mooks

Premier League Top 4 Finish Betting Odds Manchester City 1/100 Chelsea 1/5 Tottenham 2/7 Arsenal 7/4 Liverpool 16 Everton 18 Swansea 300 West Brom 250 Depends what you consider "long odds" I guess ...

I remember Ferguson saying after their treble season that that was exactly the approach they took. Apparently he felt they were panicking the previous season when they were behind in games and would start to lump the ball forward but in the '99 season they had the belief that they would score in the last few minutes. Let's resurrect Bob Paisley while we're at it

You've misunderstood my point. Of course smashing lesser teams is a good thing. I was referring to the sequence of our victories and the lopsided scorelines as underlining the basic concern I have that we don't have what it takes to dig out 1-0 wins when below par or, indeed, rescue points with late equalizers. The point wasn't so much our performance against lower half versus top 10 teams as it is that our confidence seems to drop when we're not in cruise control - and that can only be a bad thing.

Yes - but is that a good thing or a bad thing? Our battering lesser teams could very well be a sign that something special is brewing as DH says. Conversely, we don't seem to know how to win when playing badly. We don't seem to know how to see out close games. We don't seem to know how to rescue points at the end of games. These are qualities all top teams have. Not just champions but top 4 teams.

Not sure who you're referring to. My position was that if his form didn't improve it would probably be better for all concerned if he moved on. My other point - which I got flack over - was that the bigger issue was whether Pepe will want to stay or look for a new challenge. That was before Valdes' announcement. And now the buzz is that Pepe does indeed want to leave - unfortunately.

Coutinho wooh oh Coutinho wooh ee ooh eo ooh He came from Inter Milan Now we're his biggest fans Coutinho!

No thanks

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2286764/Philippe-Coutinho-enjoying-life-Liverpool.html Philippe Coutinho walks into Liverpool’s Melwood training ground each morning and is immediately confronted by a shining, silver reminder of what his new club stands for. In the lobby of the main building, housed in a glass case, is the European Cup Liverpool won for fifth time in Istanbul. Erratic form has seen Liverpool’s reputation dented since that giddy night in 2005 but the trophy is the one to which they will forever aspire. Coutinho was not even a teenager when Steven Gerrard inspired the greatest Champions League comeback in history but, today, his task is to help Liverpool get back to the stage on which they were once regulars. Holy Christ does that make me feel old ...

You that confident we'll finish ahead of West Brom? A five-year old?

Let's see if you can do any better than Rafa, Mr Chelsea http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2286808/Des-Kelly-Rafa-Benitez-rant--lets-John-Terry-better.html By Des Kelly PUBLISHED: 23:39 GMT, 1 March 2013 | UPDATED: 23:39 GMT, 1 March 2013 Chelsea supporters can boo as loudly as they like on Saturday — they’ve paid their money after all. But the first thing to say is that pretty much everything Rafa Benitez said was right. He was undermined at Chelsea from day one by the bizarre decision to invite him to take charge, only to chop his legs away with the title of Interim Manager. Benitez said it was a ‘massive mistake’. So did we all. The Spaniard’s complaint that a section of supporters have created a toxic atmosphere at the club is also correct. Whether it actively undermines the performance of the team is a matter of debate, but the jeers, banners and mood of seething animosity generated certainly cannot help. At best, they are a distraction; at worst, a huge disincentive. Yet Benitez was described as having set off on an ‘uncontrolled rant’ in midweek for repeating what every observer, journalist and objective fan has been saying since he walked through the door. It wasn’t some wild tirade. It was a carefully measured two fingers aimed at the idiocy of his situation. But the resulting ire of some Chelsea supporters is just as illogical as much of what has happened at Stamford Bridge this season. The fans slaughtering Benitez appear to be strangely unhappy he has noticed their abuse and reacted to it. Funnier still, they seem offended he is offended by their efforts to offend him, I think. It’s all a bit confusing. So the stadium will boil with self-righteous indignation from fans scorning their manager, and they will call for the dismissal of a man who has already said it’s ‘a waste of time’ as he is leaving soon anyway, which essentially proves his point. For some his departure cannot come soon enough, but what would Chelsea really gain by removing Benitez now? If owner Roman Abramovich makes another change, the likelihood is he will replace his caretaker with that regular night***chman and part-time Nosferatu stunt double, Avram Grant. How is that any better? Benitez is right about something else, too. Many decisions taken at Chelsea of late have been nothing less than ‘massive mistakes’. Add to that some horribly damaging race rows and strange sackings. The only certainty is Abramovich will walk into the Chelsea boardroom any day now and announce: ‘I’ve changed my mind.’ The reply should be: ‘Will it work any better this time?’, or at least it would be if the assembled suits had any sense or balls. Abramovich is always changing his mind, and the workings of the owner’s brain are a constant subject of speculation. He stares out from the back of his executive box, rarely betraying emotion, unless it is to hail a performance by (former) striker Fernando Torres, the £50million albatross he has hung around the neck of a succession of bosses. Usually, Abramovich wears his trademark Forrest Gump expression, seemingly clinging to the belief that football ‘is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get’. Whatever it is, you can be pretty sure he will bite half off, spit it out and put the rest back, hoping no-one notices if he buys an even more expensive selection next time. But the fans hankering for the return of Jose Mourinho or Roberto Di Matteo appear to forget who fired those managers in the first place. Their memory also blots out the fact that Abramovich put the Spanish boss they despise so much where he is now. Andre Villas-Boas was another who wasn’t considered capable enough. The young tyro dared to threaten the old guard at the club and was hounded out by that cabal and many of the supporters haranguing Benitez now. But having been betrayed by Abramovich’s decision to cave in to their demands, I’m sure that AVB is thoroughly enjoying his tussle with Chelsea for a Champions League place right now. So who is next? Gus Poyet has been mentioned, Gianfranco Zola, too. Ray Wilkins is even in the betting, the same Wilkins that mystifyingly was fired by the club without warning in November 2010. Mourinho, as ever, is on the list. He makes sure of that. But why not just give the job to John Terry. ‘Captain, leader, legend’ says the banner. Let’s see what he’s made of? Terry is reportedly the man fronting up to Benitez on the training ground, or urging the club to extend the contracts of other players on the books, or being cast as the man who ‘runs the dressing room’, the character any incoming boss needs to get onside if he wants to survive. One adoring internet fan page describes Terry as: ‘The man who bleeds blue, the man who is a walking-talking symbol of the club itself — Mr. Chelsea.’ Why not try him? Let’s see how the dressing-room politics work then when Terry’s in direct contact with Abramovich about his own job, rather than someone else’s. Let’s see how long Mr Chelsea’s marriage lasts.

Why? The Kop have never had a chance to say goodbye to Rafa (Hillsborough Memorial aside)

Living on the other side of the world I knew fans who were delighted we got Hodgson

Well, start with the fact that Rafa has been given no say whatsoever in the transfer decisions. Add to that that Chelsea have had something like 8 managers in 8 years. That doesn't sound to me like a place Rafa would want to hang around at very long. If it was Arsenal or City, sure, I think he'd see them as a long-term option. But not this rabble of s***e. But perhaps that's wishful thinking on my part.

"All the subsequent communication from him"? Edit: Of course I don't actually know what Rafa wanted and neither do you. It is just my best guess from the surrounding circumstances that he saw the job as a stepping stone back into the game and one that met his publicly stated requirements of managing in England for a Champions League contender.

Ian Herbert: Rafa Benitez is not flawed because he grew tired of being abused http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/ian-herbert-rafa-benitez-is-not-flawed-because-he-grew-tired-of-being-abused-8515815.html It's going to get worse before it gets better and Rafael Benitez is aware of that fact. Chelsea are to allow all manner of banners into Stamford Bridge on Saturday. It is an invitation to open season on the manager and he knows it. What an utterly wretched place he is in. The abuse has been so bad that opposition supporters have even used it as a stick to beat Chelsea. The Reading fans' chant of a few months ago – "Rafa Benitez, he thinks you're all scum" – was not lost on the manager. There will be plenty who take gratuitous pleasure in the way Benitez lost control on Wednesday night, just as they did when Arsène Wenger exploded, and attach it to the Spaniard's legendary "facts" speech – which has always been mistakenly characterised as a "rant" – as evidence of a character flaw. But are we so accustomed to football descending into a pantomime and Punch and Judy show that we have lost sight of the effects of denying someone the most basic level of civility? Is an individual flawed when the abuse which he has attempted to grin and bear has gradually worn him down? It is certainly the supporters who drove him to speak out at the Riverside, even though the most significant aspect of his declaration related to his title as "interim" manager – which "someone made a mistake" by bestowing on him, he said. Make no mistake: Benitez has never been happy with that title. He does not feel it formed part of his initial conversations about the Chelsea job, with technical director, Michael Emenalo, and others. Yet it was there in black and white when he arrived to sign the contract. There were attempts to make it seem acceptable to him – "we just want to get you started," he was told – leaving him with a decision to make, there and then, about whether to accept the title or walk away. Benitez, who wanted this opportunity, decided he would live with it and signed. Little did he imagine when doing so just how many ways to discredit him there would be. The first materialised barely a day into his tenure, when a 2007 quote ascribed to him was raked up. "Chelsea is a big club with fantastic players. Every manager wants to coach a big team. But I would never take that job, in respect for my former team at Liverpool. No matter what," he was quoted as saying. Benitez was Liverpool manager in 2007, so how could he have called them his "former club" back then? The quote, it turned out, was fabricated – disseminated by a 15-year-old tweeter from the Czech Republic who was a fan of Benitez, felt betrayed by his appointment at Chelsea and decided to cause him some trouble. The boy's Twitter avatar photo was a cartoon of his hero Benitez. But the lie was half way around the world before the truth could pull its trousers on. The "quote" was widely published and became a part of the "Benitez hates Chelsea" myth. There were limitations, too. Fernando Torres, diminished by a lack of weight training, had a different mindset. He was overcomplicating things; thinking too much about movements into goalscoring positions which had once been second nature. He was too quick to blame others. That much could be dealt with – a word here, a conversation there – but the abuse has been less easy. There then followed a team meeting on Monday during which John Terry took on the role of challenger to the manager, familiar to him from England's 2010 World Cup campaign. Benitez felt it has been wrongly construed as an insurrection. This unpleasantness is finite. Benitez's aim is to complete his last three months, get out with his pride and reputation intact and perhaps deliver a couple of trophies to have the last word. Of course, humanity's capacity to destroy is infinite. Chelsea's fans can drive him out before the summer, if they really can't wait. Banner day beckons. We await to discover football's depths of inhumanity. How Benitez was misquoted "Chelsea is a big club with fantastic players. Every manager wants to coach a big team. But I could never take that job, in respect for my former team at Liverpool." This quote has been used to beat Benitez since he arrived at Stamford Bridge but he never actually said it. It came from a 15-year-old Tweeter from the Czech Republic who had a Benitez photo on his account and became part of the myth. Tweet

"Why now, Rafa?" the pundits are asking. Well, here's my take on it (from the perspective of a long-time Rafa watcher and admirer). First of all, Rafa is an extremely proud man. Some may see that as a character flaw while others see it as a positive trait that drives him to achieve. For the present purposes it doesn't matter - just to acknowledge that as a fact that his pride and dignity are very important to him. After his Inter Milan misadventure, Rafa has been on record as saying he wants only to manage in England and only for a side that is competing for a Champions League spot. This left him with precious few options. Indeed, CFC offered him the caretaker position last season but Rafa wasn't willing to take the job for 3 months. This time when they came knocking he was hardly going to say no after a painful two years out of management. I don't think Rafa ever wanted the Chelsea job on a permanent basis. Oh, yes, he wanted to do well enough that Abramovich would look foolish not to offer him the position but I am confident Rafa only saw this as a stepping stone to his next job which will probably be on the continent. There's a show business saying: "There's no such thing as bad publicity". It doesn't quite work that way in the world of football management but Rafa was in danger of being forgotten, of being yesterday's man. And whatever else happened taking the CFC job was a way to get people talking about him again So, why now? Basically, it's this. Rafa knows more than anyone what is going on behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge. He is a political animal and at any club he has worked at he has had allies who have kept him informed about what the board and executive are up to. He has probably heard that he is one "bad result" (i.e., a loss or a draw) away from the humiliation of being sacked halfway through his interim manager spell. Rafa has decided he isn't going to depart with his tail between his legs the way Di Matteo did. He is going out with a bang, not a whimper. It is no coincidence that he decided to speak out after a win. He has got the "managing in the Premiership" bug out of his system and he is ready to move on. And he wanted to let the Chelsea imbeciles, sorry fans, and hierarchy know it. Some of the pundits are saying he shouldn't have spoken out because it will both hasten his departure and make him less attractive to future employers. From Rafa's perspective, however, I think the working conditions have gone from unacceptable to intolerable. He was careful not to say anything that would warrant his dismissal from an employment law perspective and so he is quite prepared to pocket his £2-3 million for 3 months work and leave them to it. As for his future options I think Rafa has decided that it is better to be himself - an obsessive, perfectionist, loyal manager who demands the same from both his players and the Board - and look for an owner that respects those qualities rather than try and market himself as a yes-man. My prediction? Rafa will be managing at a Europa League club next season, probably in Spain or Germany. And their gain is the Premiership's loss.

Absolutely brilliant! How have I never heard of these guys?

He hasn't done well and he hasn't done poorly either. At any normal club you would consider the first season, let alone the first 3 months, to be a bedding in period where you wouldn't jump to any conclusions about a manager. Unless something extraordinary has happened that requires an immediate change - which is hardly the case with Rafa.

Forget Rafa. Why not appoint John Terry as player/manager? http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/bootroom/id/189?cc=5901 Rafa Benitez is finished. He knows it, Roman Abramovich knows it and the players know it. While Chelsea insisted on Thursday morning that it was "business as usual" at their Cobham training ground, even the Blues aren't so chaotic a club that the past 24 hours can be considered normal. There seems little point in retaining Benitez now. If he thought that the fans didn't like him before, just wait until they catch up with him on Saturday. It will be ugly. Launching an attack on the supporters is rarely a wise idea, but when nearly 2,000 of them have just jumped on buses to begin a 250 mile journey home from Teeside on a cold weeknight, you have to question your timing. Not that it matters now, of course. Benitez was perfectly entitled to complain, just as the fans were perfectly entitled to oppose his appointment. The blame lies with owner Abramovich and his lieutenants. It would be in everyone's interests if this shambolic union was ended as swiftly as possible. But what do Chelsea do then? - Video: Rafa's rant - Delaney: Strange timing - "Business as Usual" - Video: Marcotti's take They still have to secure a Champions League place and there's still the FA Cup. But where on earth are they going to find a manager crazy enough to sign up for three months in the madhouse? Well ... how about in the back four? How about John Terry? OK, I'm going to give you a moment to get the giggles out of your system. Finished? Good. It's not quite as daft an idea as you might think. For starters, it would instantly remove the key problem of ‘winning over the dressing room.' He is, after all, the only possible candidate who wouldn't ever have to face a disgruntled John Terry. While not as universally popular within the club as is often made out, Terry is at least universally respected as a footballer. He wouldn't have too many problems unifying the squad. There would be no question of the fans booing him either. If they didn't turn on him for that extended period of radio silence that seemed to invite a bid from Manchester City in 2009, the alleged affair with the mother of a teammate's child or the Anton Ferdinand scandal, then they're unlikely to hound him out for a disappointing goalless draw away at Southampton. While Terry doesn't yet have the necessary coaching qualifications, he has already begun the process of earning them. When Middlesbrough appointed Gareth Southgate as a replacement for Steve McClaren in 2006, they had a similar problem, but short-term ‘special dispensation' was granted and then extended by the Premier League. Though officials were at pains to stress that each case is treated individually and that the decision did not constitute a precedent, Southgate was allowed to continue in the role as it was accepted that his playing career had not granted him the time to finish his courses. Chelsea used to love their player-managers. Glenn Hoddle (1993-‘96), Ruud Gullit (‘96-‘98) and Gianluca Villai (‘98-‘00) all happily named themselves in their own starting line-ups and all with a certain amount of success. In many ways, it makes even more sense these days. The role of a manager is now far beyond the powers of one man, unless they're an extraordinary man like Sir Alex Ferguson. Chelsea seem reluctant to devolve that much power to an individual anyway, which is why Jose Mourinho is unlikely to ever return. Abramovich has his own scout, Michael Emenalo. He runs the long-term transfer strategy and there are dozens of minions scuttling around Cobham with important looking pieces of paper. Terry could appoint an experienced assistant, a good coaching team and then act in something of an executive role, delegating all but the most essential of tasks. The final benefit, for those of a conspiratorial bent, is that even if Terry's appointment fails in the short-term, it will succeed in the long-term. For years, Newcastle managers were forced to work in the shadow of Alan Shearer, knowing that every time they lost a couple of matches, his name would be linked to the position. Eventually, Mike Ashley cracked and gave him the job in 2009. He won one game in eight, Newcastle were relegated and Shearer was let go. No-one has worked under that shadow since. If Terry is appointed and Chelsea miss out on the Champions League, his successors will have one thing less to worry about. If he succeeds, then Chelsea salvage their season and they can decide how to move forward from a position of strength in the summer. Either way, giving Terry three months in the dugout can't be any worse than allowing Benitez to defiantly stride towards the scaffold like a man with nothing to lose. Men like that are dangerous.

I thought someone said carralegend was a huge Rafa supporter when he was with us?

Top post I'd edit your first sentence, though, to say he's at CFC because Cecil went on a power trip and wanted to play Championship Manager with our squad. Otherwise, he'd still be here fighting every day for us.

Avram Grant apparently the front-runner

Great stuff. Brendan certainly talks the talk - let's hope he delivers when and where it counts.

Rafa clearly doesn't give a s**t about their fans either