Chelsea Thread

gerd said:
This is not about Rooney. This is about a player who received a red card and should be left alone. Hazard did not kick a kid like you are ridiculously implying beach.

1 he was a 17 year old who before the match had made his intentions clear
2 Hazard made a toe poke and never touched the kid when he did that, he had the ball
3 before that Hazard pushed the balladolescent and that is why he deserved his red card.

Of course you will not accept this from me, but look at the reactions of the football world, even the president of Swansea has declared that a red card is enough. Oh and Rio Ferdinand also defended Hazard. If Hazard would have played for any other club you would have defended him.

And the fact that the police will investigate this because 3 idiots made a complaint against Hazard is outrageous. But apparently this is the law in the United Kingdom.
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Your points are, at best, disingenious.

1. He kicked a ballboy. Unless Eden Hazard has some remarkable knowledge, he had no idea how old the kid was. You can't justify it just because you later found out he was 17. That's preposterous way of looking at things.

2. He kicked him. I'm sorry, have you not seen any of the gifs? Yes, the ball pops out but you can quite clearly see he kicks him in the ribs. This isn't a football challenge. It's a f*cking ballboy. It doesn't matter if you get the ball, keep one foot on the ground or lead with your studs. It's the f*cking ballboy. There is nothing in the rules about acceptable ways to tackle a ballboy, because YOU CAN'T TACKLE THE BALLBOYS.

3. Agreed.

This whole thing has just blown my mind. It's not just Chelsea fans either. The fact that the kid was a little pr*ck in absolutely no circumstances excuses a professional footballer from shoving and kicking a ballboy. It really is that simple.

It doesn't matter how old he is. It doesn't matter he was cheekily trying to shave off, literally, 5 seconds by holding the ball. It doesn't matter that he drank a lager.

You cannot kick a ballboy.

It doesn't need police investigation, I'm happy that the Swansea manager decreed it over and I'm happy Hazard apologised. But Hazard kicked a ballboy, and clearly has to be punished. I like Hazard, I like the new look Chelsea but you cannot kick a ballboy.
 
amineken22 said:
Bebo i'm wondering why would you assume he speaks Dutch? Wouldn't be Flemish a more logical choice since he's from Belgium?
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Flemish and Dutch are pretty much identical. In a way is more of a dialect of Dutch and funny enough in some ways more grammatically proper than Dutch itself.
 
amineken22 said:
Really? I didn't know that, so how come it's considered as a language?
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Don't forget Belgium and the Netherlands were the same country for the longest time albeit mostly divided into the protestant north and catholic south, which included the southern provinces of present day Netherlands along w Flanders. Don't know if Flemish really is considered a language. My understanding always was that the official languages of Belgium are Dutch and French, w a small portion near the German border speaking German. Perhaps our resident Belgian, Gerd, can clarify.
 
Officially Dutch and Flemish are one and the same language: Nederlands. You have North Nederlands (Dutch) and South Nederlands (Flemish).
When written both languages are almost identical (in fact they are, but bot languages have different expressions). When spoken the differences are quite big, up to a certain point that Dutch people don't understand Flemish people and vice versa.
Often Dutch people are more creative with language while Flemish people tend bo grammatically more correct...being Flemish i sometimes have the impression that we struggle with our own language...

Hazard's first language is French, i doubt if he speaks any Nederlands (Nederlands: officially translated is Dutch, but that is confusing).

Dplane: hats off, you know a lot about the low countries...respect.

PS: why is it so important which language Hazard speaks ???
 
West Ham 3 Chelsea 1

Chelsea 0 QPR 1

Chelsea 0 Swansea 2

Chelsea 2 Southampton 2

Brentford 2 Chelsea 2


rafa-benitez.jpg



The man has to go. End of story. Midtable La Liga is his level.
 
He is and its unjustified.

Even the finals he won were on penalties after 3-3 draws.

I just dont understand the legendary status he has with some football supporter. He is a good not great manager - and now getting found out big time at Chelsea.
 
Benni said:
Even the finals he won were on penalties after 3-3 draws.
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I don't even know who you are, Benni (or who you were) but this may be the most nonsense line I've ever read on this forum. You don't really need to blurt out everything on your mind.
 
So Rafa didn't need draw both finals 3-3 then?
Must have watched different games.

And of course you don't know me - this is the internet.
 
My point is that his luck ran out and since then he was found out Liverpool hence his sacking, then was found out at Inter and now Chelsea!
 
gomito#10 said:
Was ferguson cl win lucky ?
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Which one? ;p

Against Bayern? The final was yes, but there is no doubting the quality of that team and some of the performances along the way.

Against Chelsea United were the best team in Europe that season. Thoroughly 'deserved' even if it went to pens.

Winning the CL is never all about luck, but it does come into it - hell I'd say Chelsea last season had far more luck than LFC did in winning it in 2005.
 
luck doesn´t exist..you win becouse you deserve it, you lose becouse you deserve it..

sometimes the referee fucks up games, for example England world cup unallowed goal etc.. this is not about luck, it´s about making incredible mistakes..

Benni don´t hate so much... ;)
 
beachryan said:
Which one? ;p

Against Bayern? The final was yes, but there is no doubting the quality of that team and some of the performances along the way.

Against Chelsea United were the best team in Europe that season. Thoroughly 'deserved' even if it went to pens.

Winning the CL is never all about luck, but it does come into it - hell I'd say Chelsea last season had far more luck than LFC did in winning it in 2005.
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Exactly.. I agree with everything. However our fake Italian friend disagrees.
 
I'm not sure i agree with Benni on Raffa, but you got to say that after Liverpool he wasn't the most succesfull manager, and after Valencia, his teams weren't the most exciting to watch (apart from that one season where Liverpool finished second). One could even argue that Valencia played beautiful football under Cuper and so Raffa merely build a litle bit further upon the foundatiuons laid down by Cuper. Am i 100% sure of what i'm writing here ? Not at all...

I'm merely pointing out that Benni isn't the only one who has his doubts about Benitez. I wonder if people would react if somebody other than Benni would doubt Benitez current abilities.

And to be honest, i don't see any hate in Benni's posts. The problem is that the regulars know each other and their likes and dislikes. I don't like Ferguson and love Henderson, Beach don't likes Chelsea and Manchester City, lo zio loves Zeman and thinks that English teams are tactically naïve, Pipa loves everything that is Liverpool.

What i'm trying to say is that you can judge opinions (a litle bit) but not people. I don't see anything remotely wrong with what Benni is writing on this forum. I can understand that people don't like him (while i really like him for some reason), but this is all subjective chemistry...it's a litle bit thin to condemn people... Can we try to appreciate everybody on this forum ? Yes we can...
 
He keeps repeating himself, I think that is what annoys everybody. He has a point and then he just keeps saying the same thing again and again and again. We all know his opinion but he wants to force it on everybody else and wants everybody else to agree with him.

Saying that I don't mind him anymore :PP
 
Gomito, you cant compare Benitez to Ferguson because the Man utd manager has proved he's not lucky with countless FA Cups, League Cups, League titles.

Benitez has never won the league in England. His CL win was lucky. His FA Cup win could be deemed as lucky as well.

Now he getting found out - he has a hugely talented squad of players but still cant beat QPR and SOuthampton at home or Brentford from England's THIRD DIVISION!!!!

If he was a world class manager, which some of you believe - this wouldnt happen.

PS. Gerd I always enjoy your thoughtful, knowledgable input. Thanks.

PPS. Bobby I heart you x
 
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He's not a world class manager, but there are very few of them. In my opinion he's a fairly good manager who could get a team like Chelsea to finish in the top three on a regular basis and also give them a reasonable chance of making the CL semi finals or quarter finals. There are a number of other managers who could probably do this (maybe Mancini, maybe Cappello) as this is the minimum you would expect of a squad like Chelsea. With a better manager they would probably have a better chance of winning big trophies, but there are very few stand out candidates for them, maybe Mourinho, maybe Hiddink. Even then, there are problems with the set up at Chelsea (with people like Gourlay and Buck insisting on playing players like Torres and adhearing to a nonsensical idea that players over 30 (Lampard, Drogba etc) should leave) and no other top 3/4 team in England has to deal with these sort of issues. Its worth noting that other reasonably high profile managers have struggled at Chelsea (Villas Boas and Scolari had some very poor results there too). You go on and on about Benitez not being a top class manager, but you always aviod suggesting a credible alternative to him. For whatever reasons they got rid of Di Matteo a few months ago and at the time there were not that many alternative candidates with Benitez's experience.

You say that his CL win was lucky, but you could put that charge at a lot of teams who narrowly won the CL / European Cup. Were Milan lucky in 2003? Were Man Utd lucky in 1999 and 2008? What about Barca against Chelsea in 2009 (semi final)? Or Chelsea last year? In the end any team that gets to final almost always has to be several great teams in the process - so I think it've very disingenuous to write off all Benitez's European achievments (getting to several finals and winning some of them with both Valencia and Liverpool) as simply "luck" of a one off game in a final. In 2005 his Liverpool team played Juventus, Chelsea and Milan and saw off all of those teams all were faily high profile teams - the year before Chelsea had been in the semis and two years earlier Milan and Juve were the finalists. In 2007 they got to the final again and beat Barca and Chelsea (again) as well as a fairly good PSV team (who had knocked out Arsenal and two years earlier had only gone out on away goals to Milan in the semi final. I don't think you can have a situation where beating all these teams is just down to "luck".
 
My point of view is something between Benni and Edmundo.
To know the real value of teams, a league is ideal.

The factor luck is much more important in cups.
Let's talk about Chelsea's CL win last season. On the one hand going past teams like Napoli, Benfica, Barcelona and Bayern Munchen (in Muchen) can't be due to luck alone. Surely Chelsea must have done quite a few things the right way... On the other hand, can anybody seriously claim that Chelsea was Europe's best team last season ? Surely not.

Same goes for Raffa's CL win with Liverpool. That team wasn't a real top team in England, yet they won the CL. Surely they must have done quite a few things the right way. But that team was far from the best team in Europe.

Is Raffa a good or a bad coach ? Who am to judge him ? After all we don't hear his instructions. What i do think is that the influence of coaches/managers is vastly overrated. Would Ferguson have good results with Blackpool and who knows if Owen Coyle would't have won more silverware than Ferguson with Man Utd ? And would that make him a better manager ? I'm not sure...

I certainly don't agree with Edmundo's assessment of the Chelsea squad. It seems as if this club is extremely badly run form a point of view of players acquisitions. Hold on ? Didn't they just won the CL ? And wasn't everybody complaining about the boring style of football the yused to win that CL ? And now the power that is wants some champagne football and has invested zillions in Hazard, Oscar to play more attractive football... And you talk about a nonsensical policy to let players over 30 go. Isn't that what Arsène Wenger has been doing for ages (remember Viera and Henry, two club icons) and isn't Arsenal general acknowledged as a "proper run" club ?

I know one thing about Chelsea and the players they have: i've seem quite a lot of matches of that team this year (with a teenage daughter who loves Chelsea) and most of them i enjoyed watching even if the results weren't always as expected. Chelsea usually are a very entertaining team...also under Benitez (cfr; the match against Stoke for example).
 
I think the boat left and the point is missing here. We know a young team needs time to adapt .Mutd might have the oldest team (not age wise you silly duck) Chelsea will always have a young team in terms of management (gaffers) their squad last year was of a mature squad they knew each other and depended on each other. Seeing boss leave after bosses made them stronger. Rafa has enter and can only command w/ 1 leg in and 1 leg out. Terry has more power than any boss, I believe he orchestrated part of this mess in terms of sacking. Not Matteo that was his pet gaffa lol

We laugh about Terry sitting on the bench yelling commands just imagine in training . Rafa needs to make mates with Terry before Roman. Rafa won La Liga in '04 same as Wenger did in PL. Rafa is a top boss no doubt!

Arsenal has the same problem w/ young squad and old boss. In the end balance in require :) Barça must have the most balance squad/boss around .
 
Wait a minute. Yossi Benayoun is still at Chelsea? Why the hell isn't he getting game time? He's a great little player!

I had literally no idea he was still there.
 
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