Chelsea Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours

the_monkey

a little off topic .. but what a performance by Barça ... I'm glad we don't have to play them tbh .... in fact I think Chelsea should not even bother
entering the CL next year ... all in for the league again ...

DazMarz

the_monkey wrote: »

a little off topic .. but what a performance by Barça ... I'm glad we don't have to play them tbh .... in fact I think Chelsea should not even bother
entering the CL next year ... all in for the league again ...

Wouldn't go that far.... I WANT THE EUROPEAN CUP!!! I WANT IT IWANT IT I WANT IT I WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNT IT!!!

Me and Roman Abramovich think along the same lines!!! Haha. But seriously, if we do the domestic double... No one will see me or CHD for about a week, so drunk we will be in celebration. All fellow Chelsea boardsies most welcome too!!!:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Panthro

aww Daz..classic!
im liking this posting when pist idea your trying out, its guud!:D

'on the blues for the double this season,
'on the blues for the treble next season,
'on the blues for world domination the season after!!

the_monkey

come on lads surely you should know by now we are jinxed in that competition...


one way to get over it is to ignore it ... and in your mind not see it as
a big competition - and the PL as the biggest prize..

DazMarz

I'm almost resigned to the fact that I'll never see John Terry hoist up the European Cup in glory... Almost... Still dreaming.

But seriously... Big drink after domestic double with me and CHD. All Blues followers invited.

Whitesnake are the best band ever.

Carefree...

justbringit89

Personally I’d Take the League Before the CL, I wouldn’t mind see Utd Win tonight, or scrape a Win. I think the longer they stay in the more they will lose focus of the league. You could see on Saturday how much the CL match took out of them .

Of course Seeing them knocked out in the 2nd leg of the Semi’s would be nice. We don’t Want to give them bragging rights about making it 3 CL Finals in a Row.

With Regards to Injuries, Is there any chance Essien Will make it Back for the Liverpool Match. If we go at Liverpool like it’s a Champions League Final We can Win the League. I’m Not writing off Spurs But With a match against Arsenal the Wednesday before ours , I fancy us to Edge it:)

Also Ashley Cole will be a major boost against Liverpool, But I have to say I’m Enjoying the Partnership between Malouda & Zirkhov on the left. Zirkhov has been great for us !

DazMarz

While Zhirkov has had an amazing partnership with Malouda on the left, he is not as adept at defending as Ashley Cole is (understandably, as Zhirkov is really more of a left winger/midfielder rather than a left back!) and I prefer Ashley in that position.

Liverpool (wishing them no deliberate ill-will!!!) will hopefully be more or less consigned to finishing outside the Top 4 come May 1st and will have ''nothing'' to play for. If they mathematically cannot finish in the Top 4 by May 1st, our cause will be greatly helped, as they will not be fighting for anything as much. That is not to say they will lie down, not by any means, but it will mean some of the bite could easily be lost.

But from now on, we have to treat every game like a Champions League Final; even the smaller games. There can be no more errors or mistakes of any description. Two points is no cushion or no lead (until the last day of the season!) and Man United will be snapping at our heels like a ravenous wolf from now until the end of the season. Arsenal are also lurking there and now that they have no European 'distraction' they will also be very dangerous (but no Fabregas and no Arshavin is a huge blow).

Keep the faith and keep up the form... And it could be a Blue domestic double come the end of May!

DazMarz

More blogging news from CFC Website

Giles Smith On Chelsea Website wrote:

We're going to win the league now, apparently. You'll have been hearing it and reading it since the tremendous and 'season-defining' victory at Old Trafford. That was, in effect, 'the title decider'. The bookies make us favourites now. So, grudgingly, does Sir Alex Ferguson. We'll 'go on from here'. Everybody says as much.

Where do people get their certainty from? Actually, I think I know the answer to that. They get it from not being fans.

It's all very well making these kinds of sweeping prediction if you're a casual observer, with no vested interest. But if your happiness is implicated in the outcome, it's simply not possible. Certainty doesn't really suit the football fan. For many of us, it's not part of the make-up - unlike, say, pessimism and a permanent state of anxiety. The only football fans I know who routinely express certainty, and act as if the best outcome from their point of view is pretty much a given, are Manchester United fans, and it's not very becoming.

Many of us tend to go in with the opposite attitude: it's not going to work out; it's all going to go wrong. That leaves us slightly (although never entirely) pre-armed, in the event that it does. And all the more delighted when it doesn't.

Amid all this week's talk of 'certain' titles, I wondered what it would take to make me experience that kind of confidence - when there are still five games to go and when two of those games take us, respectively, to White Hart Lane and Anfield.

And I flashed back to 2005, and the point at which Chelsea were left needing just five points from the season's remaining five games to make the title certain.

Just five points, in other words, between the club and its first league title in 50 years - and with 15 points still on offer. And this was in a season - I probably don't need to mention - under Jose Mourinho in which the concept of defeat had been largely abandoned, and in which (at this point) we had lost only once. Really, if you were ever going to be confident that a championship was sewn up, then that was the time.

And then Arsene Wenger had to go and mention the bomb.
Do you remember the bomb? 'Chelsea will be champions,' Wenger announced, after we had drawn with Arsenal at Stamford Bridge, thereby producing the five-from-five scenario, 'unless someone puts a bomb here.'

That was it for me: suddenly I had a bomb to worry about. It was all too horribly plausible. True, Chelsea seemed to be within a whisker of winning the league - but not if you factored in a terrorist atrocity in the meantime.

And if it was true at this stage in 2005, then it is even more so now: nothing can sensibly be taken for granted. There are, quite simply, too many things that could happen, ranging from dropped points at one end of the scale, all the way through to plagues of locusts and alien invasions at the other.

All of which is by way of saying that it's probably best to take nothing for granted until it's all over. Certainty is for players and managers. Certainty suits them. It's not for fans.

And on the subject of fans, a quick word about Rafa Benitez. It probably won't have escaped your notice that Liverpool only got a point at Birmingham on Sunday when circumstances relating to their already frail pursuit of the fourth Champions League place insisted that they needed three - or even, if we're being frank, about seven.

In the midst of all this, their manager substituted Fernando Torres with half an hour to play, thereby, with the scores even and the chase underway for a clinching goal, removing his team's most potent threat. This, it was widely agreed, was an act akin to removing your own foot, dropping it into a barrel and then taking a crack at it with a revolver. And, combined with the pictures, broadcast by 'Match of the Day', of Steven Gerrard's looks of appalled incomprehension, it has given the critics ample opportunities to tuck into less than generous assessments of the Liverpool manager's tactical acumen and of his chances of surviving much beyond the end of the season.

You probably know where I'm heading with this. The last time Rafa was on the ropes and taking a pounding, we responded instinctively at this club with the founding (metaphorically, at least) of 'Blues for Rafa', an emergency support group in which Chelsea fans set personal prejudice and the long claims of history aside, kept the greater good in mind, and joined in song to urge the Liverpool board to stay the hand of execution and keep him.

There was no meeting, no prior organisation, no instruction from above: it was just one of those things that our common humanity drew us to do. And who wasn't moved by the waves of genuine emotion coming off the Matthew Harding stand that afternoon? Indeed, aside from the way the pop community came together to record that old REM song for Haiti, I can't think that this year has yielded a more positive example of people uniting behind a common cause.

Now, though, it is clear that Rafa needs our help again - and perhaps even more than he needed it the first time. The FA Cup semi-final at Wembley on Saturday, with its global audience and with the attention of football fixed upon it, would be the perfect setting to make our feelings clear once more.

It's too late, I'm assuming, to organise a distribution around the stadium seats of cards which, when held aloft as the teams ran out, would form the image of Benitez's face. But the opportunity is still there for all of us, individually and in unison, to vocalise our support at least once or twice during the afternoon, as we did at Stamford Bridge a couple of months ago. Dig deep, I urge you, for Rafa. You can make a difference, you know.

DazMarz

Well done to Bayern and former Chelsea winger Arjen Robben on another brilliant performance tonight.

But this is not exactly what I was hoping for; United are now out of every single competition... Apart from the Premier League. They can now focus harder on the domestic angle and have literally zero other "distractions" from any other competitions.

Some might howl that they deliberately got knocked out of Europe. Bollocks. No team wants to get knocked out of the biggest and most prestigious competition in club football, not least the team that has featured in the final two years running and was shooting for #3.

No English team in the last 4 since 2003, and a German team in the last 4 since 2002... Some night.

Man United and Arsenal now both free to focus on the league will turn the heat up. But we must stay cool and calm and we can easily do it...

Carefree....

Johner

I'm happy enough United got knocked out, wouldn't have minded them going through but ah well glad to see them out. It's in our hands anyway I'm confident we will do it.

DazMarz

Can't say I'm glad to see them out at all. Would have preferred them to stay in the CL, tbh.

Still, as has been said, we have it in our own hands as it stands. Bring it on!!!:D

Panthro

yeah i was also hoping united got through to the next round and then went out before the final, but sure all the same if we keep up the pace we seem to be setting i dont see why we wouldnt be in with a real chance in fairness. im bleeding delighted we got the united game out of the way before they exited from europe, imagine if we had to play them now-jaysus!
the tactics we have using now are working nicely, we have our injury worries but if 1 or 2 were to come back it would be all the better.
certainly a bit to go yet but we are still in with a fighting chance, hope to god we dont fook things up along the way now.

DazMarz

With Ashley and Ivanovic certainly not too much longer to recover, we can be looking forward to the run in, IMO. Unless we really run out of luck badly now in the next few weeks, we should be fine, tbh.

Tuesday 13th against Bolton at the Bridge is the next league fixture... Should be 3 points in the bag, but Bolton can be a tough team to break down. But beating them earlier in the season in both the Prem and the League Cup (4-0 each time) can be seen as reason to be hopeful heading into this fixture.

Johner

Would be nice if Blackburn got something against United this weekend, can't see it happening.

Can't wait for the cup semi, should be a good game.

BazBox

Johner wrote: »

Would be nice if Blackburn got something against United this weekend, can't see it happening.

Can't wait for the cup semi, should be a good game.

You never know, a couple of seasons ago we needed a late tevez equaliser to bail us out against blackburn and United could be caught on the hop after last night, hopefully not though!

quick question for chelsea fans, with robben and to a lesser extent duff doing well for their respective teams, do ye ever regret selling them?

Panthro

we have malouda, and zhirkov once ashley is fit again, and joe cole if he bucks up and maintains being bucked up for more than 60mins, and capable full backs who like to press forward, ashley, boswinga, and ivanovic if hes played in that position.
robben was fairly injury prone when wearing the blues shirt, duff was daycent enough.

GavRedKing

BazBox wrote: »

You never know, a couple of seasons ago we needed a late tevez equaliser to bail us out against blackburn and United could be caught on the hop after last night, hopefully not though!

quick question for chelsea fans, with robben and to a lesser extent duff doing well for their respective teams, do ye ever regret selling them?

Duff, No.

Robben, Yes.

Duff had reached his potential and IMO was only hanging on when we sold him, he was decent option but it was the right time to offload him.

Robben on the other hand is a different case, brillant, brillant player. He had the pace to beat players and had an eye for the goal when cutting in. Could easily get to the by-line and setup a goal. I was sad to see him go and even though he was injury prone, I would have him everyday of the week over Kalou.

smuckers

Good news on the injury front.



NEWSFLASH: IVANOVIC NEARS RETURN
Posted on: Thu 08 Apr 2010
Branislav Ivanovic trained today (Thursday) and could feature on the substitutes' bench for the FA Cup semi-final on Saturday.

The defender has been out since injuring his knee against Blackburn on 21 March.

Carlo Ancelotti reports he is planning an unchanged defence and midfield against Aston Villa but has decisions to make over the goalkeeper, Hilario having started previous FA Cup games, and up front although the Chelsea manager confirms Didier Drogba will start.

It is hoped Ashley Cole will return against Stoke on 25 April. Ancelotti announces Michael Essien is also making good progress and could play

smuckers

that should say, play the week later

GavRedKing

Brillant news.

Couldnt get any better, we are nearly back to full strength for the most important 5 EPL games of the season.

The Bison back is huge news, once he is available for the Spuds and Pool games i will be very happy. :P

homer simpson

BazBox wrote: »

You never know, a couple of seasons ago we needed a late tevez equaliser to bail us out against blackburn and United could be caught on the hop after last night, hopefully not though!

quick question for chelsea fans, with robben and to a lesser extent duff doing well for their respective teams, do ye ever regret selling them?

No and No, duff is doing ok at fulham but he is no where near the same standard of malauda, and robben is a good player but he is forever injured, he is too unrelaible in that respect.

Johner

Spurs away ticket came this morning.

Would love to be going to the semi this weekend, should be a cracking game.

Lukker-

Johner wrote: »

Spurs away ticket came this morning.

Would love to be going to the semi this weekend, should be a cracking game.

Enjoy your trip to 3 point lane

Had tickets to the Villa match but my brothers passport didn't come back in time so I had to sell them. Hoping to get tickets for maybe Wigan but I reckon this match is going to have a much higher demand than normal. I got lucky in 04/05 when I bought tickets to the Charlton match a few months in advance and I saw them lift their first Premier League ever.

DazMarz

Tickets for the Wigan game are being sold on a loyalty point basis, AFAIK. I'm really hoping I can scare up a ticket to that, tbh. Seeing JT hoist up the Prem trophy again!!!! I defo would be in tears (and for the right reasons this time!!!!!!!!)

Johner

I've only got 21 points and my dad has like 25. Wont be near enough.

Johner

Monday 12 April until 5pm: Tickets will be sold to members with 49 loyalty points.

Shouldn't have too much trouble getting one I'd say it will come down to about 15 points.

keane2097

When is CHD back?

Johner

Where is he?

DazMarz

keane2097 wrote: »

When is CHD back?

Johner wrote: »

Where is he?

Wasn't gonna say anything, but the Chelsea forum's beloved pitbull CHD has been banned from the soccer forum for 6 months... Do you need to know the reason???:rolleyes:

DazMarz

Florent Malouda has been named as the Barclays Player of the Month:

http://www.chelseafc.com/page/LatestNews/0,,10268~2019476,00.html

nice one!!!

Johner

6 months??

Johner

DazMarz wrote: »

Florent Malouda has been named as the Barclays Player of the Month:

http://www.chelseafc.com/page/LatestNews/0,,10268~2019476,00.html

nice one!!!

Well deserved. He has been world class these last few months.

DazMarz

Johner wrote: »

6 months??

I know... I couldn't believe it either. But sure them be the brakes...

jrar

Johner wrote: »

Would be nice if Blackburn got something against United this weekend, can't see it happening.

Can't wait for the cup semi, should be a good game.

Nah, B'burn will roll over esp. as they have no major target to aim for, and Allardyce and Fergie are good friends.

How good ? - well if anyone saw footage of the celebrations of Ferguson's part-owned horse winning at Aintree yesterday, who was at SAF's elbow laughing uproariously at the fun being had ? Yep, the bould Sam Allardyce himself.

The msg. to B'burn players will be to play within themselves and basically "let" Utd. make all the running, which is a nice game to have for Utd. while Rooney continues his recovery !

3 pts. guaranteed for the Mancs so let's hope Citeh and Spuds give them a slightly harder test.

DazMarz

jrar wrote: »

so let's hope Citeh and Spuds give them a slightly harder test.

City would love nothing more than to beat United, no question there!

Spurs still fighting for 4th will make them a lot more desperate and hungry and they will also be no pushover!

B'burn will not be worth a pint of piss against United, no way.

The Davestator

Blackburn are playing well at home and hopefully friendship with saf will be put to one side

Gonzovision

Better not be any of that bff tomorrow..... I expect united to pick up the points. I'm sure Villa will prove to be a sterner task than 2 weeks ago. The way we are playing we should progress anyway. Will be good to see Ivanovic back, even though Ferriera has done ok. Glad to see our injuries are beginning to clear up.

Iago

I've deleted the off-topic posts and as a biased United supporting moderator I've obviously infracted you all for back seat modding...


...oh no, actually I haven't. Maybe that's because there is no bias but a simple set of rules that everyone is subject to regardless of who they support.

Keep the thread on topic please and if you want to debate moderation or moderating decisions please PM the moderator in question.

Panthro

got a flippin text from a villa fan already, was supposed to head home and watch it with him and chill out and have beers today but ive a fecking assignment due monday and cant head off, dagans!!!
predict the lineup anyone?
im going for

---

cech

---

ferreira--terry--alex--zhirkov

---

mikel

---

---

deco

---

lampard----
j.cole

---

malouda

---

drogba

---

only change from their last meeting being drogba in for anelka

on a side note:
former chelsea man to hang up the boots towards the end of may.
Makelele
wonder will he return to the bridge as a defence midfielding coach to mikel?!
now that would be nice. top class defensive midfielder in his day makka.

Gonzovision

Yep I'd agree with the ablove team. No need to change a winning formula...

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

Panthro

ill be watching it from the comfort of my own home thanks to UTV.
coverage starting at 16.35 and im getting frantic with excitment

Barr

I would have thought he would have stuck with Anelka after the trashing when they last met.

The Davestator

Great result although the score is a bit unfair to villa IMO.
Joe had another good game, ferrera had a mare.

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

Lukker-

Bring on Spurs..

TangyZizzle

That was a grand aul match, the lad commentatin' on Setanta Ireland was doin my head in. Couldnt say half the players names and kept sayin the same thing over and over. Fair enough the pitch is dyer, dont say it everytime someone loses their footing.

Malouda still on fire and Drogba keeping up appearances, one happy Chelsea fan here.

Gonzovision

Deeeelighted. Ran out comfortable in the end. Again Malouda was great. Zhirkov did well too. And a great ball from Ballack to find Malouda

Gonzovision

Gwan the Blackburn

Lukker-

Well played Blackburn, United were awful though.