Taipan

It has already been to a real court. Twice. The two rulings from FIFA followed on from that: link

That was the appeal. The initial decision was 9.6 million in compensation. He appealed and the result was the compensation was increased to 13.7 million.

Mourinho didn't lie over Frisk. Rijkaard did meet Frisk at halftime, in an area reserved for referees. Frisk highlighted that in his match report, as did UEFA venue director Fratellia. Mourinho got a detail wrong: The meeting didn't happen in the referees dressing room, but rather the restricted area outside the dressing room. That error was down to the information given to him by Steve Clarke who made the mistake. If Mourinho had said 'restrected Referees area' instead of 'dressing room' then every word he said was totally correct. (link) Mourinho was fined and banned for failing to attend the post match press conference, and for comments he made in a Portuguese newspaper.

Wayne Bridge is better than Ashley Cole, and has been for the last two years. He did have a poor game against the Croats, but usually he is on par with Cole defensively (giving up a bit in pace) and is FAR superiour going forward and crossing.

Money aside - Mourinho does things very differently to Rafa. He picks his best team, every week. He plays the same formation, regardless of the opposition. If things are not working he is prepared to take risks, and take them early. He'll drag a defender and go three at the back at half time with scores level, or even do it in the first half if he's behind.

Pepe did play well. He has already been linked with Madrid, Juventus and Chelsea: link

He was terrible against Chelsea IMO. He did score a nice goal and do a few good things, but he was stupid in the way he kept turning the ball over trying flicks and backheels when a simple pass would have done. I think his teammates and the Porto fans would be pretty pissed at most of what he did in that game. I think the worst aspect of his game was his decisions as to when and where he tried these low percentage tricks. He was doing them in the middle of the park against a set defence - well away from the Chelsea goal. If they did work he wasn't really putting the defence under any pressure, and if they didn't he was creating big problems for his own team. Most of them didn't work and overall he put Porto under more pressure than he did Chelsea.

Rijkaard did meet Frisk at half time. Mourinho's mistake was that the meeting didn't occur in the referee's dressing room, but rather at the front of Frisk's dressing room door. That was in an are supposed to be restricted from players and managers. That was confirmed by both Frisk in his match report, and by also by UEFA's venue director for that game, Pascal Fratellia. The details of both Frisk's and Fratellia's reports came out after Mourinho had been fined and banned. Mourinho's fine and ban was for failing to attend the post match press conference and his statement in a Portuguese newspaper that the result was 'adulterated': Uefa report backs Blues on Frisk - BBC Uefa: Rijkaard did approach Frisk - Guardian UEFA report supports Chelsea claims - Soccernet Frisk's report buried - Evening Standard UEFA Confirm Frisk Approach - SoccerEurope UEFA plays down Rijkaard report - New Age Sports

I've said since pre-season that this is a very real possibility. The main reason I see it as a real possibility is tension between Kenyon and Mourinho rather than anything to do with Abramovich. Some of the incidents which have contributed to Mourinho - Kenyon tension are: 1. The Andres Frisk affair. Mourinho felt that he was not supported by the club (Kenyon) and later said he was on the verge of quitting as a result. Mourinho was slated in the press worldwide over his allegation that Rijkaard had improperly met referee Frisk in the referee's dressing room at half time. Mourinho wanted support from Chelsea to push for vindication, while Kenyon preferred to let the issue drop because of the bad publicity. (Rijkaard really did improperly meet Frisk at half time, and that fact was included in Frisk's match report and the report to UEFA over the matter. Where Mourinho got it wrong was that the meeting didn't occur in the referee's dressing room as he alleged, but a restricted area adjacent to the dressing room. Mourinho's fine and touchline ban was for failing to attend the post match press conference) 2. The Ashley Cole affair. Mourinho feels that was a big mess that Kenyon got him in to. 3. The sale of Gallas. Mourinho was absolutely furious at Gallas's sale. He was dead against it but it was imposed on him by Kenyon and Abramovich, and felt that it undermined his authority. That wasn't from a playing point of view, but rather for discipline reasons. Mourinho wanted to keep Gallas for the final year of his contract, but let him rot in the reserves as a punishment and warning to others for Gallas' behaviour towards the end of last season (ie, the FA Cup semi against Liverpool, and the way he was conducting his contract negotiations). Kenyon and Abramovich saw no point in paying a player to do nothing for a year and then letting them go for free, especially when he could be used as a trade for Cole so they over ruled him. The tension between Mourinho and Kenyon isn't all one way. Kenyon wants everyone to love Chelsea and buy Chelsea shirts, but the way Mourinho behaves makes everyone hate Chelsea. Early in the season there was a concerted charm offensive from Chelsea. Mourinho was saying nice things about the opposition, and there was a significant improvement in the behaviour of players - particularly a marked reduction in diving. I think that was a result of pressure from Kenyon to try to get people to like Chelsea more. Recently charm offensive seems to have worn off, with Drogba in particular returning to his diving worst and Mourinho bad-mouthing the opposition again. I think Kenyon will be less than impressed at the obvious hypocrisy of Mourinho calling Johnson a diver and the resultant bad press for Chelsea again. If Mourinho did leave, then Inter appears his most likely destination. Early in the season he said a lot of nice things about Inter on a number of different occasions, and has previously said that he would like to manage in Italy.

An English speaking Barca forum: here

Still desperately clinging to the hope that there might be some truth to this smear. Why don?t you direct your question to the person who can best answer it - the Tottenham Hotspur Director of Communications who is supposed to have said it. I?ll take a wild guess that her email address might be Donna.Cullen@tottenhamhotspur.com. I?ll even help you out. Here is a draft of some text that you could use. With a quick cut and paste it shouldn?t take you five seconds to send it off:

Spurs have denied the racism claims. They did that in a letter to the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust. That letter has been quoted on Spurs forums (link): If anyone doesn't accept that the response I've quoted is genuinely from Tottenham Hotspur Football Club then I suggest they email Tottenham Hotspur directly themselves as I did. I got a reply within three hours with Donna Cullen's response that I've quoted, the same as quoted on the Spurs forum that I linked to. Here is the email address: public.relations@tottenhamhotspur.com . Do that and prove its authenticity for yourself. Then come back on here and post what you think about these allegations and this thread.

Yes. A Chelsea fan. As has been clearly stated in my profile on here for the last two and a half years. Perhaps you can back up your support for these lies you are pedalling. If my assessment of them as such is incorrect it should be easy for you to pick holes in what I?ve said. All you would need to do is: a. Show that Eto really did accuse Terry of racism as alleged here; b. Show that Rio Ferdinand really did say that a current England player is a racist, as alleged here; c. Come up with some coherent explanation as to just how Chelsea are able to silence Graham Poll, the Spurs Players and the press, as alleged. Now you have a go at defending these lies that you continue to propagate here.

The real story here is peoples readiness to accept and propagate a mixture of lies and bizarre reasoning that defies common sense. For a start, nobody who was involved has accused Terry of racism. Not the Spurs players, not Poll, and none of the black Chelsea players who were around the incident. This accusation comes from an anonymous internet user. Eto did not accuse Terry of racism last year. Or ever. Rio Ferdinand's book does not claim a current England player is a well known racist. See for yourself what he says ( Link ) and how what he did say has been twisted here. Chelsea can't somehow pressure newspapers not to print damaging stories. Nor can they influence Spurs players to keep quiet. Nor can they somehow get referee Poll to keep quiet. The BBC briefly had this email on their site, but it has been removed. It has also been posted twice on RAWK, and both times the thread there was deleted.

The Mirror (link) and S*n are both running the story. They both directly attribute the following quote to Ashley Cole: However, neither story actually directly attributes the following, more serious quote, to anyone: Given those quotes are appearing in tabloid papers, and they are not directly attibuted to Cole or anyone else, there might be some element of media beat up. I couldn't see those inflamitory quotes being reported at all on more reputable sites such as Soccernet (link) or the Times (link) as they covered Cole's post match comments.

It was a totally disgraceful performance of diving and cheating from both sets of players. The Barcelona players were every bit as bad, if not worse, than Chelsea's. The ref was largely responsible though, because he kept falling for the dives and giving free kicks and cards so both sets of players kept doing it. In the previous Barca / Chelsea game the ref didn't give free kicks for the dives, so the players quickly stopped diving. As far as the game was concerned, Barca were on top for the first 15 minutes, but after that Chelsea had the better of the play and created more and better chances. Robben in particular missed two great chances from just outside the six yard box with only the keeper to beat.

Its not just Gerrard. Ronaldinho, Lampard, Rooney, Alonso, Shevchenko and Deco are just a few of the big name players that have not been performing as they can this season. What does player burnout look like? If it isn't they way these guys are playing then just what does it look like? And Gerrard has played more in the last year or two than any of the others. Meanwhile after looking like a has-been for a couple of seasons Scholes is back being a good player again. That injury lay off last season and international retirement have done him a world of good. Too much football is the cause.

Does it make a difference? Cech was severely injured. Riley insisted he leave the field. So Cech crawled off. That shouldn't have happened. It should have been the medical staff saying when and how he left the field.

Cech suffered a very serious - yes, even life threatening - head injury. Yet the referee insisted he crawl off the field so that play could continue. That alone warrants some kind of investigation.

Sure Pennant misplaced a number of crosses. But that is only telling a part of the story. Virtually every time he got the ball he had 15 yards of space. That was not loose defending by Chelsea. It was the expected result of diamond formation Mourinho chose to play. It was exactly the same for Chelsea midweek against Bremen, and anytime Mourinho plays the diamond it is the same: Two strikers pressuring the centrebacks, four central midfielders, and three big centrebacks (including Boulahrouz) who are very capable of winning contested balls in the air. It gives the opposition space out wide but congests the middle of the park. Mourinho was in effect saying you can have the ball out wide if you want, but you can't hurt us with it out there. We'll own the middle of the park where it matters. That will not have come as any surprise to Benitez. He has seen it plenty of times before. His selection of Pennant and the way the team played it is pretty obvious that Benitez was taking up Mourinho's invitation to take the ball wide and cross it in. What I don't get is this: If Pennant had better directed his crosses, what chance would Kuyt and Bellamy have of beating Terry, Carvalho and Boulahrouz in the air? I don't think they would have got much even if the crosses had been coming in as intended. With Crouch it would be a different story. For me, the team selection didn't match the tactics. Pennant should have done better, but I don't know that it would have made a huge difference if he had. Until Ballack's red card Liverpool were playing Mourinho's game.

I think the investigation that article referred to is old news. I remember reading something very similar a year or more ago. That article is probably just that old news being recycled. It would be very interesting to know what, if anything, has happened as a result of that investigation in the year or more since it was first publicised. But I guess that is too much to expect from a journalist when there is an easy story available recycling old news. I doubt Abramovich is involved. That Berezovsky fella hates Abramovich and is sueing him. It is hard to see them being involved as business partners at the same time as Berezovsky is taking Abramovich to court trying to get a big slice of his fortune. There is also no sign of any cooperation or business dealings between MSI and Chelsea. Since MSI was created how much have Chelsea spent? £150m or more? None of that has been with MSI. As far as I am aware none of the clubs apparently associated with Chelsea - PSV and CSKA Moscow - have done any business with MSI either.

No. In every game in the league so far this season Chelsea have played a genuine winger. SWP and Kalou have so far shared that role - each with two starts. The diamond was roled out against Bremen in the CL. Lined up exactly as you said. SWP not even on the bench.

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