I'd really love to put Joe Cole in the 'good' column. He's been playing really well this season and I loved his perfectly weighted, outside of the foot pass for Anelka. He always works really hard and loves playing for Chelsea. He understandably gets frustrated when he's subbed off!

Chelsea: best squad in the world - with or without Robinho - and there's more talent coming in January. ***Just imagine*** how things would have panned out last year without a stop-gap manager and every problem under the Sun. Taking a big-picture view, I'm starting to agree with what Roman realised in '06: Maurinho was a mistake (why? for the answers, go to (1) LINK then (2) www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_2747205,00.html)

Great idea JD.... A review of the week is a good way to get people taking before the weekend.

@ Patrick....

It is interesting to note the different styles of Jose and Scolari. Mourinho tried hard to shoulder as much of the pressure as possible and keep the players focussed on the game, but Scolari appears comfortable with letting the players know when he is unhappy, as was evident during the second half of the Bordeaux tie.

The early season form of Frank, Joe and Mikel has been sensational and hopefully the midfield of the Mancs will struggle to hold them. Hope Drogba is back though, because in a game against Utd we will only get a couple of chances and need to put them away. For me, Anelka is just not clinical enough to take the chances he should.

I believe Malouda is starting to show what he's made of. The goal against Bordeaux was a clinical finish and the ball control he showed in the Man City game, after which he passed to Cole and eneded up an Anelka goal, was a treat to watch.

"the young Nigerian" :>D

he-turned-29-3-weeks-ago :>@

Hnrey.....

Every time you sit down at your keyboard you make more of a dick of yourself..... Mikel turned 21 in April!

Havent you heard of 30 year old players in U17 squads for Nigerea?

Good Day!

Just for a moment as I glanced across my screen I thought we were in for another South American wonderkid......Alex Fumes

The Wilkins appointment.

While I'm happy to see him back, I wonder if his role is going to be more of a media friendly front man than a real member of the coaching staff. If Clarke felt less important and central to the team than in recent years, it points to Scolari having his core staff in place.

Given that the love affair will end sometime in November as the media start to feel increasingly uncomfortable about having to say positive things about Chelsea, given that you never get through a season without some downdside, it seems sensible to have a quite talking, seemingly unflappable figure with good media experience to front up during the period when Popeye is doing time in the holding cell for having twatted an official/journalist/player/opposition coach or all the above.

After all its time Chelsea stepped up to the plate and didn't leave physical violence to junior memebers of the groundstaff. We are a big club afterall.

Well, I'm back after a few days off. Fiftee Jnr turned 2 on Wednesday and to celebrate we turned our two-bed mid-terrace semi into a mini adventure park for 15 kids. Somehow. At least the weather stayed nice.

Yesterday, I just sat in my armchair like a jibbering wreck, recounting every slopped spoon of jelly on the carpet, every OJ spilt on the stairs, every broken shed window due to some heated football involving an over-excited, immature, slightly drunk 28 year old. Me.

Tuesday was a great result. First half was superb. The start of the second half was simply awful, but as JD alluded, great to see TSSO not happy with things as they were and demanding more. Definite plus that Malouda scored, hope that sees his confidence soar. I've knocked him in the past as he has usually looked as useful as a sun lounger at the North Pole, but give him his dues, if things continue like this then we'll all be saying Robin-who? (Who, incidentally, was almost anonymous for Citeh last night).

Thought Deco was poor on Tuesday. The flicks didnt work, his passing was particularly way-ward. Maybe we've been shown the good stuff too early, but he looked to be getting frustrated as the game passed him by, picked up a cycnical yellow card and thankfully TSSO saw sense and hooked him for Ze German.

I would like to take this opportunity to state, categorically, how much I hate ITV's football coverage. David Pleat - he of 'the' most annoying, monotone voice - and Clive Tyldesley seem incapable of pronouncing any names of more than 6 letters. B-O-S-I-N-G-W-A does not, I repeat not, in any way spell BO-SWING-A. And their laughable inability to tell the difference between Bordeaux's Diawara (glove wearing centre back) and Diarra (centre midfield) just irritated me more.

My general pessimism is indicating a whole point for us on Sunday. Things are very rosy for us at the moment, and not for ManUSA. I bet everyones favourite wino parks the proverbial bus.

I've often wondered how old Mikel REALLY is. He's got a young face though. By comparison, Terry has looked like he was 40 since he was 13.

Very intrigued by Sunday's game. Previously we've beaten them by squeezing the space and stopping them play, but that's not how we roll now. Rooney/Tevez/Berbatov/Ronaldo will get a lot more room than they are used to against us, but that depends on how much Hargreaves/Anderson/Scholes get of the ball (god, their midfield is weak compared to us).

Regarding Cole and Deco, some interesting points here:

LINK

I think part of the original Mikel controversy was that he signed professional forms with FC Lyn (whether he actually wanted to or not is another matter entirely) before he was legally old enough to do so - not by much, a few weeks maybe, so his age as currently stated might be (reasonably) accurate. All a bit murky though.

Do we know whether we're going to get our money back from United for that spot of light fraud yet?

I read in one Spanish paper after we beat Valencia that his age was changed so he could play in the FIFA U17.
He sounds too mature to be 21, if you read his 'quotes' , his football is to good for a 21 yr old either.

Its one of those MADE-IN-NIGEREA ages...Obafemi is rumoured to have played in the same U17 group as Babayaro and Okocha.

Good review JD..

I don't think we'll have a problem against Man Usa on Sunday..they're missing their best defender, Rooney's more than a little out of form and ol' Horse Face isn't back to full fitness yet. I don't think he'll be in their starting XI in any case..if he was, he NEVER shows up in games against Chelsea, so hey- ho!

Not only that, Chelsea have a little score to settle..J.T in particular will be well up for it! It's gonna be an exciting game nonetheless, resulting in a 2-1 Chels win.

Between a win and the fab news of Butch coming back..it'll turn out to be a great birthday weekend for me!!

Up the Chels x x

'He NEVER shows up in games against Chelsea, so hey- ho!'

Er, last May ring a bell?

Morgan Anderson (director of FC Lyn) was found guilty earlier this year as far as I can remember, but I've not seen anything else since then. He (Anderson) claims that he was fitted up and is appealing; the case doesn't really have any direct bearing on our position though. I'd be surprised if we went after United for the money - the whole settlement was bound up in confidentiality clauses and given that UEFA and the authorities presumably OK'd the transfer from Lyn to United, you'd guess that any number of people will probably be rather keen to see it all forgotten about.

I'm still fairly well convinced that our role in the whole thing wasn't exactly spotless, certainly in terms of our relationship with the agents involved and how Mikel suddenly changed his mind; all a bit of a sorry tale really - glad that Mikel has emerged unscathed as you'd imagine that a great deal of this kind of thing goes on and probably ends far less happily in other cases.

@ 15. PETEW

I've got selective memory recall of that day in Russia that i'd rather forget..
DO, however seem to remember him missing a trademark penalty!! :)

*it seems sensible to have a quite talking, seemingly unflappable figure with good media experience to front up during the period when Popeye is doing time in the holding cell for having twatted an official/journalist/player/opposition coach or all the above*

Having spat coffee over the keyboard due to this unforeseen comment all i can say is how I hope that is the reason Popeye ends up in the chokey for s day or two. In fact I hope its that ugly squashed face poisoned miserabalist Steve Curry that cops an unfortunate one.

It seems I've passed a late fitness test and as of Sunday I'm back in the first team and hence doing the review. Time to sharpen the keyboard........

Ronaldo was up against essien last may, perhaps his only really influence was the goal where essien didn't even get up with him, apart from then, i remember him being silenced by the likes of ferreria - not the quickest defender we've got now. I think he'll be anoymous when he comes on, it'll be on about 60 minutes, the commentators will go crazy about the amount of step overs he'll be doing 'as he takes to chelsea', but nothing will come of it. At the worst malouda or joe will have to cover, and then we'll break like a dream.

2-0 to chelsea, we'll get a goal on about 30 mins, stay that way til half time. Man U will come at us like hell fire after the break but they will have no penetration, and we will score the first chance we get. They will begin to panic when they realise it isn't the second coming of christ, and ronaldo isn't the missing link, and just start chucking balls forward. Chelsea may even get a third on the break.

We had Avram who went on and on about how attacking we were after a 4-4 draw and referring it as a positive, and now we have Big Phil who seems to want to tear what's left of his hair out after a 3 and 4-nil victory and referring it as a negative!

Oh good to see Butch back but the negative is Sky is back to full of Red-loving commies (shortened form of commentators of course!). Nice to see Jose off to a good start as well in Serie A & Champions League - beating Ten Cate's team away at Greece...

I'm a little bit fearful for this game. It reminds me a lot of the Spurs game. We're riding high at the top, everyone sees us as favourties, up against a team devoid of confidence. That Spurs game was a shocker. We didn't play any good football and conceded a sloppy goal. So will it be different this time?

Well it should be. Firstly we've got Mikel. He seems to be the most important player at the moment, as it's his security that allows Lamps and Deco to play. His height will also be important to combat Berbatov and/or Ronaldo at set pieces. Secondly, JT's playing. He'll surely want revenge for Moscow and the whole crowd will love it when his name is read out at kick-off, VIdic's isn't and Fergie puts on his angry face again. Thirdly, they haven't got Vidic. Many say this will mean that Scolari will immediately bring back Ballack and Didier to beat them in the air. But i think he'll keep the same team, again, and use them as super-subs. Finally, they're missing Quieroz, badly. He was the one who introduced the rotating front 4 and without Quieroz, Fergie is shown up as a manager past his sell-by date.

However, there are reasons to be cautious. That home record against Spurs seemed to hold us back. Scolari's subs on that day were a little defensive and the whole team seem scared to attack, knowing that one error will cost us that record. They'll also play a full team. Last season we scraped past them with no Tevez, an injured Rooney and Ronaldo on them bench, plus a last minute pen.

But in the end, we've got a proper manager and are playing much better than last season. My heart says a 2-0 but my head says a Spurs re-run. Utd come to park the bus, steal a goal and we end up with a 1-1.

I bet the Jose will be just loving this!

Sept 19 (Reuters) - Sports news in brief from around the world.
Soccer - Serie A champions Inter Milan are considering hiring former Argentina great Diego Maradona as a consultant, club president Massimo Moratti said.
"I think we'll link up with him. He still has great appeal and it seems to me that he is out of the tunnel," Moratti told La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Since his retirement from soccer, Maradona, 47, has suffered a string of health problems related to obesity and his addiction to drugs and alcohol.

@JD
With reference to your accurate assessment of the JT situation, if I was a rugby coach then I would drop JT for the next game for his half hearted attempt at a tackle.
And just to add if I was the opposing rugby coach I would drop Jo from the next game for going down too easily after breaking the tackle!

It looks like secret agent Wise has got his next assignement from agent Z LINK

Oh and bloody brilliant post JD!

Who the hell is John Ryan and what gives him the right to make the following comments? “John Terry's action was certainly not that of an England skipper. Billy Wright would have lost the captaincy for good if he had done something like that. It's sets a terrible example to youngsters. I've told the FA he should lose it but I don't expect to hear back from them,” he raged to the Daily Mail.

“Mark Halsey is a first-class referee whose decisions should be backed by the FA. Instead they capitulate at the first sign of flak. It's in danger of becoming a thug's charter if you can get away with doing what Terry did,” Ryan added.

“You suspect that Alex Ferguson was right when he said it wouldn't have happened if the club in question had been Manchester United. Not everybody in the game thinks the FA were right to reverse the decision, far from it.

“I've spoken to plenty of people who thought that Mark Halsey made the right call. Other referees will feel undermined by this. Halsey deserved to get the full support of the FA. I'm not sure how this reflects on their new regime of respect.”

Halsey made he wrong call and the whole world thought so. Including Mark Hughes and the MOTD cast. Even some Man-USA fans that I know didnt think it was a red card. Halsey is the one who responded to a tiny bit of flak by unneccesaraly (I cant spell) sending JT off just because the Cit-Eh fans wanted him to. He deserves to be refereeing league 2 matches because thats the standard of referee he is.

“You suspect that Alex Ferguson was right when he said it wouldn't have happened if the club in question had been Manchester United. Not everybody in the game thinks the FA were right to reverse the decision, far from it."

McFergie is one of the biggest idiots ive ever seen. He gets more decisions inhis teams favour than any other team. Last season they got 1 penalty given against them and they even moaned about that. FFS. What right does this guy have to run his mouth? Obviously doesnt have a clue what hes talking about. If you give red cards for things like that then youd have about 4 players sent off every game.

This is nice to know:

LINK

Scolari getting Ronaldo would please me, if only to see Fergie's reaction. He'll probably collapse in horror. It'll never happen, but i'm pleased that Scolari's beginning to start the mind-games. Whenever we receive our first poor result, i can't wait for Scolari's response. Storming out of a press conference? Punching Fergie in his purple nose?

What was nice to read as well was that Scolari could see what the fans hated on Tuesday. The old Jose ways of stopping at 2-0, playing sloppy football and giving the ball away:

"Scolari was not happy with the football he saw and revealed that he had to stop yesterday's training session after 10 minutes because his players "made the same mistakes" as they did against the French side. "I stopped training," he said. "I want this, this and this. Against United, why is 10-0 better than winning 1-0? We need to keep the ball, stay in position. But I need to understand that I have some players who aren't ready. I need to ask the fans to give me time, for me to improve some players more."

aww c'mon give it a break. Ferge is afraid, bloody afraid. and you know what, he should be. we'll thump Manu and show it to his face how champions win their games. i predict a 3-1 win.

@ 13JOE13

Never heard of him either, but agree he hasn't got a clue what he's talking about..what a kn*b!! Probably on the McFergie payroll somewhere along the line because the comments seem to be coming out aimed at J.T nicely in time for Sunday's game. Pay no mind to it (i know it's difficult. I got wound up reading it) because as KG says, they'll get a pasting tomorrow..

John Ryan comes from the Dave Whelan school of football chairmen; loud voice that he assumes everyone wants to hear, open mouth before engaging brain.

"Mark Halsey is a first-class referee whose decisions should be backed by the FA"

Hmm, first part of that sentence is a moot point, but what about the rest? Even when he's made completely the wrong decision?

I realise there is a danger of sounding like some sort of intellectual snob in the eyes of a largely non-thinking football public, but is it really that difficult to actually just READ THE F**KING RULES OF THE GAME AND USE SOME COMMON SENSE? Halsey simply got it wrong which means JT got away with a fairly dodgy and cynical tackle - not a great situation, of course but that's all there is to it; if the officials can't make the right decisions that is hardly our problem.

Opinions are like arseholes, etc.

I would rather die than see Horse face in Chelsea FC.Yes, I hate Ferguson, but I dont want to see Ronaldo EVER in Chelsea.

@HRNEY,
Try n get ur facts right.Obafemi never played for any youth team or institutional club in Nigeria before he went pro.His first game for Nigeria was as an international in the senior team(3yrs ago).I grew up living with my grandma in the same area Obafemi grew up.And I can tell you he is a very young lad.As for Mikel,there is no way he can be 29yr or even 23yrs.That guy is nothing but a kid.He start up in an academy over here n went on to play for our under 17 n under 21 before he became an international.So his age is well documented.If you are in doubt about his age because of his level of football then it is because you are one of those who think nothing good can come out of Africa.Silly racist.

I) guess if Fabregas and Torres were from Africa Hrney would have claimed they are 30yrs and 33yrs respectively.But because they Europeans he has allowed that to pass.

Well done to Franco today..great result for his first game in charge. Just seen him being interviewed after the match on SSN and his little face was beaming! He was grinning like a Cheshire cat!!

Congrats also to my hometeam for keeping the Scousers at bay and getting a draw..that's some achievement at Anfield..They also prevented Stevie Me from getting his 100th goal..i find it baffling that the "greatest player/midfielder in the world" not to have got 100 goals ages ago actually..tosser!

Looking soooo forward to tomorrow!!! 3-1 Chels win..

A nice article by The Special One regarding the future of Steve Clarke:

LINK

"Steve and I worked very well together at Chelsea, won many trophies, and I think he is ready for more. In fact, this is what I think about Steve Clarke: if, at this moment, he had the chance to manage a club, even a big club like Chelsea, he would be ready for that. He is that good."

It's also nice how highly he rates Brendan Rodgers:

"The door of my football thoughts and methodology is open to the coaches of the youth team, the scouts, my fitness coach. As the manager of a big structure you are responsible for the formation of these younger coaches. For example, there is another coach at Chelsea, Brendan Rogers, who was coach of the reserves. He is also ready for the next step."

Brendan would make a great assistant for our next manager in a couple of years, when he actually has to do some coaching. He would be wasted in Ray's position as a glorified scout/PA.

Such a "scrappy" game today..that's the only word that comes to mind..
No one wanted to lose..
Must admit i was getting a bit worried that we hadn't scored with 10 minutes to go 'til the end of the game but thank God for Saloman Kalou!!!

85 games and STILL unbeaten at Stamford Bridge..really thought that record was gonna be broken today though..Phew!!

Well done Chels x x

Not a bad game I thought. Plenty of to and fro, lots of energy from both sides. We paid the price for a dreadful start. Once we'd stopped giving the ball away all the time for no reason, we got about as comfortable as you can expect against a good side, and we did almost all the attacking in the second half.

Obi I thought was terrific again (again, once the lunatic desire to present possession to the opposition had worn off). And I again thought Anelka was not only bad but almost actually a hindrance: might have been better without him playing with 10. Well maybe not, but it's incredible how attacking moves just stall the moment the ball arrives at his feet. And that was miss towards the end as unbelievable as it looked? I still haven't seen any replays. JT seemed to have an uncharacteristically terrible game too.

Given the loss of Riccy, the unexpected absence of Deco, the semi-fitness of Drogs and Herr Ballack, I thought we did pretty well. Nice to see the team regain control of the game after a bad start.

Hilarious to see so many of the vile Mancs get booked just for being gobby shites. Respect!

I didnt see the game today. Although im very satisfied with a point considering the circumstances. Maybe now some of you realise how important Ballack and Drogba are to the side. From what I heard Anelka missed a glorious chance that DD would have slotted away with ease. We seem to be playing really well at times but Scolari should now by now that we wont be able to beat teams like United, Arsenal, Liverpool etc unless our top players are on form and scoring goals. Malouda is doing a better job but I dont think he is deserving of a permanent place in the team right now. Anelka should be relegated to the bench. Even if Drogs isnt fit, Kalou is deserving of more of a chance. Credit to United though they played to win and made it very difficult for us. And im sure that we could have won but a draw is proberbly a fair result. Ive heard that a deal is done for Mineiro which is pleasing so we have cover in the center. Just hope that Scolari doesnt use him as an excuse to hold back Obi. 4-5-1 isnt attacking football. I want to see a 4-4-2 or a 4-4-1-1

4-4-1-1
-------------------Cech---------------------
Bosingwa-----JT-----Riccy---------Ash-------
-----------------Mikel----------------------
-----Ballack--------------Lamps-------------
------------------Deco----------------------
---------Joe Cole---------------------------
-------------------Didier-------------------

4-4-2

--------------------Cech--------------------
Bosingwa--------JT----Riccy-------A.Cole----
---------------Mikel------------------------
---------------------Lamps------------------
-------Joe------------------Deco/Ballack----
--------------Kalou----Drogba---------------

It was a reasonably good game, we seemed to let them have the start they had in the CL final for the first 25 mins but after that we pretty much controlled things.
Joe Cole missed an excellent chance which would have given us the lead against the run of play and might have knocked the stuffing out of them.
I did fear the home record was going to go as the game went on as nothing seemed to be going right, that Anelka miss seemed harder to do than actually scoring.
It's a shame we didn't equalise a bit earlier because I feel we could have gone on to score at least one more, as Utd did look a bit more ragged near the end.
I also think they have problems in the goalkeeping department, they were both pretty shocking in their positioning and decision making.

On a seperate note, I thought Riley had an abysmal game and did his utmost to spoil it, I actually thought he'd swallowed his whistle as it was going off so much.

Anyway record still intact and they're still behind us, lets hope it stays that way.

Evening people....I've submitted my review of the game. Frankly I thought it was a thriller with both teams seemingly trying to win, although United did drop back to defend more at the end.

I think everyone's being harsh on Anelka. I had a great view and he won virtually every header and tackle he went for. He actually worked for the team today and as I say in the review, he frustrated Arsenal fans a lot because he missed so many chances. Andy Cole was similar, but you have to be in those positions to miss them and he does do that. Some of you were only too happy when he arrived last January but now its all 'get rid of him' - he was treated like shit by Grant and has played a handful of games this season so he deserves the chance to embed himself. Selling him and buying someone else is not the answer, but maybe getting Owen in January to put some competition into the strikers would be a good call.

I am not sure, if Anelka should be under scrutiny here!!! After all it is Joe Cole who has not scored twice from the most favourable positions!!!!!! At some points of game I thought my grandmother could do better in front of the goal than Joe Cole!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone else just see MOTD2? They just analysed the game and barely mentioned Chelsea! The whole analysis from Dixon and Hansen was on Manure and Ferdinand, Park and Rooney. Outrageous.

Good to see there's no Manure bias on the Beeb then.

Did note that there wasn't much mention of us on MotD2 - very odd...

Good game; profligate sums us up, although the game plan looked like it probably took a knock when we lost Deco and the Carvalho relatively early on. Alex did well though. Mikel got forward once Scholes went off but (sod's law) having bigged him up all week on here he didn't have one of his best games.

Anelka wasn't bad - the 'open goal' was a tricky one as from the angle just shown on TV I doubt he saw the ball coming until quite late and even then looked slightly ahead of it.

Joe Cole in particular needs the kind of kick in the arse Mourinho used to give him; thought Malouda was unlucky to be taken off instead of him.

Will be interesting to see how the Mancs fare - Berbatov looks like one of those signings that could actually do more harm to their game trying to accomodate him than he will do good. And as PeteW who contributes here noted post game, he is possibly the laziest player in the league right now.

And were they really worth 7 yellow cards? Frustration definitely set in and Sholes was clearly taken off before he got his marching orders, but it wasn't an overtly dirty game, I thought.