But you did not say it was the best performance you seen from a striker in the league and also you said whole performance, so the scoring goals for one team dont come into it.

The point is about expections from your players compaired to expections from Chelsea players. Your expectations are lower (as proven from you fanning around your comments about who you putting his performances up against). I would agree his performances compared to other players its been very very good but compairing it against other players in a Chelsea shirt it been less so

Personally I would have not bought Struddege or personally i would not have bought Andy Carroll or Downing etc now I would have bought them if i was a Liverpool fan but would not as a Chelsea/Utd/City fan

Sturridge has the potential to be a good player for Liverpool, but for a mixture of reasons it didn't work out for him at Chelsea over 3 years. I don't think many Chelsea fans miss him but I don't bear him any ill will either so hope he continues to do well for you.
We lose a lot of young players that just never break into our first team - Borini, Scott Sinclair, Di Santo and now Sturridge to name a few. My personal reservation about Sturridge was I'm not sure he's a striker and we brought in better and younger wingers so it's a win win for everyone. No need for any animosity.

I personally think bringing in Zola or Poyet is just madness, two unproven managers at the top level. We already had RDM who was as much of a legend as those two but he was sacked at the first sign of trouble, why would RA think any better of Zola and Poyet?

He brought in Benitez because he felt RDM wasnt good enough tactically and diddnt have enough experience, i dont think the other two would do much better than RDM did imo.

Cant see it happening, not yet anyway. Im convinced our next manager will be Jose, the rumours are it will be pretty much a swap deal. Jose to Chelsea and Benitez to Madrid.

I think that's a pretty fair assessment. Personally, I would have liked to have seen more of Sturridge as a central striker before we made the decision to release him. We had little to lose with the form of Torres..but as we all know, orders from above said the £50m man had to play in every game if he was fit.

He was unlucky in some ways, probably most difficult two clubs for a young player trying to break through are Man City and Chelsea. We have young talent in our first team squad of course, but they had already proved themselves at a higher level before joining us. The rest are out on loan, we rarely give young, unproven talent a run out..and not many of us fans would want it if we're honest.

I still think Sturridge could turn out to be a lot better than some people here are suggesting. He has represented England at every level, so a number of coaches must have seen some potential there from early on. But it's always difficult to be sure, as you say a number of players with enormous potential never quite make that move to the next level. I remember being impressed with Kalou for example, but although he remained a good player, he never had that "something extra".

Have I got the right thread? I would swear I clicked "Chelsea Supporters Thread."

indeed!

Right back to important stuff.

Massive congratulations to Ash tonight when he receives his 100th cap. Fantastic achievement and one of the few England players that performs at a consistently high level for his country.

Well done Ash, very proud of you.

He rarely tweets...thank goodness...but he did yesterday.

Thanks to everyone that has supported me through my good times and bad times, means a lot to me. #afc #cfc and crystal palace. #100not out


He has had a lot of good wishes tweets from Arsenal fans as well, which is nice.

Not going to bother watching the game tonight (when Gerrard and Welbeck are voted our best players things are really in a bad way), But will watch the pre-match part just to see what reception Ash gets (who is actually Englands best player). I have never seen why the press have such a bee in their bonnet about Ash, I think its down to his refuseal to pander to the press since the abuse he got during the move and not give them the access that other more media whore players give

He refused to talk to them yesterday, I love the fact he's like that. They can't have it both ways.

They really went after him during the move to Chelsea (when he was in the right) and made him the posterboy for today's evil footballer and now he is turned around and said "er you slag me off and are now expecting me to help you with your job" If someone said the stuff the media have said about Ash to your face in normal life and then turned around and asked you to help them they would get string of swear words.

Ash has always done his talking where it matters (for club and country) on the pitch, Always goes around to all players shaking hands, Always comes to to Matthew Harding lower to say thanks to the fans etc, A model pro, But a big part of the fans and the media will never say that, Have seen some of the sicking backpedeling they have done lately knowing this 100 cap thing is coming out, So pleased he has not fell for thier cunning plan and still telling them where to go

Gerrard should step out of the ill deserved limelight and give the captaincy to cole for this 100th cap.

It is absolutely disgraceful that this has not happened. Another nail in englands coffin. I shall not be watching.

Manager decision i would have thought?

Hodgson said yesterday that Cole had never shown any interest at all in wanting to be captain so it wasn't really a consideration.

"He briefly wore the armband in February’s friendly in Denmark after stand-in Frank Lampard was substituted, but quickly handed it to Gareth Barry when he himself was eventually withdrawn.

Since then Cole has personally reiterated to Fabio Capello that he does not want to be considered for the role. He has no interest in captaining his country, which the England manager has accepted, even if he finds it somewhat baffling."

Why put himself under even more scrutiny with the pressures of the England captaincy? Don't blame him at all.

Ash is only the 2nd player, after David Beckham, to reach 100England caps and 100 CL appearances.

All of Ash' caps are from starting, no subs, fantastic achievement.

Of course Cole doesnt want to be permanent captain, the press would hound the life out of him.

However, this should have no bearing, especially on a friendly, as Cole is on 100 caps he should be made captain for the night. It should all be about him, and the england set up and FA thanking him for his contribution to the team.

Instead we get a thug as captain, lets hope the PA plays what music he wants or it could get ugly!

He dont want the job

As a player he can do as little or as much as he wants with reagrds to media interviews as Capt he has to play dance to the media tune.

We will have fans (mainly Arsenal) saying how shocking someone who has slept with more then one woman in the past 5 years is England Capt and how he should be playing for £500 a week and kiss Wengers ring every week. Naaa sod all that he thinking, I just get on with doing what i am good at and playing football every week and leave the media to those who enjoy it

So you saying Hodgson should say "Ash your Capt tonight" Ash turns around and says "Naaa Boss i dont want it" "Well tough you got no choice"?

Is sounds like it was not offered to him.

But a manager knows his players. I only met Ash a few times and never had a long conversation with him or anythingbut knowing him from what i have seen from him during his time at Arsenal/Chelsea/England i would be willing to bet he would turn it down.

It would be a waste of time, Put unneeded pressure on him (he is a proud player of England) and can see the press "Ash snubs England", "Cole turns down Roy" etc

Its not being a captain in a world cup final, its being the captain in a friendly when you win your 100th cap!

He should have been captain for the last 12 months, instead of what we are left with now. Its a joke, it makes international football a joke.

I'm not sure why someone would offer you something you've said you don't want?? You'd never get a job as a waiter!

I'm sure if Ash had wanted it and approached Roy and said 'its my 100th game I'd actually quite like to it for the one night only' he'd have said 'yes fine'

For goodness sake.

Cole doesnt want to be permanent england captain, because of the media attention. It looks like Hodgson didnt offer it to him for his hundredth game because he never expressed an interest in captaining before.

No roy, see above for reasons why you dolt!

I think its just greedy thug and incompetent dolt being their usual selves. Well good luck to them, they have between them made england completely irrelevant.

It dont matter if it was being the captain in a fiveaside training session, The guy dont want it, He dont care if its 1- cap,150th 200 or 1000. He dont want to do the job

There's no need to start name calling - its childish.

Cole does not want to be permanent capt,temp capt or capt of the team that collect the training cones and bibs during training, He wants to play football, He dont want to make himself a focal point of the team, This is 100th and he is turning down most of the requests for interviews, This would not be possible if he was captain