Stuart James on General Charles C Krulak, Randy Lerner's right-hand man. A former US Marine Corps Commandant and military adviser to the White House David Conn also included Krulak in December’s 442 on Aston Villa.
Stewart Robson picks his team of the first half of the season.
Stewart Fisher writes about the reasons behind the influx of Irish players into the SPL.
Merry Christmas to everyone and please feel free the post as you see fit.
L feel that kanu deserves the other striker role compared to rooney.l have to say adebayor has taken the games like the old henry , if he does not recover as gareth cook was saying bobby do you see wenger selling him and bulding another squad wuth the money
I can't agree with Cole or Lennon being in a season-to-date team. Lennon has missed too much time and Cole hasn't even been among the top 5 left backs this season. I would pick Matthew Taylor at left back. Recent scoring binge, but also has played a part in a surprisingly strong Portsmouth team. As for the other winger, why not stick Gerrard out on the right. After all that's where Benitez AND McClaren like him to play.
Difficult to argue with many of the names (Gilberto, Vidic, etc.) but Rooney, Cole and Lennon over Saha, Kanu, Evra and Agbonlahor?
P.S. So pleased I got up at 5 am to see Paulo Ferreira as my team's hot new center back. I felt sorry for Drogba, Carvalho and Essien - the rest of Chelsea's "deep squad" players were passengers. Bobby said the last thing Chelsea need is new players to intgerate but with Ballack, Shevchenko, one center back and the likes of Mikel and SWP as back-up ...
Last edited by LosAngelesChelseaFan on December 26th at 9:53 AM.
l have to say the sky website gives a wrong approach to the equation
l don't think we won ugly but we just attacked like most teams would, we did waste a few chances to put the game away but that was a classic away match, we had 16 or so shot on goal.as for hleb l thought hotye gave him little of an outlet like eboue does.kolo was more of a right back to cope with the pace of bouanza .the guy who stabilized the game was big phil, he can cope with aerial threat and , is really a good defender.the good thing is that wenger has a lot of options in positin such that if one does not perfom , there is one waiting for a chance, and senderos highlighted that
Bobby,
Halfway through the EPL Season and it seems it's a two horse race between Man Utd & Chelsea. Looking at Liverpool, Arsenal, and Bolton, who do you think will end up in the 3rd and 4th positions. All three teams have playd some great games, but all three have also played some really poor games. I think Arsenal and Liverpool are a notch above the Wanderers, but Bolton seems motivated this year.
l still would pick chelsea over manu, they have had a good home game fixtures with big clubs, and l feel fixtures to everton,anfield, spurs,arsenal and chelsea will give united a real scare
Does anyone have any recomendations for fantasy EPL games besides the Fox league (I'm already in this one) and is there any way to see how our favorite sportscasters on FSW are doing?
As a loyal reader, lover of Holidays, and lover of all things great about the beautiful game, I must do two things:
a) Wish you, yours, and all present a happy Holiday season, and
b) state one fact: Shevchenko is world class. He is not just good, or very good. World Class. He will come good. To an exponential degree. henry14, LA Chelsea Fan, Venti, et al, mark these words: Neglect Andriy at your own risk. McMahon named his cat after him, for bollocks sake.
l have to say that l feel chelsea already were showing problems after selling gallas, l personally feel that terry is highly overrated, vidic,gallas,toure,king and rio are better than he is
H14, While I agree with you on Chelsea not mangaging the Gallas salary situation a year ago, Chelsea went thrugh a year of Gallas as the only tenable left back. Not doing the Cole deal was probably a bigger risk. Huth was never an answer.
Sure, Terry has not played full out for a couple of months because he was, we now know, playing injured and below his true form. Boularouz looks a liability after a reasonable start. There was always a CB risk from game 1. Mourinho's being playing the cards he was dealt, now he has to get a CB.
Davard: I'd love for you to be right about Sheva but for now getting Joe Cole and Robben fit seems more important than whether Sheva gets his game back or Ballack can create some decent chances.
As I understand it, Richards only played RB since being at Man City.
Will it happen? I guess it depends on whether Chelsea have an alternative at either RB (Lucas Neill?) or RW to allow the SWP swap. Man City say Chelsea haven't approached them for Richards, which probably means nothing. Presumably Chelsea would rather get a solid RB plus a CB and get Essien back into the midfield.
Even though Ronaldo, etc., have played very well, it shows that Man U avoiding major injuries has made a big difference for them over Chelsea.
Last edited by LosAngelesChelseaFan on December 29th at 3:34 AM.
Its a hard decision now for a young player if Chelsea want them. PROS... Join a top club, double wages, Champs lge football. CONS... See Shaun Wright Phillips.
chelsea can not hide behind injuries, arsenal also have and injury list that makes you cry, chelsea have been lucky with injuries, God forbid nothing happens to drogba or you will be screwwd we went to stamford bridge without 4 key player of which rosicky and toure are back but we found a way of dealing with it, let chelsea deal with injuries
The lovable but lowly Blades down the erratic Gunners and blank check ($500 million to date) Chelsea is witness to the onset of their battle for second place at the hands of mighty Fulham.
With a wee bit of luck Bolton can make that Chelsea in third place!
While John Terry is definitely missed I have a very hard time accepting Chelsea have no other capable defenders. There are a few of Mourinho’s old FC Porto team available and what about that whinging great book writer they acquired in the off season?
If Mourinho wants to whine about his injury list he should stop and give Glenn Roeder or Martin ONeill a ring.
I thought football was a team sport and not reliant on the unfortunate circumstances of one player. Fanatical fan and the sensationalizing English press notwithstanding.
In their past five or six outings it was Chelsea coming from behind to #### at least a point. Some call this “character” but it is no way to continually win football matches. Eventually you will, and they did, fail to produce.
I wonder what will happen if Chelsea are dropped from the Champions League at the hands of…. wait for it; FC Porto.
In the mean time it’s ManU pulling away for the EPL crown.
l thought it was always going to be a hard game by vertue that it is an waay match.one thing to note is that sheffield were at home and even if they were reserves out there it needed a good , perfomance to win.having said that l feel people are sliding too much intothe arsenal squad.people might talk of perfomance but l feeel the injuries did us harm on this one, every part of the team except th goal keeper had never played together and the combination play was always going to be difficult.wenger has not managed to go into double figures with the same team playing and that is a shame, and not his fault but as much as we have seen chelsea slump to one injury , what more about us with nine first team players out.having said that l feel that wenger neeeds a good long chart with toure and hoyte.the longer we had stayed at nil nil the higher our chances of winning but because we make mistakes at the back we reduce the chances of us winning.the pitch did not help but l am looking forwad seeing some players come back.l agree with wenger the player did their best.l thought what baptista showed was excellent and he was not hiding something that impressed me , l know given a number of chances he will improve
Well said Henry14. In my Heart I knew we would lose this one, when was the last time Arsenal won a saturday evening away match?? The last one I remember was against Newcastle when Bergkamp scored that great dummy spin goal against Dabizas and Given.
All this injury stuff is driven by the law of probability and risks taken at the beginning of the season:
Man U probability: Man U will be okay if Rooney and Saha step up to the plate without RVN, Scholes keeps pace, no major injuries. Reality: They play beyond that probability with Saha prolific early on, big bonus from Ronaldo playing out of his skin, Scholes, Giggs, don’t fade away, Even Neville keeps playing through injury.
Arsenal: Bobby predicted building season, probability of not enough depth in defense and young players getting experience. Reality: on track, with brilliant play derailed by injuries and inconsistency and 6 wins behind Man U
Chelsea: Probability: Sheva and Ballack help Chelsea move to next level, but with some risk of not gelling. Joe Cole has career season, Boularouz provides cover. Reality: probability doesn't work out - Ballack gets lost and can’t contribute, Sheva can’t bring his skills to the EPL, Cole out for season, Terry can’t play through injury and Boularouz is unusable leaving the defense wth no cover. Drogba plays with skill and passion. Mourinho seems surprised but it’s just law of probability: Mourinho on Chelsea today.
Portsmouth, Bolton, West Ham – we all did a great job of predicting their probable seasons!
Happy new year all. Enjoy the roller coaster.
Big thanks to Bobby for building this play pen!!
Last edited by LosAngelesChelseaFan on December 31st at 1:28 PM.
L have a very bad feeling about the game on tuesday, wenger does not have a good record against pardew and from the terrible perfomance l saw at sheffield l feel that we are going to lose this game.having watched the nature of our season thus far one can not fail to loook at a the amount of away games we are left with and can really say we are not going to qualify fir the champions leauge.aston villa, blackburn,everton, spurs, livapool, pompey newcastle are some of the physical sides that await to see us drop points.to be quite honest as much as l live arsenal with such an away team fixture and a team full of people refusing to grow, l can not imagine myself watching uefa cup football and see big sam in camp nou. I really do not know if wenger watches the match like we all do because , his post match comments are far from reality.the arsenal players seem to think that they are the best and are entittled to play their own style but , they forget that you really need to work hard to impose that style.going a few years back when paddy was around in 2001 and 1998 you could see that although we did not play this preety , players were stubbon and would not accept defeat. a team of our quality has only managed to have to have back to back wins twice thus far which is a man city record.If you look at the fixture list consisting of united and chelsea and big sam also coming back you find it hard to predict any score line in most of our matches.To me it seems that the players are not aware of what the club expects from him and wenger needs to start to appreciate that he has failed in
CONT:the balance and consistency of the team because ithe blame is squarely on his shoulders. a number of things have gone under my skin this season
1.clearly henry is not a captain like character, it has not been said for the first time , but even when he is on fire or not l justfeel he is not suit with it as player and mainly his position.of all the times l have seen him before a game he has been all hugs and kisses with the opposition which l feel affects the player, neville and terry have a business like approach
2.we really need a wide man at least one it is a must. we have central midfilders player wide postions which clearly does us little favours
3 l am not a fan of shouting at player but l feel that wenger has to really get to show his players that they are playing good enough.some might say it a poor managerial quality but saying that l feel that benitez, mourinho and fergie have used it and worked to a larger extend
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