Be Excellent To Each Other

The only thing which could have improved it for me, would have been Ashley Cole breaking both his legs or something.

Still, it was a near perfect night for a neutral (yet Chelsea loathing) individual such as myself.

Felt right odd, though, actively cheering for Man U, but these things have to be done for the greater good.

Today is a day of days.

Terry slipping and fucking Anelka missing.

Lampard hitting the post.

Drogba getting sent off.

Terry's tears.

oh this is so great.

You can never have too much of a good thing:

that's true

I am so happy. Even Fergie's smug, alcoholic face all over the newspapers makes me all warm inside.

I can understand the Chelsea bashing, but why the Terry Trash Talk?

Malc

because he's an oaf and a thug.

because I hate his face.

And because when he loses he always cries like a toddler in the supermarket who wants an ice cream *and* some sweets.

What oafish and thugish things has he done?

Malc

No, sorry, there you are wrong, toddlers like that don't just cry they throw a tantrum, they scream and shout and throw things around. When ever I have seen him cry it's always been in big close matches when they have lost. He is a man that is passionate about his job (playing football) a man that could have won his team the biggest game in football, but he slipped and missed (or missed and slipped, it doesn't really matter). He's showing his passion, he's showing he cares, he's showing his emotion. I really can't see what's so wrong with that.

I suspect that it's just because he's the Chelsea captain.

Malc

I don't hate him as much as most.

His 'crimes' include being charged with assault and affray over a nightclub incident (though he was later cleared), and getting drunk and apparently mocking a group of grieving American tourists whose flights home had been cancelled because of 9-11.

Also, he's a mouthy bastard who continually harangues referees and yells at them if he doesn't get his own way (he is regularly mocked by 'The Fiver' amongst others for thinking he is an official).

That said, I did feel sorry for the bloke.

John Terry is well known for his gambling/drinking/womanising.

Also, there was the allegedly racist Ledley King incident.

Deplorable racism aside, I do two of the top three, and would have done the third if I was ever a young rich footballer.

However, doing all of the above when you are a high profile footballer will inevitably result in a negative reaction and the trash talking in previous posts.

He's a snarling, gobby, fucker. Everything you can hate about Chelsea (and there's ever so much you can hate about Chelsea) is summed up in his snarling rages at the refs.

24 hours on, I'm still not sure what was the highlight of the evening - Terry falling on his arse, missing a pen and crying like a fucking jessie, or Drogba being sent off.

I just can't choose! It's all so glorious!

Details, please?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061107081300AA8SvqL

Just to clarify, that's the John Terry/Ledley King stuff.

So it's pure speculation based on some theory on the internet.

Oh yeah, he's practically running the BNP.

I just don't see it.

Malc

I should probably clarify as it was getting a bit late when I posted that. That was just the first result on a google for John Terry Ledley King, Further down the page was another link that disputed most of what was said in the Yahoo link and had a quote from Terry saying he wasn't racist (as you'd expect). I hadn't even heard about it until it was posted earlier in the thread, so I don't think it's tarnished his career too much.

Speaking as the Chelsea fan here, because he's a twat who screams at Refs.

Oh and he did a Maddie appeal on behalf of the parents

And once urinated in the middle of a nightclub dancefloor.

Man U vs Chelsea... Champion's League final... I was hoping for a no-score nuking from space, it's the only way to be sure.

Grant sacked.

Hoho!

This was always going to happen, though.

Shame really, he did an amazing job given the circumstances. He certainly far exceeded my expectations of what he would achieve.

He's also done his successor a favor, as they should hopefully avoid direct comparisons with Mourinho.

And such is the silliness of football, that he would probably have lost his job over the summer anyway, even if they'd won the other night.

True.

I can see Chelsea ending up like Real Madrid, firing managers no matter how successful they are.

This rather sums it up:



Which is pretty silly, really. You can't win all the time. It's like the situation at Madrid, as you say.

If anyone could be justifiably accused of not being good enough, its Kenyon and Buck.

If they had gotten rid of Mourinho in the summer and given Grant a full season to play with, they may have some silverware to show for it.

Grant's problem is not that his overall record was bad, it's that he blew every single one of the important games. Jose never lost a final, Grant lost both his.

Easy stroll past Wigan to all but guarantee the title? Nope. Barnsley in the FA Cup? Nope. Bloody Spurs? Nope. Hell, although it didn't matter at the time, beat Bolton, who have nothing to play for whatsoever to give a shot at the title? Nope.

He made 2 signings, one has played 0 games, the other was played in positions decided by throwing a dart at a picture of a pitch.

Chelsea of course should never have got rid of Jose, but Grant really wasn't much cop, the existing players pulled him through it to a degree and he certainly didn't have the personality to inspire. Furthermore, Chelsea were about to have a huge exodus of the good players (start with Drogba and Lampard) simply because they didn't want to work with him, notice that since the club would have been informed, both have suddenly announced new contract talks.

Yet they are both gone.



Fair point. Whilst no season can fairly be distilled down to a few games, Grant doesn't appear to be the finest motivator of men which becomes more apparent in the key games.



He actually signed 4 players in his 8 months worth approximately £44 million. Anelka, Invanovic, Di Santo and Bosingwa (admittedly, yet to arrive).

Chelsea's fondness for signing players without troubling their manager is pretty well established, Bosingwa being a case in point.

I find it hard to believe they would have spent £16.2 million on a player on Grant's say so, when they knew they were probably going to sack him a fortnight later.



Possibly. Theres always so much speculation surrounding a player's intentions and motivations for staying/going during contract talks, it nigh on impossible to pin it down. Plus, it must have been fairly clear to those on the inside that he would in all likelihood be sacked at the end of the season and if they seriously intended on keeping a player who didn't want to work with Grant, would have informed them that this was very unlikely to be an issue beyond the end of the season.

So far Chelsea have had three markedly different managers since Abramovich took over and none of them seem to have measured up for one reason or another. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall when they inform Grant's successor of Chelsea's expectations for the coming season.

The Almost One managed to beat Liverpool over two legs in a Champions League game and get his team to one slipped foot of the trophy. I seem to recall that being beyond Jose.

Grant was supposed to be brought in to add excitement to the team. Comparing the CL final and last years FA Cup Final between the two sides, he also did that job as well.

Not that I have sympathy for Grant, as my granny could take that team to the top four of the Premiership and she has been dead twenty years, but the rewriting of recent history going on is a bit baffling.

In other news.

Leeds United.

I concur.

If Blatter can pull this off, which I don't think he can, will this improve the English national team?

I've always felt that it has been England's shortage of really top level homegrown managers that has been the biggest problem (no English manager has won the Premier League!) not a lack of top quality players. Yet there is never any mention of limiting foreign managers/coaches.

He can't. No matter how much he bleats, it's illegal with EU based players. He can restrict out of that.

Indeed. The idea has precisely zero chance of getting through in its current form. EU Law >>>> FIFA.

If we wanted to level the playing field, doing this in combination with a salary cap would perhaps do something for it... but I probably just think that because my team (Aston Villa) already has (at least) 6 English starting players, and doesn't pay them very much (comparatively)!

Your right of course, it hasn't got a hope in hell of being implement in Europe and FIFA have been told this repeatedly.

I'm not sure the motivation behind it is to level the playing field though, it is to encourage teams to bring through more homegrown talent, invest more in their training academies and improve the national teams.

The new homegrown players rule which is coming in will help achieve this in part:

Although that one is technically illegal as well.

Surely, a sports organisation can put whatever limits it likes on its own competitions. If thats illegal, so are 'under-21' competitions.

For that to work, there would need to be equivalent "foreign-allowed" as well as "no-foreign" competitions in each country, as that would be the equivalent. It's a conflict with employment law, not discrimination laws.

I wrote a massive argument mainly about african players but being a bit drunk it sounded pretty shit. Im trying really hard to keep it short but african players, teams and footballers in general have gathered a reputation more than ever, last world cup should be sufficient evidence. Better facilities, coaches and so on would only improve them which for our players are staples yet out leagues systems actually home the best african players and many poorer nations how would this rule benefit them at all. Nevermind our home nations like its in problems anyway. The example they used was this years finals, man u had 6 english players in their start up, chelsea had 5 english I think, rangers 4-5 scottish or 5 they think and about 7 russians for petersberg. To me they seem like good results to football rather than an epidemic in this time in footballespecially since I bet liverpool and arsenal had worse totals in recent champions league finals.

Indeed (on eht latter point).

This has only come about because Sepp Blatter hates English football and doesn't want the Premier League to dominate the Champions League.

But the Champions League is organised by UEFA, not FIFA.

It's only going to affect the English Premier League the most, as it has one of the most acute 'problems' of foreign players as a proportion of total players in the league, particularly amongst the top teams.

Figures for Foreign Player Percentages for the 2006/07 season.

For the league as a whole:

Premier League 311/529 59%
Bundesliga 219/442 50%
Eredivisie 174/444 39%
La Liga 186/495 38%
Ligue 1 175/513 34%
Serie A 174/581 30%

For the teams that finished in the top four:

Premier League 76/104 73%
Bundesliga 44/92 48%
La Liga 49/103 48%
Serie A 59/124 48%
Eredivisie 39/99 39%
Ligue 1 35/102 34%

No team has to play in the Champions League or UEFA cup. In fact, it is entirely optional.

True.

Plus, there are various other criteria a club must meet to gain entry to either completion that have been set out by UEFA, related to a clubs stadium, financial status etc.

I've always though that UEFA's ruling that if the lowest qualifying team for the Champions League happens to be in the same league as the holders, and the holders fail to occupy a qualification spot, then that club will be denied entry to the Champion League and instead end up in the UEFA Cup, to be unfair.

The current Champions should be guaranteed qualification without it being at the expense of another team.

Although, this could result in the leagues that occupy the top three UEFA coefficient places having five teams in the Champions League.

Surely you just don't put any restrictions on who's hired by the club, but on who plays in particular games? That way there's no conflict with employment regulations.

The EU will not allow any rule that doesn't allow for a level playing field based on age or nationality.

The homegrown player rule is being allowed as UEFA defines homegrown players, as players who have been trained by their club or by another club in the National Association for at least three years between the ages of 15 and 21, regardless of age or nationality.

This seems a rather petty move, although I'm not sure I believe that Man Utd would have such a valuable asset warming the bench for long.

Then again, they are a private club now so I suppose they can do what they like. There is no way they could have contemplated this when they when publicly listed.

Personally, if I was being offered anything like what is being rumored by Real Madrid, I'd get shot of him. He's never going to be worth more than he is now, he clearly wants to play in Spain and he seems intent on adding fuel to the speculation surrounding where he is going to be playing next season.

By banning them from games you're making them less attractive to those employers though, which illegal.



And would almost certainly allow him to break his contract and move for free if he cared to sue them anyway.