Champions League: Chelsea 1 - 0 Roma

Was lucky enough to see the second half on ESPN when I returned from my girlfriends place...nice way to start the day...watching chelsea win that is...

The goal was typical JT and so glad to see him score one of those headers again after a long barren spell. Agree he certainly looks very determined to rectify what happened last season.

Roma could not have defended any deeper without all standing on the goal-line. I hope they do try and attack in the next game as that should make some space for our counter-attack and also make for a better game to watch.

Can't wait for Sunday... I hear Robbie Keane may be injured as well.. perhaps the good luck the scousers have had is finally turning and we can rub their stubby noses in the hallowed turf of the Bridge...

KTBFFH

i havent even read Jonathan's post yet as I was so incensed by the bullshit put up on soccernet this afternoon.
read this shit: LINK
it
is
awful
anyway time to read this much better piece of journalism :)

"The booing of John Arne Riise. Short memories, some people. Disgraceful way to welcome a true Chelsea hero back to the Bridge."
HAHAHAHA i don't think i've read something that funny in months

as you said the ref was really obnoxious flashing cards left and right, terry didnt deserve his yellow but i hope that doesnt come back to hurt us later...

you gave deco a 8; however, i am not entirely convinced. while he definitely showed energy his passing was errant and often cut out...although he does deserve some slack after the injury. i felt that lampard was more industrious and deserves more praise for his slick passing and set pieces.

another interesting thing is franco di santo reminds me a little of one salomon kalou who has blossomed (a little) of late. both have slender flames, trickery at their feet, and bags of speed but also have a tendency to lose the ball frustratingly often around the edge of the box when they get outmuscled or their tricks don't quite work. anyway i see a bright future for franco if he can bulk up a little...ive been a much bigger fan of kalou this season as he has definetly matured in the over the summer

in regards to liverpool (who are essentially toothless without torres and probably keane)...this little quote aboout their benefactors gave me a laugh ""Tom is not looking to get out of Liverpool - it is an asset he likes and he doesn't plan an exit." while it is an asset of his i would be pretty worried if rom's was referring to us as an "asset"

@2 - Blue is the Color:

That is just quite atrocious. More so because ESPN generally does a good job with their reporting. I'm sure we should all be embarrassed that Roma parked the bus at the Bridge and we only won 1-0. I forgot that Milan, ManU and Real win every single game 5-0 every single year with expansive, flowing football.

I mean, Liverpool won 5-0 tonight didn't they? Oh... wait...

It doesn't matter what you do, you just can't win. Win big? Well a £100M team should do that. Grind out a victory? What a waste of a £100M team. No class, no history. Lose? Oh, look at the upstarts. Money just can't buy you success.

@Blue is the colour
Yes it was simply an astonishing piece of shoddy writing, and as far as that KNOBHEAD Alan Green goes, he should be sacked from the BBC for his biased hatred of all clubs bar Liverpool, I might even ask for a refund on my TV licence.

Anyone with an ounce of football knowledge could see that Roma came for a point, when you play with everyone behind the ball it's takes patience to break teams down. I suppose this plus side for us is that it was good practice for Sunday, as we know how Liverpool will set themselves out.

I disagree with your player ratings.

I thought Terry (for his goal & his potential goal saving tackle) and Mikel were our best players, would have given them 8 a piece.

Kalou was good in the first half, however faded in the second. He gets a 7 along with Carvalho who was solid all night.

I thought everyone else deserved a 6. Our passing in the first half was poor, especially from the likes of Malouda, Deco, Bridge and Boswinga. I don't remember too many decent crosses going into the box all night.

Admittedly Roma made it difficult for us, however our midfielders still had plenty of time on the ball because they were sitting so deep, and plenty of our passes still went astray.

Lets hope that on Sunday liverpool come to play, because I would rather poke my eyes with a needle, than watch a Nil-all draw like last season

@ Blue Is The Colour.....

That report is disgusting..... They can fuck off.... When someone finally beats us there they can deride the atmosphere created....Until then, Shut the fuck up!

Especially Alan Green. I really hope we spank the Scousers, just for him, on Sunday!

@Blue is the colour

Yes it's all bollocks. The piece refers to other teams singing the songs sung by their fathers and grandfathers bla bla. Both my grandfathers supported Chelsea and so did my father and father in law and we've held family season tickets since the 1950's. People who claim we have no history imply that before Roman we didn't exist and that we've suddenly been manufactured like the Milton Keynes Dons or Girls Aloud. We've been around since 1905 and have 100+ years of history. The problem for Liverpool fans in particular is we're adding to our history whereas they are history.

Back to last nights game. I though we played really well, never gave up trying to play in the right way and deserved to win. For me Mikel was our best player and looks really assured and confident and seems to have ironed out his moments of recklessness.

Bring on the History Boys Sunday.

a)Why change sth that worked so well vs.Boro?
Deco&Lamps? Either you play Belletti and Obi behind them or give them 'a ball each'. Without possession they are no better than Lee Bowyer.

2)Flashes of good old JT, Bridge vs. Cashley? Bridge should keep his place.

d) Deco&Lamps were both ineffective!

Why get wound up by the ESPN nonsense or Alan Green - either way it's just individuals who know very little about football culture trying to elicit a reaction. The guy who wrote the ESPN article is so obviously lacking in knowledge in football, past or present that it would take the rest of the day to point out the feebleness of the entire article from any persepective you care to mention. Alan Green is simply an over promoted hack who believes that ignorant ranting and bitter old man in the pub routine actually works.

Ignore them both.

Fleckit is correct. Terrible article by football ignoramus and not worth getting bothered about. Also, our support yesterday was tomtit - Roma were great. In fact, once again, European supporters showed they are leagues above English supporters in terms of vocal support - they were far louder, more colourful and imaginative than United, Liverpool and Spurs put together. United are the only ones who can compete in sheer number of songs, but all of the Manc's are tedious dirges whereas the Italians had some real corkers.

On the pitch, Terry had his best game for a long time, Mikel was very good, everybody else pretty average. Very ho-hum, looks like we're keeping our irons sheathed for Sunday.

Please excuse terrible misplace apostrophe in final sentence of first par. I hang my head.

Well, "it's the sign of champions" and all that when you can win tricky games like that. Bodes well for the final. 10 more wins and we're champions (i think my maths holds up?)

GOOD:
1. Result - Roma parked the bus and hoped to snatch one on the break so to break down their 10-men behind the ball tactic was crucial. We've now got a lead in this group and should cruise through. It was good to get this bad performance out of us before Sunday. Now Scolari will have the chance to work out better ways of getting round 10 defenders with only a lone striker (Torres) for Ricky and JT to contend with.
2. JT - A goal! After his first 2 seasons with Jose, teams seem to put 2 defenders on him at all set pieces and we've seen virtually nothing from him since. But it was a great near-post run and header. But his last-ditch tackle in the first-half and all round play made him a worthy MOTM. Seems to be a little more mobile as well. Maybe he's learnt how to play with a broken back, smashed cheekbone and broken foot.
3. No injuries - We've got to include it as it's such a rarity.
4. Aquilani - Was Roma's best player before his injury and is definitely a star of the future. Ranieri tried to buy him for us in 2003 but he rejected us to stay at his boyhood club.

BAD:
1. Possession - I know that we sometimes get these days off but we seemed to give the ball away a lot. We seemed to have very few ideas from open play and began to rush our passing. Just before the goal went in our play seemed a little desperate.
2. Bridge - Nice to see Henry back stirring up trouble. But tonight he was poor. Kept making forward runs but his delivery and passing was awful. Good decision to keep Ashley fit for Sunday.
3. ESPN aritcle - Their irrational hatred of Chelsea means it can only have been written by one man - Graham Poll.
4. Bench - Injuries meant very few attacking options when we needed them.

Overall a good win. Can't wait for Sunday.

A great article on Chelsea:

LINK

"In fact, sometimes it almost helps their cause if they’re not the most gifted or brilliant player out there. I’m reminded of the freakishly large German centreback Robert Huth (now, tragically, condemned to Boro) who was never quite as good as his physique suggested, but who cemented his place in Bridge mythology with a free-kick that frequently hit the wall, but with enough force to rupture the poor sod on the receiving end of it."

"So there you have it. Lampard is Christ, and Belletti the Holy Spirit. Which, I suppose, makes Scolari God."

JD - not sure the freebie scarf belongs in the good - indeed going back to the discussion on the economics of football I wonder is this part of the Kenyon World Domination Plan to decimate the Street Traders' sales of tat outside the ground with cheap'n'nasty polyester scarves now to go with the flags that were dished out the last 2 years. If it's replica shirts next year I'll start to wonder - once rivals are killed off, prices in the megastore will of course soar and the freebies disappear :-)

I'd agree the Roma fans were great in the face of little encouragement from their team's performance - probably the noisiest since [I think] Shalke 04 last year?

@12. PeteW - don't beat yourself up - it's still an unexpected joy, though common on here, to find bloggers with even a smidgen of awareness of punctuation/grammar who can get beyond text-speak - and some day the Edit function may return.....

Thanks for staying up late to do the report Jonathan!

Couple of quick points.

1- I quit reading the "insider" long long long ago. Why bother, FFS?

2- Deco was wasteful with his forced forward passing which helped break our fluidity throughout the match, but it was his first game back from injury.

3- I watched the match here in America twice. First live on Shitanta and then on ESPN replay. Chelsea support/singing came through much much better on ESPN. Dunno how it was at The Bridge. Perhaps Mark or Jonathan can expand on that.

Oh and I absolutely love all these clean sheets! Long may they continue!

Has to be said that anyone who refers to themselves as "The Insider" obviously isn't in any way shape or form. Very ill-informed piece - don't mind a bit of factual criticism but the vast majority of it is opinionated nonsense.

@16 - Celery

Chelsea support was OK - we had our moments but Roma were generally more lively all round.

What are you talking about man, Chelsea support was awful!

Wasn't too bad in the MHU - there was even some synchronised scarf twirling on occasion. That virtually counts as civil disorder these days.

Roman needs to hire a coach thats immune from lamparditis.

Re The ESPN Insider (Insider what? Insider someone elses anus?)

Arrant nonsense of the crap normally spewing forth from Football 365 and best ignored.

As we win trophies, as the football becomes more impressive, there's very little left to have a pop at is there? So have a go at the fans. If they spend all night screaming the place down, have a go at the catering, if that's Cordon Bleu complain about the amount of pubes in the urinals, compared of course to the big clubs who employ people to pick them out at regular intervals an so on and so on...

Really looking forward to ESPN getting their hands on some TV football coverage if they think that is quality, nay amusing, reportage. Still they might like to give Alan Green a job. Its his sort of level and we can listen to Rdio 5 Live without grinding our teeth.

Thanks all for the responses to my thoughts on matters financial, there were some useful pointers and information in there. Apologies for not joining in but the awsome responsibilities I shoulder on a daily basis prevented me from tapping the ol' keys......(sorry ma'am you wanted fries with that?...)

Fantastic goal by Terry!

I was distrubed by the "Insider's" article. I didn't know they put in biased dumbass pricks as reporters in ESPN.

@23. Foodie Doodie - "I didn't know they put in biased dumbass pricks as reporters in ESPN" - you obviously never watch ESPN's coverage of NFL Monday Night Football presided over by Tony Kornheiser, that deadliest of "dumbass pricks" - one who thinks he is the Oscar Wilde of TV commentary.

Not changing subject much - this headline cheered me up as being "A Good Start" and thought perhaps he could take Mark Halsey with him. Sadly as so often the content of the story doesn't really sustain the headline - and I see with horror Styles is 4th official at Stamford Bridge on Sunday so His Bigness better be praying for no injuries to the referee...

LINK

Re History:

My father was a Blues supporter. He assures me that if we play one of the "classic" matches from the 1950's frame-by-frame you can see him with his father in the crowd (I can't make it out myself!) After he emigrated, he used to make me watch "Match of the Day" with him every Sunday (as a father myself, I now know that it was so he didn't have to mow the lawn, but I didn't appreciate that at the time) and when Chelsea were on, he was particularly excited.

I am, obviously, a passionate CFC supporter and both of my sons proudly wear their blue strips. My eldest son cried after the Champions League final last year and was teased mercilessly by his best mate, a ManU supporter who had ironically emigrated from Coventry the year before!

I reckon thats at least four generations of Blues supporters in my family so far (I'm not sure about my great-grandfather), and none of us has had the opportunity to get anywhere near the Bridge for more than 50 years!

Anyone who says we have no history and no passion is clearly talking bollocks!

The piece is based on the premise that only supporters have big clubs have fans with family support that stretches back generations and who have been singing the same songs for decades. But this is obviously true of every single football club from Real Madrid to Real Neasden. Indeed, probably even more so in the latter than the former. A friend of mine was just telling me the words to a Northampton Town song - a folk song of real beauty and nostalgia, incidentally - that his grandfather taught him when he was a nipper.

And if you don't understand that, you don't understand football. The silly dude was probably writing about ice hockey five years ago.

Reminds me of that terrible but well-meaning book 'How Football Explains the World', which didn't. Any overseas supporter who really wants to 'get' football culture, in England at least, should probably read 'Steaming In', dig out the 'Foul' compilation and then work their way through 'When Saturday Comes' from issue 1.

Chumps like this ESPN writer, in their desperation to define what being a 'real' supporter is about and getting it so badly wrong, actually just reveal their own ignorance, stupidity and snobbery. If it's any consolation, he almost certainly doesn't get paid very much money to do so.

Kenyon's returned from hiding after the Robinho debacle:

LINK

It's nice to see that he's on the same page as Phil.

Scolari: "I want two more in January"

Kenyon: "There will be absolutely no signings in January. I think Scolari is very on board!"

The nerves are beginning to start ahead of Sunday. It's a must win. Many are predicting a repeat of last season's cagey 0-0. A re-run of that dire performance would not go down well. I'm hoping for a tight 1-0. Maybe through a set-piece or pen from Lamps.

It was a very good game but chelsea were lucky to come out with awin

well, I agree pressure starts to pile up. Tomorrow's game is very important and importance of win can't be overestimated!!! We have to win whatever it takes!
Come on Chelsea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Keep the Blue Flag Flying High!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice to see something positive about us and Big Phil - as long as you avoid the bloggers' comments. Jealousy!

LINK

I do not really care what press writes about us. I did not care when they were saying we are boring team. I do not care now, when they are defining us as an attractive team. I do give an f.. word what they say, as long as we win!!!
Keep the Blue Flag Flying High!

We are better than Liverpool, simple as that, much better. Of course they will treat it like an FA cup or Champions league game and put 10 men to defend for their lives while trying to get something on the break or from a set piece, penalty or free kick. Benitez know it's the only chance they will have to score whether to win or get a draw if we score first or not. Thing is, this game will define Scholari. Putting aside all the circus football stuff, a win is the only option, no draws and no excuses. Already in my eyes and may others, Scholari has already failed the first hurdle of failing to beat Man-U at the Bridge. Dont let's forget, Jose's first game, Manu-U he won..... Tottenham who cant win anything held us to a draw. If these were the two telling games before the real fight starts after Christmas, then for all the goals and flowing football, fullbacks running up etc, the jury is still out. After Mourinho's time in the Prem, the outcome of games like these are as much about Psychology of winners as of nearly men like last year. The lads are good enough we know for these games. Is the managers tactics? Let's hope. One game can change everything. If we dont win, then the doubts will already start from fans, other teams will give us a harder time. The players will start to have niggly doubts and draws or worse threaten over the next two months, that is reality. Mourinho may be hard to follow, But if Scholari and the board wants to start putting his ghost to rest and really move on, tomorrow is one one of those days, otherwise the Matthew harding Stand at the least will be unforgiven after the match......

get in blue scousers! done us a huge favour ahead of tomorrows game. a win tomorrow and we can really start to pull away.

@Dio,
You definitely right mate, tomorrow is the day, not the Doomsday, but definitely the day. Of course, if Scolari wants to win something, he has to start to beat teams from the big four and there is no better place to start it than SB!!

Ramos, Poyet, Comolli and Alvarez all SACKED.

HARRY REDKNAPP talking to Spurs!

Crazy goings on at the lane. Come on Bolton!

Seems to have taken the attention from our game tomorrow.

Let's all laugh at Tottenham......

Seriously, what a joke they are!

Come on Bolton!

@GREENLIGHT
Let's all laugh at Tottenham......

Troubles of the others are not the only happy moments in life. I would prefer to laugh at Liverpool!!
Come on Chelsea!!!!

Just woke up to Spurs news. Living quite close to Pompey I can barely stop laughing at their misfortune, but the real laughter is on Spurs.

Honestly, could their plight be any funnier? It's like a collective group of Mr Beans have taken over.

A shocking performance today. As Ruud Gullit said "Chelsea had no ideas." We had no invention, no creativity and never looked like scoring. People will say that they stole the victory with a deflected goal, but Rafa outsmarted Scolari with perfect tactics and Liverpool played better than us. A very very bad day.

Aye, I only heard it on 5live but it sounded like Rafa set the Liverpool team up perfectly. With so many injured we do have a good 11 left to play, but it gives Big Phil very few options to change the game and the setup.

For me another top top quality striker is needed at xmas. We need to pay big bucks for a 24ish top quality striker with electric pace and great finishing. Anelka simply is not good enough.

Remember that they completely outplayed us without Torres!

When looking to the bench we had no good alternatives. We knew it would happen, but not having a Plan B to Robinho is proving very costly. I can remember only 1 chance in 90mins - A cole's swipe. That shows how poorly we played. We have to admit that in terms of tactics Rafa is just smarter than Big Phil.

So far our record against the top 4 is 1 pt from 6. The scousers have got 6 from 6 (both without Torres)!

The good side is that annoying home record has gone now, I think we lost points last season as we were too scared to attack the mid table teams later on in games and gamble.

Can't wait for the next game to see what they say before the match. I really hope he says " with a undefeated record stretching back to, last week, Chelsea!"

Still even if we had had Robinho, I would be a but concerned if Big Phil's only change was to put him on and hope he has a moment of brilliance. I would rather he changed the tactics of the team to expose the weaknesses in our opponents.

That is why he was the TSO. You always felt he would change it, and the pressure would mount and mount, till we scored. Haven't felt that with Phil yet or Avram.

Remember that they completely outplayed us without Torres!


Sorry Habs I don't know what game you were watching but we certainly weren't outplayed. They came with a plan to frustrate which they did with success, the first 45 mins was very much attack versus defence. They changed it in the second and pushed further up field, we certainly lacked ideas to break them down, but when you're a goal up you have something to hang onto.

A dissapointing performance, but I hardly think Liverpoo cut us to shreds and outplayed us, they were well organised and defended as if their lives depended on it. As a matter of fact I found it rather a dull game, as it usually is between us, they came for a draw, but sneaked a win, it happens.

Totally agree Benjami. Scolari's HT talk resulted in less pressure than the first half. For the 30mins after they scored we pushed forward and cranked up the pressure. But after the break Mikel sat back and seemed to have been told not to gallop forward. Jose was the master at getting draws or victories when on the backfoot. I remember the Arsenal game when Essien scored or Spurs at home in the FA Cup when 3-1 down. Scolari seemed scared to go for it and the fact that we kept JT back until the 91st min was proof of his cautiousness. Jose would have gone 3 at the back after 60 mins if we stil weren't back level (as he did in the Carling Cup final against the Scousers).

I hope people don't point to the injuries as an excuse. We were simply outplayed, outthought and outclassed.

Just to rub it in, Robinho has scored twice today.

Missing out on Robinho looks all the more costly now, doesn't it?
That saving of 2 million is looking to be pretty expensive at the moment

It is true we never looked like scoring! There were lot of passing, lot of movement , particularly in the first half of the game, but we never really threatened. Reina had very easy game.

Rafa realised that we had problems agaist Roma when they came for a point and used the same tactics.I know we have injuries but our only missing forward was Drogba.For Kenyon to say we don't need to buy in January is either optimistic or just plain stupid.

@Clive

In my opinion Liverpool certainly outplayed us. They wanted the home record and turned up with the perfect away from home gameplan. In the second half, Liverpool's passing and counter-attacks were much more threatening than any of ours. Gerrard was running the show and despite us having a lot of the ball, we passed it around in front of their defenders, ran out of ideas and hoofed it into the box. In terms of performance, the Scousers certainly outplayed us. What exactly did we do to create a chance?

And looking back on it, Phil's comments that we can go the season unbeaten, must have riled Liverpool.

We certainly need some new attacking players in Januaary. The return of the shit Malouda (been hooked twice before the 55th min in the past two games), the fact that the arrival of Di Santo seems to instigate the long ball game and that bringing on Sinclair is a token gesture (0 touches in 8 mins today) tells Kenyon that we need new players. Anelka seems to have gone missing this past week and Kalou seems to have turned back into Kalouless (his rabbit in the headlights impression makes me angry every time he misses a chance or a pass). Our clash against Hull on Wednesday has now turned into a MUST WIN. Liverpool seem to have the same drive as we did when winning the league and the fact that they're 3 points ahead having played Utd and us is a little ominous.

More bad news

Goal - Tottenham 2 (Darren Bent Pen 76) Bolton 0

For f***s sake

Goal - Man City 3 (De Souza Robinho 72, Hat-trick) Stoke 0

Robinho HAT-TRICK as well. I wonder what Big Phil is thinking of Kenyon's decision to save £2m now?

@Habs
That is always Liverpool's game plan away from home two holding midfielders and hit on the counter. They certainly showed great desire in their defending but they didn't come to put us on the back foot like Utd did in the first half hour at the Bridge earlier in the season. That game had 0-0 written all over it, I thought taht Carragher was the heartbeat of their team today and he organised their defence brilliantly, Gerrard was AWOL in the first half pretty much although was a bit more involved in the second half, but he hardly run things. Look at the stats LINK they speak for themselves, outplayed we were not out thought yes, but it looks like we'll have to agree to disagree.

Ok we'll agree to disagree.

The damning stat is the possession. 61% possession mostly consisted of pretty triangles at the back and in midfield until we got it to the front 3 who immediately lost it. Pretty football doesn't work anymore when we come up against teams like Utd, Roma and Liverpool who know that if you defend deep against the pace of Anelka, use hardworking wingers (Park, Fletcher, Kuyt, Riera) to block Cole and Bosingwa, then we run out of ideas pretty quickly!

We had 21% Possession Advantage but only 2% in Territorial Advantage,which seems to think that we just had more of the ball in our own half.
I know everyone realises it but the simple fact is that our attacking options consists of youngsters who were either on loan or playing in the reserves last season.
I can't understand why Kenyon doesn't realise that we need a striker or two,is it because his arrogant pride refuses to admit he messed up when trying to sign Robinho or his he trying to convince everyone we didn't need another forward in the first place.

Peeps, plenty to discuss - match report being constructed as I type!

@49

I thought Di Santo and Mikel were our two brightest players today. The amount of times I saw Mikel skip through Liverpool players like they weren't there then pass it to someone who lost it were astonishing.

The long ball game to Di Santo was exactly what we needed, I think (indeed, it gave us our best chance of the game in Ash's ill-judged volley). In the first half, we sent plenty of long balls Anelka's way and while surprisingly winning most of the headers, there was no one else able to catch the flick on.

If we'd started with Drogba today, I'm certain we would have got at least a point. Di Santo is much more suitable for the lone striker role than Anelka.

We've lost the record but you always learn more about your team in a loss than you do from a win. I'm sure Phil will recognise our mistakes this game and find a way to put them right. As much as it worries me to say it, Liverpool look like genuine contenders this season.

Di Santo and Sinclair should start against Hull, no question whatsoever.

Well that was a bit of a downer, to say the least. Had to happen eventually; rather it wasn't to them, but you don't get to choose I suppose.

And sorry, but anyone who thinks that Robinho would have made a blind bit of difference to today's outcome wants their bumps feeling; they'd have had two players standing on his toes every time he got within ten feet of the ball. Key to today wasn't a tricky winger, it was a big-arsed centre forward to knock heads with Carragher and co. - there's a reason why Liverpool hate playing against him and today was a perfect illustration. Anelka alone up against two of the best centre halves in the country behind two holding players? No chance. Deco not being up with the pace didn't help either.

Has to be said that the Carragher / Alonso / Mascherano defensive axis
around which Liverpool base their play (especially away from home) is looking exceptional and made of the stuff that titles are won with; they pressed / starved our front line out of existence today as I suspect they will do with much of their opposition this season. 'Anti football' to an extent, but if it picks up 6 points against United and Chelsea where you only got 1 or 2 last season, you can see why they're doing it.

All hail the exceptional home record though; as much as the loss hurts we should be celebrating four plus years unbeaten in the league - hugely impressive.

Important game against Hull; I wouldn't fancy facing a Chelsea side who'd just lost at home for the first time in years - should be quite a game.

Spurs winning as well - the only thing missing is that call from the clinic to confirm the syphilis diagnosis and the weekend will be complete!

I think Kenyon is embarrassed. Scolari asked for only 2 players when he arrived - Deco and Robinho and Kenyon ended up with a 50% failure rate. When Jose arrived Kenyon only failed to secure 1 out of his 6 targets - Steven Gerrard. Kenyon just needs to admit that we MUST buy in January. Seeing Sinclair run around and get ignored every game and Di Santo struggling with long hoofs upfront tells the fans that this as yet is not a balanced squad. Who's to say that the return of Didier will solver all our problems. He's been injury plagued for 18 months and has missed pre-season. One day we'll have to find a way of playing without Didier so why not start it in January?

@JD
My thoughts exactly, except you always put it far more eloquently than myself.

It seems strange that we've lost our home record. Our fortress has been breached, but lately it has seemed like a millstone around our necks. Against Spurs we refused to go for the win out of fear of losing and some say that now we'll have the freedom to attack. But i don't exactly sign up to that theory. Teams won't suddenly think that now Chelsea have lost at the Bridge, we should go there and attack them. Teams will still want a 0-0 and it'll be up to us to break down their 10 men behind the ball tactic. It's just annoying that we lost the 86 game record, the 29 consecutive games unbeaten and the unbeaten in 2008 records. I did think that we could get Arsenal's invincible record and bring up the 100 unbeaten at home this season, but it was obviiously not meant to be. Whenever players or Phil starts talking about the Quad (before the Utd game) or going unbeaten (on Friday Phil said) we seem to produce a crap performance.

Maybe now we should close ranks, give up this friendly "everyone loves us" image and go back to the nasty, efficient and relentless side that brought us 2 titles.

@ Habs - I've said it before, players and managers should not be allowed to mention winning Quads or triples or Doubles. Its tempting fate to give the kiss of death.

Just 1 defeat people...and it was meant to happen at some time

I dont think we should take anything to the extreme here... the team put in an effort like they'v always done this season, but loserpool were better on the day...teams with tight midfield and defence, and who close us down quickly anytime we have possession would give us troubles...that much was evident from these last 2 matches...Its scolari's job to find a solution to this kind of problem, and i'm sure lessons would have been learnt...

In my opinion, we need pacy, skillful wingers n striker cos our front men appeared blunt!

Always Blue!

Habs, I usually quietly agree with most of your posts BUT today, nobloody way did Stevie Me run the show!!! I thought apart from his one shot in the first half, he was pretty quiet (as was Frank). The guy that impressed me today with a wide variety of touches and little layoffs was Mikel. Best Blue player on the pitch today by far.

PLAIN AND SIMPLE SCOLARI IS JUST A WEAK COACH.REST ASSURED HE WONT WIN ANYTHING
THIS SEASON .THE JEW WAS VERY SMART BUT WE SACKED HIM