Regardless of debating whether it merited a red card or not, the point is that it was a decision that went in your favour. At the very least it was a free-kick that Chelsea should have been awarded, and would have given us a scoring opportunity from.


Codeblue can be very biased and a lot of her posts are routinely picked up for that. My point is that if people are going to do it they need to remove their own blinkers first.

I understand your point, but you still haven't explained why you care so much.

If Pee doesn't think that winning the league this year is a 'massive achievement', so what? He's entitled to that opinion.

As it happens, I agree with you, that winning the league is a huge achievement in any season, but I don't get why you're so bothered what other people think.

Chelsea aren't a club that are easy to warm to, for a variety of reasons. Why you would give a monkey's about that is what I don't understand.

Who would you like to see brought in? Or would you stick with what we've got?

Its the hypocrisy and bias in the media that i dislike, and this filters down throughout our culture.

You said it there, "chelsea are not a club thats easy to warm to" - why not?

Its the media reporting and influence on the masses that creates this problem.

In the majority of reports, chelsea were a terrible team who played negative football against united, we have headlines like "united dominate the game" and reports from rooney and LVG as if they thrashed Chelsea.

I could only find one report that said chelsea used the perfect strategy of country attack, and that Hazard was the player who enabled this.

I dread to think what the headlines would have been if Herrera had managed to con the ref. No doubt the fact that herrera kicked the defenders leg would have been changed to "there was contact" by the pundits on sky. Even the ones that may have admitted it was a "soft" penalty would have qualified it with "they even themselves out".

It all sounds part of the typical "conspiracy" theory. however there was an accurate analysis of the media after the Gerrard debacle and tackle against United, and it was obvious that there was definitely a favoritism there.

"Gerrard was angered by the foul on him before his stamp", "hes not that sort of player", "i can understand why he did it". Heck, even his manager said "he just wanted to win the game too much".

This filters down. Now everyone can remember the costa stamp and what a nasty vile man he is (the new suarez) and saint steven gets a pass.

I can just about cope with this, as it is acknowledged and does exist. But pundits and fans now saying that winning the league is not an achievement, well, it simply does not sit right with me.

Again, why do you care?

You make out as if all fans are morons, who won't make their own judgments, based on what they actually see. Yes, some fans are morons, but why would you care what morons think?

The media needs to sell, so they often use 'narrative', or provocative angles. United and Liverpool sell the most copy, so they obviously will push whatever angle will sell, with those clubs.

More people dislike Chelsea than support them, so it makes sense to push the negative angle. As for why that is the case, it doesn't take a genius to work it out. A large part of it will be envy, due to the money pumped in by your owner, but some of it isn't. John Terry has never been popular with non-Chelsea fans, but I rarely see anybody trying to claim that he's not a superb defender.

You're also guilty of hypocrisy, in my opinion. Herrera made a snap decision to try to win a last-minute penalty. It was an act of desperation, and not pre-meditated in the slightest. Yet you decided that this is 'disgusting', while asking for people to not go overboard, when talking about Costa.

You ask for balance and fairness, yet provide very little evidence that you're capable of displaying it yourself.

jim cheating is wrong be it desperate or not.

And every single team does it.

Do you not think that 'disgusting' was more than a little hyperbolic?

I'd use that word to refer to a Ben Thatcher-type challenge, for example.

Indeed, its another example of bias.

If drogba had done that, i can only imaging the reaction i would get here if i tried to say that "it was a desperate act of a player taking a split second decision to try and win the game".

All i want is a level playing field, right across the board, from fans and the media.

Apparently we are so hated as a club, that even if we win (the first time in 5 years) we have done it the negative way, and that now the premiership is suddenly worthless and not worth winning.

It is quite frankly ridiculous.

Cheating to win is disgusting. Spitting is disgusting.

I would use another word to describe career threatening tackles, and i would be happy to see players prosecuted for certain actions on the field.

And this is exactly why this is a futile exercise.

You stick to bleating about the press and 'agendas', and I'll leave you to it.

I should have known better.

Would keep Remy, He a decent player and can a great job when needed.

3rd choice striker? That's a tough one, The dressing room is still very short of leaders and "top of the league" and fighting for 4 trophies experience, great players but mentally they not quite there yet this season will have been a great help but defending a title is very different from winning a title tie that in with having to improve our FA Cup and Champions League campaign. So we need someone who has those qualities somewhere in the squad. It's going to be more important next season then this as I am confident Utd will be fighting for the title and they have a great manager. They going to be very dangerous. The 3rd choice striker is the most logical position to fill with this person as normally they would play the odd domestic cup game or the last champions league group game or so if we have qualified. We need to look at Costa's issues very closely over the summer (I think Remy has just been unlucky) to see if the 3rd striker needs to be a player who is ready to play week in week out or someone who is there to help other players like Hazzard to where they need to be to create something special at the club

Ha ha ha! You really are completely transparent and predictable.

i watched game at pub and utd fans were saying that chelsea dont play like a big team and dont deserve to be champs.

uneducated about the sport is all you can put it down too. some support the badge but really dont follow the sport.

disclaimer-the above all clubs have btw! not just utd

I can understand neutral fans finding yesterday's game boring. But, as I said at the time, I found it fascinating to watch. Chelsea and United have the best two managers in the PL in my opinion, and it was like watching a chess game at times.
There were all sorts of subtle changes going on, with each manager trying to counteract and second guess the other. For anyone wanting 100mph, end-to-end stuff it would have been disappointing.
We were lucky not to concede early, it took some tweaking around to stop the threat down our right. In fact, that really wasnt fiixed until Ramires came on in the 2nd half. Fellaini had snuffed out Fabregas at Old Trafford, so we had played Zouma to counteract that. But then Fellaini cleverly started dragging Zouma out of position leaving us exposed. Up front we had no chance to press without Costa and Willian, so we were left with little alternative but to play on the counter.
The goal changed things, it meant we could sit back with something to defend. I'm surprised United didn't present more of a threat down our left, with Mata continuously drifting inside they were very one-sided. Falcao is almost unrecognisable as the same player who tore us apart for Atletico just a couple of years ago. Which I find a little sad, even if we do benefit from his failure to impress in the PL.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting game. But wouldn't expect neutrals or non-footy fans to appreciate it.

Excellent post, RB. Hard to disagree with any of that.

I thought that Matic, Terry and Cahill were immense for you guys.

codeblue going on and on about hypocricy and bias is very funny.

Just saying

A few rumours about summer transfer activity involving Chelsea.

The usual speculation about Pogba, with his agent saying he's getting 20 calls a day about the player's future. But I can't see us getting involved in a bidding war at the £70m+ mentioned, not to mention his wages.

Reports saying we've already offered close to £30m for the young Palermo striker Paulo Dybala. But again that comes from the player's agent, and I have my doubts there's any truth in it.

A more believable rumour concerns our interest in Koke. We do seem to have a close relationship with Atletico, and the talk about Luis going back the other way could be true.
Koke is a Mourinho "type" of player. Young, versatile and skillful with a great attitude. He can play in DM or AM, and he's very loyal. In fact his loyalty may be the stumbling block, he doesn't seem keen to leave AM. But I like the idea of a player of his quality joining us, especially if his fee could be partially off-set with the sale of a couple of unwanted players.

The main thing is we get the coming and goings sorted ASAP.

The type of players we need should have been identified by now and a very short list made.

Get the business done early.

One of the reasons we are where we are, was doing good, quick business last summer.

I'd like Louis to stay. Unless he wants out, keep him. One day azpi will have to go back to his best position!

I'd have no problem either way with Luis staying or going. If he wants to stay and fight for the left-back spot then ok, but if he's used as a makeweight to sign someone that we need more then that's fine too. If he does go then we'll end up having to sign another left-back to cover Azpi anyway.

He actually cost a lot of money, so unless we recoup 90% of that we may as well keep him.

One day soon azpi will move back to the right and luis can easily slot in to the LB role. I quite like him, he can deliver a great ball with his left peg

If that kind of performance was a one-off then I would have no problem with it! But it isn't!

Far too often in 'big games' Jose sets his team out to suffocate the game, to go out not to lose and if possible sneak a goal to win.
As other people have been saying, it's like he doesn't trust or rate his players highly enough to go out and take on the opposistion. His method IS boring and it IS bad for the image of the Premiership to have champions play with so much fear and negativity.
And let's not forget that Jose was axed first time round because Roman was unhappy with the football. Jose will get away with it this time because we've gone too long without the title.
But, great teams simply don't play like this! They take it to the other teams and beat them!
We are miles from being a great team and without this being a very sub standard Premiership and minus Hazard, we'd be no better than a 6th place team 8 years ago.

A title will do for this year, even for me, but I want to see real progress next season!

We have improved from last season so there should be no logical reason for us not to next.

Who cares about the image of the league? I was at the game I was far from bored. In fact it was one of the better experiences I have had at the bridge for the last few seasons (not the top but amongst the top few)

It depends on how you view football. If you view it as a tactical sport then it was a great game to watch. If you view it as some reality tv soap opera or some hollywood blockbuster film less so

Nobody has said this is a "great team" and nor should we be with the awful teams we have had since the season we won the Champions League unless we spent millions and millions. What we do have is the forming of a skeleton of a great team.

Its a very simplistic view that Jose was fired just because of type of football that we was playing. Anyone who as listened to the people involved and looked at the personality's and what was going on behind the scenes can tell there was alot more to it then that. Its a a redtop paper understanding of the problems we had at the time and not looking at the much bigger and more complicated picture

I think it was a one-off game. We haven't played like that all season, but injuries to Costa and Remy left us with 37 year old Drogba up front. Nearly all season we've played with only one recognised defensive midfield player. I haven't checked the stats, but I'd be surprised if throughout the season they didn't show that we have had more possession than most of our rivals, it's been our finishing that has let us down
In addition, it was a game that first and foremost we had to prevent Man Utd from winning. A draw would have been enough for us, the same as a draw against Arsenal this coming Sunday will be satisfactory given the points situation.
In the circumstances, I don't think setting out not to lose was negative, it was common sense. If the positions had been reversed and we had needed 3 points, then your criticism would be valid.

Mourinho does take a very pragmatic view. His aim is to get a job done and entertaining the media and viewers is a long way down his list of priorities. That doesn't mean he is "anti-football". I'm sure he'd love to send out a team that would tear the opposition apart in every game and earn plaudits from the footballing world at large. But Mourinho is also a realist, we don't have a team capable of doing that right now. Who knows, sometime in the future we will become that sort of team ?

You were raving about Brendan last season and how great his football is.
Gone a bit quiet on him now haven't you. Thoughts ??