Chelsea: Nobody likes us but we don't care

By Jack Pitt-Brooke
Saturday, 29 September 2012


At the end of a very difficult week for Chelsea, Roberto Di Matteo insisted yesterday he is not worried about how the club is seen from the outside.

The club captain, John Terry has, pending an appeal, been banned for four games for racially abusing Anton Ferdinand last season. The Queen's Park Rangers defender wrote on Twitter yesterday that "people need to read the facts" regarding the incident, and that "footage don't lie". Di Matteo, though, will not allow any external criticism to distract his players.


"We are confident," Di Matteo said, ahead of this afternoon's game at Arsenal, "so we don't really care too much the way the outside world, the external environment sees us, we have to focus on our strength, that's the way we operate.


"That's how I see it, how I feel it. I cannot influence what other people's opinion is. We can only influence the way we play or the way we behave.


"We have to set good standards. I try to set good standards. But, at the end of the day, we won't be liked by our opposition's fans. That's generally speaking for everybody. So we cannot waste too much energy worrying about what they're thinking. We have to think about ourselves, try and win games for the club."


Terry is available for today's game despite missing a few days of training this week to attend his disciplinary hearing at Wembley.


Di Matteo said everything would carry on as normal, and he would pick his team this morning with reference only to the match at the Emirates.


"My criteria will be more or less the same," Di Matteo said. "From what I could see, [Terry] is physically in good form. It will be a normal procedure.


"From my point of view, he's available. It'll be down to me making the team selection to see what I think is the best team to beat Arsenal."


Terry is famously able to play on despite issues that might distract others, and Di Matteo anticipates no loss of focus should he start today.


"He's an experienced player, playing many games before, difficult games under difficult circumstances and environments," he said. "So if [he is] selected I don't think there will be a problem."


While Di Matteo was understandably cautious about discussing recent events, he was quick to praise Terry's character in a professional sense. "All I can judge is his professionalism when he's here at the club," Di Matteo said. "That's spot on. He's always one of the first in. He works hard, applies himself very well, and he's been a wonderful servant for this club, professionally."


Chelsea have started the Premier League season well and are top, but Arsenal will be their strongest domestic opponents so far this year. "It's certainly going to be a big test," Di Matteo acknowledged. "Arsenal away is always a big test, a big challenge for us. But it will be for Arsenal, too, we are a good team."


Although Arsenal sold Robin van Persie and Alex Song this summer, Di Matteo said he predicted they would be a threat from the start. "I said at the start of the season that Arsenal were going to be challenging for the league," the manager said. "I'm not sure anybody believed me but that's the way I saw it, I haven't changed my mind.


"Personnel have changed, but the philosophy has not changed. I don't think they have a different way of playing. They play with a lot of possession and ball retention, but Lukas Podolski and Gervinho have been scoring goals, and Santi Cazorla.


"They have players who are a threat and change positions."



Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/premiership/chelsea-nobody-likes-us-but-we-dont-care-16217783.html#ixzz27rGQ2aSq

KERRY DIXON: SAY WHAT YOU LIKE, TERRY JOHN IS ONE OF FINEST

TRUE GIANT: John Terry is a colossus in Dixon’s eyes He is the nearest I have seen to match ­Adams in terms of both ­quality and leadership

30th September 2012 By Tony Stenson

THERE have been a lot of words written this week about John Terry. I’ll add mine and say he is one of the finest ­professionals I have met.



The same goes for Frank Lampard. Both will always be tops with me.




Everyone sees what they do on the pitch but it’s away from the limelight that they also shine.




No autograph is too much. No chat to a fan is ever a chore.




I see this as a person who works at Chelsea, for their TV channel and with fans.




You might say I would say this – but people who know me know such a claim could not be further from the truth.




I turned down many media calls from TV and ­newspapers to talk about John’s ban.




So this is my first and only view on the subject. Terry is a colossus of a defender. It will be England’s loss and Chelsea’s gain now he has ­retired from ­international action­.




The best English defender I have seen and played with is Tony Adams of Arsenal. We played ­together when he made his England Under-21s debut.




I saw then his immense potential and he just grew and grew into the complete defender.




I didn’t think I would see his like again – until John Terry came onto the scene. He is the nearest I have seen to match ­Adams in terms of both ­quality and leadership.




As for Lampard, he’s a true gent, a good bloke.




I was in a Chelsea VIP box recently and he came in to meet the fans. He’s just six goals behind me in the all-time Chelsea scorers’ list.




If I am going to be overtaken then it could not be by a nicer guy.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/football/view/274650/Kerry-Dixon-Say-what-you-like-Terry-John-is-one-of-finest-/

Defiance cuts both ways for Chelsea

DateOctober 7, 2012

Chelsea's Toxic Twins are an embarrassment to the game and their peers. They have brought disgrace upon themselves and their club, writes Henry Winter.

Chelsea are champions of Europe, highly watchable pacesetters in the English Premier League with an owner who loves the game and some of the most impassioned supporters around, but they have to get a grip on their Toxic Twins, John Terry and Ashley Cole. They are an embarrassment to the club and to the game that rewards them so handsomely.

Chelsea need to order Terry to start apologising and Cole to stop tweeting.

Over the past decade, the centre-back and left back have been England's most sure-footed defenders, invariably alive to danger, vital sporting qualities painfully lacking in their human armoury.

Having been found guilty of making a racist remark by an Independent Regulatory Commission, and then received ''written reasons'' dripping with condemnation, Terry would be a total fool even to consider an appeal. He cannot be that stupid, surely? Nothing would surprise in this unseemly saga, though. Privately, the Football Association admits there is no chance of Terry's four-game ban being increased if his appeal fails but what remains of his credibility would be washed away in a further storm of derision.

Terry has built a career on defiance, an admirable attribute when games are turning against him, but now the whole game is turning against him. ''This whole case is causing the game to implode,'' said Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, who has tried to reason with Terry. Strong words.

Already unpopular in quarters of the professional game, Terry could become a pariah. He is perceived as conceited, his character captured in the commission report that described his expression when addressing Anton Ferdinand on October 23 as ''disdainful'' and ''contemptuous'', not ''injured'' or ''quizzical in the face of an unfounded allegation'' (as Terry claimed).

Who is advising Terry? Baldrick? If there is nobody close to Terry with the gumption or commonsense to tell him to say sorry to Ferdinand, to embark on a damage-limitation exercise sharpish, voicing his abhorrence of racism, then Chelsea must step in, pointing out that he is damaging them. Terry is letting a sore fester, risking infecting the rest of the club. ''At the moment, he's our captain,'' his manager, Roberto di Matteo, said a touch ominously.

Chelsea's usually amiable director of communications, Steve Atkins, has taken to lecturing correspondents, this one included, on their columns when he and his club should be focusing on extinguishing the inferno of two employees' making.

Chelsea resemble a club short of leadership. The owner is silent (as usual), the board is inert and the captain is disgraced. How sad. They should be basking in the limelight, enjoying the afterglow of their European success. The focus on Chelsea should be around the twinkling feet of Juan Mata, Oscar and Eden Hazard, but Terry and Cole have dragged the national spotlight on to their character defects.

Cole's reputation was smeared across a few pages of the judgment. He was effectively accused of changing his tune, of letting loyalty to a teammate get in the way of the truth. According to the commission, Cole's evidence ''evolved''. In a remarkable fit of pique even by his prickly standards, Cole responded to the written reasons by pouring bile over the FA.

I nearly swerved off the road when I heard what Cole had tweeted. He had not read the full reasons, simply reacting to the breaking news bar on the training-ground flat screen. At least he apologised.

So nimble and clever when closing down an opposing winger, Cole can be remarkably leaden-footed and dim-witted off the pitch. He is worth many millions, a sportsman with lucrative contracts, and yet he unleashes a barb of a tweet at those in charge of discipline.

Cole seems to use Twitter as a catapult. Surely a charge awaits followed by a swift guilty verdict and fine? Deleting the tweet was an admission of an error. Cole could have been savvier, issuing a statement through the club, highlighting the technical errors made by the FA in bringing its case. Instead, Cole lashed out.

Cole and Terry are an embarrassment to their peers. Most Premier League players get through the day without uttering a racist remark at an opponent or launching invective at the guardians of the game. When footballing agnostics think of the Premier League they will associate it with Terry and Cole, with ignorance and arrogance, overlooking the altruistic elements.

The crassness of Terry and Cole will blind the critics to the £100 million a year the Premier League gives clubs and assorted initiatives outside the elite. They will not see the countless club community schemes, the number of players with their own foundations, the visits to children's hospitals and regular picture-signing sessions after training. English football is a benevolent force yet its image is tainted by the likes of Terry and Cole.

They may be at ease with their toxic reputations. There is an inherent sadness here. Terry is still a fine centre half. Cole is still England's best left back, albeit with Leighton Baines closing fast. As competitors in their chosen craft, Terry and Cole are brilliant performers. As human beings, they leave so much to be desired.

Telegraph, London



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/football/defiance-cuts-both-ways-for-chelsea-20121006-2760r.html#ixzz28Wrismbl

Bust be nice, being able to be so far in denial that you're satisfied with arseholes like Terry, Cole and Torres playing for your club.

But at the same time satisfied that we're top of the league

So I saw the Chelsea thread resurface and I got curious... I did some maths.

Arsenal Thread: sept 25th 2010. 302 pages. A page every 2.42 days.
Liverpool Thread: Sept 29th 2010. 333 pages. A Page every 2.18 days.
United Thread: Sept 29th 2010. 250 pages. A page every 2.91 days.

Chelsea Thread: sept 24th 2010. 21 pages. A page every 34.95 days.

Nice work, Chelsea fans.

(Not starting Oscar in big games)

I don't recall ever trolling other teams threads, perhaps you might be kind enough to take your trolling elsewhere.

Thanks in advance

I don't recall ever trolling other teams threads, perhaps you might be kind enough to take your trolling elsewhere.

Thanks in advance

Fair enough. Must be hard to troll using only the copy & paste buttons.

Oh look, you were rude to someone on the internet, you must be so cool.

Thanks in advance.

So are we going to discuss football or just yell at each other?

Considering we're being trolled by a pack of pricks living off their past and another bunch who haven't won something in years I don't think they'll want to talk much about current football.

Chelsea to offer only one-year deals to Lampard and Cole

By Andrew Tuft
Wednesday 10 October 2012

Experienced Chelsea pair Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole are facing a decision on whether or not to accept short-term contracts at Stamford Bridge or seek a longer deal elsewhere, as the Daily Mail reports the Premier League leaders will only offer one-year renewals to the England internationals.


The existing contracts of both Lampard and Cole are due to expire in summer 2013, with each therefore free to negotiate a pre-contract agreement with a club outside the Premier League as of January 1. The Mail notes that Lampard is already attracting interest from a number of clubs in China, including Shanghai Shenhua, home of ex-Chelsea striker Didier Drogba, as well as MLS side LA Galaxy, who could team Lampard with David Beckham.


Drogba was in a similar situation a year ago, the newspaper adds, and was presented with an ultimatum of a one-year deal, having held out for two. When Drogba was not offered a longer contract, he accepted Shenhua’s offer instead and ended his eight-year Chelsea career.

Lampard has been at Chelsea for more than a decade, moving to the club from West Ham United in 2001. Cole also crossed London to join the Blues, leaving Arsenal in 2006, with France international William Gallas going in the opposite direction.


http://www.adifferentleague.co.uk/p6_1_17067_chelsea-to-offer-only-one-year-deals-to-lampard-and-cole.html

Any word on the what happened to the security guard and his condition?