To be fair to him, I think he was concentrating on FA Cup and CL by the time he came in, we were resting players as we had such massive Cup games coming up, luckily, it paid off. But we need to see a big improvement next season, I don't want us challenging for top 4, I want us back challenging for the title.

Theres no evidence whatsoever that he is the man to do it though. Short term motivator is very different from permanent manager.

He should have walked away a hero.

If he wanted the job (which he obviously did!) he struck gold with Guardiola taking a year off. He is effectively on an extended "caretaker" role because as soon as Pep hints at a return you feel Roman will be straight on the phone to him.

Is it just me, or can anyone else not see Pep Guardiola being the Chelsea manager?
I just don't think the club and him match, that is not a negative on Chelsea, it is just when you see two things being mentioned, sometimes they don't match, and I think this applies here.

Roman might very well want him to be his manager, but sometimes things are just not meant to be.

I don't disagree with you but if he hadn't been offered it, we would have been torn to shreds and rightly so, Robbie deserved to be offered another season, he didn't have to take it, he must be aware of the situation, even us fans are, so it's his decision. I really do like having a Chelsea legend in charge, it feels right, I hope (obviously) he has a great season ahead.

Roman wants attractive free flowing football, he always has so I can see why he wants Pep. But I don't necessarily think he will be winging his way to Chelsea in a season's time, things change.

Ahh, thank you, it is nice not to be alone!

Welcome to the world of a Chelsea fan on here!

I saw this on the Chelsea forum I post on. I had sort of forgotten about all of this as it was such a tense time! What a fantastic achievement by Robbie and the lads. Ridiculous! that is what I call serious team spirit and determination.



I really hope this time our run-in won't be as ridiculous as it was last season. It was a real nightmare!


We played within 9 weeks:

Napoli
ManCity
Tottenham
Benfica
Benfica
Tottenham
Barcelona
Arsenal
Barcelona
Newcastle
Liverpool
Liverpool
Bayern

Within 9 weeks. 8 of them away. With the weakest squad (both mentally and performance-wise) for a long time. That we came out of that with two major trophies is still a miracle in my eyes.

Even i forgot the amount of fixtures and the teams we were playing, they came so think and fast. Defenitely puts into perspective how well RDM did, and the miracle that was the CL. Beating Barca and Bayern in their own back yard was nothing short of miraculous.

2 goals for Torres

At least one of our players is having a good time out there.

Love seeing him score instinctively, the old Torres, and smiling. A good Euros for him will only be good for the Blues!

Nice to see that RDM has the job now. He'll have my full support next season, hopefully Eddie sticks around too.

Happy days for Nando lately. Hope he keeps this up...would have liked to see Mata subbed on for Silva in the second half but oh well. Wish Del Bosque will give him some game time soon though!

At times I noticed Nando calling for the ball after exploiting some space only for his other team mates to keep passing the ball left, right and backwards.... Wish Spain would play direct a bit more then Nando would probably start scoring for fun again lol.

Anyway that being said, thought Iniesta had a fab game. When he's on the top of his game, he's a fantastic player to watch. Totally dominated the midfield with his ball control and dribbling.

Kudos to the Irish fans though, even in the dying minutes of the game they were still singing! Had you have just been listening to the audio of the game, you'd probably think Ireland were winning instead of Spain.

They were singing Ole Ole Ole at one point.

Would be great if Torres has a good Euros, get him back fully fit and confident. Would bode well for the start of the season and we seem to be setting up to get the best out of him now, and with Drogba gone it really is his time to start showing what he can do. I do feel Drogba overshadowed him a bit, and maybe put pressure on him to perform.

First game of the season

Away to Wigan

Second game of the season

Home to Newcastle


Put more up later.

Not bad, can't wait till we face Tottenham on 20 October!

Our last 5 games look horrible though...Liverpool (A), Swansea (H), Man U (A), Aston Villa (A) and Everton (H). :/

I know, but with this trip to Japan in December, who knows how many fixtures will be rearranged..

Hey, check a couple of posts up...those were pretty horrific fixtures and we did ok.

^ You're right! Kinda hard to believe we managed to come out of that fixture with 2 trophies in our cabinet.

Definitely written in the stars.

We have these coming up and the ACN in Jan.

Super Cup - Monte Carlo - 31 August
World Club Cup - Japan - 6-16 Dec

Footballing trivia.

Chelsea hold the record for the biggest winning margin on the opening weeking of a PL season.

Beating WBA 6-0 in August 2010.

I hope we don't buy that Dutch right back

We'll have the title wrapped up by then

He looks awful.

If there are no better options I'd rather we just stick with what we have.

I predict that by the time these fixtures are re-arranged we'll only have 4 or 5 3PM Saturday kick-offs.


Sat Aug 18 Wigan Athletic A

Sat Aug 25 Newcastle United H

Sat Sep 1 Reading H [to be rearranged due to our participation in the European Super Cup]

Sat Sep 15 Queens Park Rangers A

Sat Sep 22 Stoke City H

Sat Sep 29 Arsenal A

Sat Oct 6 Norwich City H

Sat Oct 20 Tottenham Hotspur A

Sat Oct 27 Manchester United H

Sat Nov 3 Swansea City A

Sat Nov 10 Liverpool H

Sat Nov 17 West Bromwich Albion A

Sat Nov 24 Manchester City H

Wed Nov 28 Fulham H

Sat Dec 1 West Ham United A

Sat Dec 8 Sunderland A

Sat Dec 15 Southampton H [to be rearranged due to our participation in Club World Cup]

Sat Dec 22 Aston Villa H

Wed Dec 26 Norwich City A

Sat Dec 29 Everton A

Tue Jan 1 Queens Park Rangers H

Sat Jan 12 Stoke City A

Sat Jan 19 Arsenal H

Tue Jan 29 Reading A

Sat Feb 2 Newcastle United A

Sat Feb 9 Wigan Athletic H

Sat Feb 23 Manchester City A

Sat Mar 2 West Bromwich Albion H

Sat Mar 9 Fulham A

Sat Mar 16 West Ham United H

Sat Mar 30 Southampton A

Sat Apr 6 Sunderland H

Sat Apr 13 Tottenham Hotspur H

Sat Apr 20 Liverpool A

Sat Apr 27 Swansea City H

Sat May 4 Manchester United A

Sun May 12 Aston Villa A

Sun May 19 Everton H