It's Spurs in the Cup!

This match is going to be awesome.

We need revenge for the Lane debacle. Wonder if Poll will be the ref again...

Anthony,
It is difficult to disagree it is going to be an awesome game and it is time for revenge!!!!!

Let's get a cage for that one-legged chicken standing on a basketball! :-)

Welcome Spurds welcome..it is long over due... we owe you one

Oh look, Arsehole Wenger's got the blinkers out again : LINK

"Minus 80 is minus 80" yadda yadda. Just shut up man. No mention of it being £60m better than last year.

Even less mention of his nice new £350m ground...

To be fair, his comments, when kept IN CONTEXT, are quite reasonable; but the media would rather stir the pot. Expect them to do the same with JM's next press conference ('Jose Mourinho stoked up the war of words before this Sunday's Carling Cup final clash with Arsenal etc etc).

And then by Saturday they'll start moaning about how boring it is having to listen to managers' mind games.

More importantly, WE HATE TOTTENHAM.

This should be repeated viewing for Drogs before the quarter-final. This is the way to do it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTreL33CC9Q

Made all the more special by a perfect cross from Gronkjaer... I must admit to having had a fondness for him, despite the frustration he often caused. He scored some bloody important goals too, not least the one that beat Liverpool on the last day of the 2002/03 season. He was falling when he struck it too. That goal is burnt on my brain. No Abramovich without it.

We loved Jesper - some of the current crop have their moments, but he was the last great truly unpredictable Chelsea player.

Yeah, I loved the Gronk. So willing despite his limitations - definitely cult hero material. I'd always have taken him over, say, Zenden, who had more skill but no bottle.

And then there's Ambrosetti.

Lordy, the Italian Ryan Giggs; Vialli might as well have called him his Little Shnookums - probably would have been slightly less embarassing for the bloke in the long run.

Great goal against Galatasary though.

All five were great goals...

They were great goals. I'd forgotten just how awesome Zola and TAF were upfront together.

And watching those clips reminded me how I was convinced Jody Morris was the future for club and country. Maybe a little short of the mark.................

LINK

Another one from the memory bank...How good was Gus Poyet!

JD the history lesson is quite interesting...just wanted to point out that he would never have fitted in the current Chelsea team...Great pace lousy cross...hmmm...

For me Kalou and Robben as well as SWP would come before him...notice I have not mentioned JCole??? SO as fast as he was no skill to play that killer pass...any way my thoughts...

I think Chelsea played that great stuff in the 97/98 season. I am actually surprised we did not get a trophy then...

We had the look and played like Champions but faild to win the prem...That for me was a model team...

Cech of course would still be in that team...

Can not remember our number two in that team...but I do remember how reliable Baba was...how bad age is...though Wayne and Cole would still have a say.

Dan Petrescu and Di-matteo were the midfield dynamos not to mention the presence of deschamps...the current group of players of course would have a lot to say about the diamond....Zola a legend of course..Vialli lovely to watch remember him scoring a hattrick in a number of games...Goldbaek..hmmm...And they say we do not have a history...

Please stop this memory line thing...it will not let me do anything else...

Those were the days....and why not these are the days as well...

Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea

Jose - Ferrer was right-back - possibly our best ever, certainly my favourite. We've talked about it before, but that midfield of Di Matteo, Poyet, Petrescu and Wise was absolutely brilliant.

Looking back, that team 97-2000, managed by Jose, might well have won the league. As it is, we came much closer in 99 than is generally accepted.

We did come very close that season. The 2 home defeats to Leicester and West Ham cost us our chance. I remember that West Ham game very vividly. De Canio scored with virtually the last kick of he game to win it for West Ham. I couldn't get out of my seat for about 10 minutes after the final whistle I was so gutted. I was so distraught I got all the way home before realising I had driven to the game and parked near the Stadium. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse I had to go all the way back to the Stadium to collect my car!

Very good article in the Times today by Martin Samuels: Chelsea’s critics guilty of switching from the historical to the hysterical

Finally someone in the media identifys Wenger and the G14 hypocrits for what they are. I very much like the point that it has taken Roman and his fortune to expose the G14 cartel for what is. In Wengers world, no clubs outside of Arsenal Liverpool and Utd would be allowed to win trophies unless they cheated the odds. I would like Wenger to elaborate on how he would make it possible for all clubs to compete on a level playing field before accusing Cheslea of damaging football. As I have said before, it is the G14 that poses the biggest threat to football. Not Romans billions.

The more I think about it the more tragic the whole situation seems and having lived through a period when the prospects of me ever seeing my team win anything more significant than the ZDS cup were pretty much zero, my heart goes out to football supporters of so called smaller clubs.

Does Wenger envisage a world where your average football follower living in, say, Norwich follows his local team, but is forced to support one of Chelsea, Utd, Arsenal or Liverpool if he ever wants to attend a cup final or follow a football team in Europe.

Although I'm no fan of American football, I remember a time when this years winners, Indianapolis, were the sports joke team. Thanks to the draft system they have rebuilt their team.

The prospects of Leeds ever regaining their position in the current system would seem very slim indeed (every cloud and all that ;-)

Agents Wise and Poyet doing a superb job up at Elland Road...

The formation of the Premier League and Champions League have done far more damage to football's competitiveness that RA.

Wenger is defending his own interests, as every club manager will, and this leads to hypocricy and confused thinking, but it's UEFA who have created the present situation and who should receive all the scorn we can muster (which is quite a lot). Perhaps Platini can sort things out, although I won't hold my breath.

Peter H - great story about the West Ham game.

I remember the Leicester one vividly. The guy next to me had put on his regular 2-0 win, Zola first scorer bet, and it looked like he was actually going to win for once. We were all jokingly cheering as Chelsea missed chance after chance to make it
3-0, cos it would have cost him a few hundred quid. Then Leicester brought on Steve Walsh (I think), who caused carnage and forced the comeback. We weren't laughing anymore.

Leicester were despised around the Bridge for a years before and after that, but now I couldn't give a toss about 'em.

That Leicester game was awful. I've had a (rather irrational) dislike of Martin O'Neill ever since seeing him celebrate their equaliser.

The only time they get mentioned round the Bridge these days is in the song...!

So ******* excited with the return of the EPL as it edges 'His Specialness' towards the exit door.

Adios crap football.!

The only person that needs showing the door is you!
Prat...

My sentiments exactly, Clive.

Good result tonight. Knocking up a review post now...

Had a busy day so didn't have time to do a preview.

Ah Peter! "Jose - Ferrer was right-back - possibly our best ever, certainly my favourite. We’ve talked about it before, but that midfield of Di Matteo, Poyet, Petrescu and Wise was absolutely brilliant." I rember it well. Probably when I was happiest with the team overall. We weren't as good as the current team, nor were we as legendary as the Cooke-Osgood team that I supported in my teens and early twenties. But somehow, we were all a lot more carefree as Cheslea fans then. We could hardly believe our luck. Watching Zola, Vialli and my personal favourite, Di_Matteo every week. And Marcel, of course. Nowadays I find it a bit more stressful. Chiefly because we are expecting so much from such a squad.

Nice link Peter H, I've already sent it on to every Goon and Scouser I know.