth, by three points with nine Premier League fixtures to go.

Chelsea are full of confidence after beating Liverpool 2-0 in the FA Cup fifth round and then securing their biggest victory of the season with a 4-0 triumph over Everton in the top flight last Sunday.

The dressing rooms at Stamford Bridge were thoroughly cleaned before the latter match, while access for camera crews was also limited. This is standard practice across the Premier League, The Athletic has been told.

There is a strong possibility that the Villa fixture and other English football fixtures will be ordered to be played behind closed doors as action is stepped up to control the spread of the virus.

Spectators have already been barred from the second leg of Chelsea’s Champions League match against Bayern Munich in Germany next Wednesday.

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Vesper 30,071]

Chelsea put contract talks with five players on hold due to coronavirus

Chelsea have halted contract talks with five first team players due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1260419/Chelsea-news-contract-talks-five-players-on-hold-coronavirus

Chelsea have put contract negotiations with five players on hold as the Blues wait to see the full impact of the coronavirus crisis on the current Premier League campaign. The season has been postponed until at least April 30 and is at risk of running well into the summer if all of the remaining fixtures are to be played.

That means a number of players are left awaiting clarification over their contract situations with deals set to expire on June 30.

Chelsea have four players – Willian, Pedro, Olivier Giroud and Willy Caballero – who are all out of contract and are set to leave the club at the end of this season.

The Blues also want to sign Tammy Abraham up on a new deal, with the club’s top scorer having just two more years to go on his current contract.

The Telegraph now report that Chelsea have halted all negotiations due to the uncertainty surrounding the culmination of the Premier League campaign.

 

snip

 

[Vesper 30,071]

Exercise bikes, skipping ropes and weights sent to Chelsea’s housebound squad

https://theathletic.com/1699691/2020/03/26/exercise-bikes-skipping-ropes-and-weights-sent-to-chelseas-housebound-squad/

It has been less than two weeks since the coronavirus outbreak shut down the Premier League, but it already feels like a century ago.

All over the world, football has been forced to make a jarring transition to the fringes of public life and Chelsea, like many other top clubs, are still adjusting to this new reality.

Even if you were able to take an idle walk past Stamford Bridge or the club’s Cobham training ground, there wouldn’t be much to see. Both sites are now populated only by essential maintenance and security staff – “key workers”, in accordance with the latest UK government guidelines. All other club personnel are working from home, where the players have been for some time.

Callum Hudson-Odoi’s positive test was announced on March 13. The rest of the first-team squad and staff were immediately told to stay away from Cobham and self-isolate as a precaution. That requirement formally ended on Monday – 14 days after Hudson-Odoi was first instructed to stay at home after displaying cold symptoms – but social distancing is still the order of the day.

But how do footballers work from home?

Chelsea acted quickly to establish a new daily routine. Exercise bikes of the type found in the gyms at Cobham were delivered to all players at their homes, together with a GPS watch that logs their physical activity. Skipping ropes and weights were also sent out. Fitness programmes are tailored to each individual, as they would be at the training ground, and staff monitoring the results provide daily online feedback.

Workout schedules consist of two sessions per day. They are intense and not limited to work on the bikes. For players who live in houses out of London near Cobham, the garden is the new training pitch: they are instructed to do sprints, as well as extra exercises designed to maintain core strength. Those in apartments closer to Stamford Bridge have been instructed to find quiet outside space for running. Communal gyms are now out of bounds.

Healthy diet and nutrition remains a key emphasis during self-isolation. Some players have also been sent packages of fresh fruit and vegetables. With so much uncertainty around the date of football’s return, Chelsea are determined to ensure that standards of fitness and conditioning are kept as high as possible in the interim.

Frank Lampard and his backroom staff are in regular contact with the players, and not simply to make sure they are doing the work required. There is also a desire to check in, to chat, and above all to make sure that every member of the squad feels personally supported throughout what is an hugely unprecedented and unsettling situation.

The training measures have been met with no complaints, and the players are doing their best to face their new restrictive circumstances in good spirits. For the foreign players with particular family concerns, the club are dealing with travel requests on a case-by-case basis. Willian was allowed to fly home to Brazil to be with his wife and young daughters, while three Chelsea Women players have been granted leave to return to Scandinavia.

Boredom is the main enemy for most. Players everywhere are having to get creative in search of light-hearted ways to fill their time. The #StayAtHomeChallenge, featuring kick-ups with a roll of toilet paper, has proved popular, while Emerson Palmieri posted a video on Instagram of him playing a tambourine to traditional Brazilian music. Most unexpectedly, it seems club captain Cesar Azpilicueta has taken up jigsaw puzzles.

Others are taking an opportunity to help those less fortunate. Christian Pulisic announced earlier this week that he has donated to Feeding America, a charity in his native USA that runs food banks aimed at providing access to meals for people in difficulty. Mason Mount, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Billy Gilmour are participating in a FIFA 20 charity stream to raise funds for those affected by coronavirus.

 

At club level, Chelsea’s community work continues, stretching beyond Roman Abramovich’s high-profile decision to make the Millennium Hotel attached to Stamford Bridge available to NHS staff working in hospitals across north-west London. The old and vulnerable are also receiving regular phone calls, newsletters and video messages from the club’s foundation coaches and well-being staff.

Mindful of the fact that schools across the UK have been closed indefinitely, the Chelsea Foundation are working to make an online resource available to pupils, parents and teachers, and are setting up virtual classrooms. Coaches are also preparing football skills sessions for children that are specifically designed to be done in the garden.

The two-year foundation degree in coaching and development, run by Chelsea Foundation in collaboration with St Mary’s University, is moving online. So too are the entrepreneur and start-up programmes launched in 2018 to educate those thinking of self-employment and starting their own business.

Football, of course, cannot be played online. The uncertainty around when live sport will be able to resume hangs over everyone at Chelsea, and this unscheduled break is all the more frustrating for the players on Lampard’s previously extensive injury list.

Pulisic, having been sidelined since January 1 with a persistent thigh problem, had just returned to full training and had earmarked the second leg of the Champions League last 16 tie against Bayern Munich on March 18 for his return to action. Hudson-Odoi, as well as making a swift recovery from coronavirus, is also no longer bothered by a previous hamstring injury he aggravated in training earlier this month.

Most tantalising of all is Loftus-Cheek, who was finally on the verge of making his first-team return after spending nine months battling his way back from a devastating achilles rupture. He also looks in excellent physical condition now, but has been forced to accept the fact he doesn’t know how much longer he will have to wait to play competitive football again.

Chelsea, like several other Premier League clubs ravaged by injury in recent months, have good reason to be optimistic that when football does finally resume, they may well be able to do so with a squad returned to full strength.

In the broader context of world events, however, these are trivial concerns. Until football comes back, all anyone can do is stay fit, stay ready and stay at home.

[NikkiCFC 8,285]

20 hours ago, Vesper said:

Exercise bikes, skipping ropes and weights sent to Chelsea’s housebound squad

https://theathletic.com/1699691/2020/03/26/exercise-bikes-skipping-ropes-and-weights-sent-to-chelseas-housebound-squad/

It has been less than two weeks since the coronavirus outbreak shut down the Premier League, but it already feels like a century ago.

All over the world, football has been forced to make a jarring transition to the fringes of public life and Chelsea, like many other top clubs, are still adjusting to this new reality.

Even if you were able to take an idle walk past Stamford Bridge or the club’s Cobham training ground, there wouldn’t be much to see. Both sites are now populated only by essential maintenance and security staff – “key workers”, in accordance with the latest UK government guidelines. All other club personnel are working from home, where the players have been for some time.

Callum Hudson-Odoi’s positive test was announced on March 13. The rest of the first-team squad and staff were immediately told to stay away from Cobham and self-isolate as a precaution. That requirement formally ended on Monday – 14 days after Hudson-Odoi was first instructed to stay at home after displaying cold symptoms – but social distancing is still the order of the day.

But how do footballers work from home?

Chelsea acted quickly to establish a new daily routine. Exercise bikes of the type found in the gyms at Cobham were delivered to all players at their homes, together with a GPS watch that logs their physical activity. Skipping ropes and weights were also sent out. Fitness programmes are tailored to each individual, as they would be at the training ground, and staff monitoring the results provide daily online feedback.

Workout schedules consist of two sessions per day. They are intense and not limited to work on the bikes. For players who live in houses out of London near Cobham, the garden is the new training pitch: they are instructed to do sprints, as well as extra exercises designed to maintain core strength. Those in apartments closer to Stamford Bridge have been instructed to find quiet outside space for running. Communal gyms are now out of bounds.

Healthy diet and nutrition remains a key emphasis during self-isolation. Some players have also been sent packages of fresh fruit and vegetables. With so much uncertainty around the date of football’s return, Chelsea are determined to ensure that standards of fitness and conditioning are kept as high as possible in the interim.

Frank Lampard and his backroom staff are in regular contact with the players, and not simply to make sure they are doing the work required. There is also a desire to check in, to chat, and above all to make sure that every member of the squad feels personally supported throughout what is an hugely unprecedented and unsettling situation.

The training measures have been met with no complaints, and the players are doing their best to face their new restrictive circumstances in good spirits. For the foreign players with particular family concerns, the club are dealing with travel requests on a case-by-case basis. Willian was allowed to fly home to Brazil to be with his wife and young daughters, while three Chelsea Women players have been granted leave to return to Scandinavia.

Boredom is the main enemy for most. Players everywhere are having to get creative in search of light-hearted ways to fill their time. The #StayAtHomeChallenge, featuring kick-ups with a roll of toilet paper, has proved popular, while Emerson Palmieri posted a video on Instagram of him playing a tambourine to traditional Brazilian music. Most unexpectedly, it seems club captain Cesar Azpilicueta has taken up jigsaw puzzles.

Others are taking an opportunity to help those less fortunate. Christian Pulisic announced earlier this week that he has donated to Feeding America, a charity in his native USA that runs food banks aimed at providing access to meals for people in difficulty. Mason Mount, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Billy Gilmour are participating in a FIFA 20 charity stream to raise funds for those affected by coronavirus.

 

At club level, Chelsea’s community work continues, stretching beyond Roman Abramovich’s high-profile decision to make the Millennium Hotel attached to Stamford Bridge available to NHS staff working in hospitals across north-west London. The old and vulnerable are also receiving regular phone calls, newsletters and video messages from the club’s foundation coaches and well-being staff.

Mindful of the fact that schools across the UK have been closed indefinitely, the Chelsea Foundation are working to make an online resource available to pupils, parents and teachers, and are setting up virtual classrooms. Coaches are also preparing football skills sessions for children that are specifically designed to be done in the garden.

The two-year foundation degree in coaching and development, run by Chelsea Foundation in collaboration with St Mary’s University, is moving online. So too are the entrepreneur and start-up programmes launched in 2018 to educate those thinking of self-employment and starting their own business.

Football, of course, cannot be played online. The uncertainty around when live sport will be able to resume hangs over everyone at Chelsea, and this unscheduled break is all the more frustrating for the players on Lampard’s previously extensive injury list.

Pulisic, having been sidelined since January 1 with a persistent thigh problem, had just returned to full training and had earmarked the second leg of the Champions League last 16 tie against Bayern Munich on March 18 for his return to action. Hudson-Odoi, as well as making a swift recovery from coronavirus, is also no longer bothered by a previous hamstring injury he aggravated in training earlier this month.

Most tantalising of all is Loftus-Cheek, who was finally on the verge of making his first-team return after spending nine months battling his way back from a devastating achilles rupture. He also looks in excellent physical condition now, but has been forced to accept the fact he doesn’t know how much longer he will have to wait to play competitive football again.

Chelsea, like several other Premier League clubs ravaged by injury in recent months, have good reason to be optimistic that when football does finally resume, they may well be able to do so with a squad returned to full strength.

In the broader context of world events, however, these are trivial concerns. Until football comes back, all anyone can do is stay fit, stay ready and stay at home.

I was afraid to press play on Pulisic video after his previous one. Pedro is proof that Arabs where on Iberian peninsula once.

[NikkiCFC 8,285]

 

[Vesper 30,071]

31 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

I was afraid to press play on Pulisic video after his previous one. Pedro is proof that Arabs where on Iberian peninsula once.

Umayyad conquest of Hispania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania

The Umayyad conquest of Hispania, also known as the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula or the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom, was the initial expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate over Hispania (in the Iberian Peninsula) from 711 to 788. The conquest resulted in the destruction of the Visigothic Kingdom and the establishment of the independent Emirate of Córdoba under Abd al-Rahman I (ruled 756–788), who completed the unification of the Muslim-ruled areas (known as al-Andalus). The conquest marks the westernmost expansion of both the Umayyad Caliphate and Muslim rule into Europe.

During the caliphate of the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I, forces led by Tariq ibn Ziyad disembarked in early 711 in Gibraltar at the head of an army consisting of Berbers from north Africa.^[1][2] After defeating the Visigothic usurper Roderic at the decisive Battle of Guadalete, Tariq was reinforced by an Arab force led by his superior wali Musa ibn Nusayr and continued northward. By 717, the combined Arab-Berber force had crossed the Pyrenees into Septimania. They occupied further territory in Gaul until 759.

[NikkiCFC 8,285]

'Avram Grant was antisocial, his motivation was sh*t and I didn't learn anything from him' – ex-West Ham man Faubert slams former boss

https://www.goal.com/en/news/avram-grant-antisocial-motivation-sht-west-ham-faubert/ezf1ou2a3zrh14cgesphkb65c

Our best CL campaigns were with Grant and RDM. Which proves that managers are not so important when you have characters like Terry, Cech, Lamps, Drogba...

[Fulham Broadway 17,298]

54 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

'Avram Grant was antisocial, his motivation was sh*t and I didn't learn anything from him' – ex-West Ham man Faubert slams former boss

https://www.goal.com/en/news/avram-grant-antisocial-motivation-sht-west-ham-faubert/ezf1ou2a3zrh14cgesphkb65c

Our best CL campaigns were with Grant and RDM. Which proves that managers are not so important when you have characters like Terry, Cech, Lamps, Drogba...

It was like a tramp given the keys to a Rolls Royce -anyway how can you trust a man whose wife drinks piss ?

[Vesper 30,071]

17 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

It was like a tramp given the keys to a Rolls Royce -anyway how can you trust a man whose wife drinks piss ?

skål!

[Fulham Broadway 17,298]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

skål!

Her breath ! Perhaps that's why he visited whores

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1248382/Avram-Grant--Premier-League-football-manager-face-police-quiz-brothel-inquiry.html

[Jase 43,479]

20 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

'Avram Grant was antisocial, his motivation was sh*t and I didn't learn anything from him' – ex-West Ham man Faubert slams former boss

https://www.goal.com/en/news/avram-grant-antisocial-motivation-sht-west-ham-faubert/ezf1ou2a3zrh14cgesphkb65c

Our best CL campaigns were with Grant and RDM. Which proves that managers are not so important when you have characters like Terry, Cech, Lamps, Drogba...

Had luck been on Grant's side, like it did with Di Matteo, the former could have easily been a Premier League and Champions League winner. 

[MoroccanBlue 5,375]

1 minute ago, Jason said:

Had luck been on Grant's side, like it did with Di Matteo, the former could have easily been a Premier League and Champions League winner. 

Imagine that. 

[Vesper 30,071]

1 hour ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Her breath ! Perhaps that's why he visited whores

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1248382/Avram-Grant--Premier-League-football-manager-face-police-quiz-brothel-inquiry.html

[NikkiCFC 8,285]

Why we did not cut salaries to players? Club is losing money for nothing...

[Tomo 21,751]

On 29/03/2020 at 9:09 PM, Jason said:

Had luck been on Grant's side, like it did with Di Matteo, the former could have easily been a Premier League and Champions League winner. 

I've always been slightly curious about the regime that season, my gut instinct is Ten Cate was informally incharge.