Chelsea aftermath

[spud_gun]

I agree with you about Crouch. Rafa should have brought him on with around 20 minutes left.

Babel was a fairly effective substitue. As Shaggy said Pennant was probably taken off not because he was tired but because he was on a yellow.

[Kenneth]

Hang on, aren't all newspapers out to get us and 100% biased against us?

[Steve101]

The difference between the standards of referees was never more evident than in the two televised matches yesterday. The Manchester derby was very well refereed by Mark Clattenburg, not perfect, he made mistakes as we all do, but when a situation croped up he was in charge and dealt very well with it. Watch Styles run away from players as they hassle him. At one pont he was man handled by some Chelsea players,and had no control at all. Chelsea aren't the only tean to do this (Im' talking about planned and an systematic hassling here, not heat of the moment stuff). Man U and Arsenal have in past years been guilty, and its not good. The moment I saw who the ref was I expected issues, he's is bloody rubbish. BUT, being positive.....chelsea have played three games (two against possible relegation candidates) and conceded 4 goals. for a team whos play is based on being hard to score against it doesnt boe well or them IMO.

[Shaggy]

The difference between the standards of referees was never more evident than in the two televised matches yesterday. The Manchester derby was very well refereed by Mark Clattenburg, not perfect, he made mistakes as we all do, but when a situation croped up he was in charge and dealt very well with it. Watch Styles run away from players as they hassle him. At one pont he was man handled by some Chelsea players,and had no control at all. Chelsea aren't the only tean to do this (Im' talking about planned and an systematic hassling here, not heat of the moment stuff). Man U and Arsenal have in past years been guilty, and its not good. The moment I saw who the ref was I expected issues, he's is bloody rubbish. BUT, being positive.....chelsea have played three games (two against possible relegation candidates) and conceded 4 goals. for a team whos play is based on being hard to score against it doesnt boe well or them IMO.

Clattenburg is the best ref around these days, while Styles is up there with Riley and Bennett as the worst.

[blacky]

I think Rafa got it all right yesterday bar bringing Crouch on so late. He is not an impact player as last seasons goal record shows. I'd like to see him start with Torres next weekend.

[AFII]

Maureen at it again

Rafa Benitez fury at ‘invisible’ foul

Aug 20 2007 by Nick Peet at Anfield, Liverpool Echo

RAFA BENITEZ was incensed by Rob Styles' decision to award Chelsea a penalty that denied the Reds all three points yesterday.

Styles, the only man inside Anfield to believe Steve Finnan fouled Florent Malouda, threw Chelsea a lifeline with the spot-kick ruling just after the hour mark.

Benitez, whose £18million new signing Fernando Torres scored his first goal for the club in the opening half, said: “What penalty? It was the invisible penalty. There were 45,000 people who could see it and know it wasn’t, Jose says he could not see it.

“I want to have a lot of respect for referees, but sometimes I cannot understand why they give some decisions, that decision is impossible to explain.

"Maybe the referee was under a bit of pressure. I think he will watch the video of the match and admit that his penalty decision was a mistake.”

And he added: “We had chances to win and we have two less points, we must now be positive.

“It is too early to say who are contenders, but we always show when we play Chelsea that we can be there, so now we have to be consistent against the rest of the teams for nine months.”

Mourinho’s view on the crucial penalty call was: “I have not really seen the penalty properly, only from 30 metres away on the sidelines.

“In the box there is no advantage law, if the referee sees a foul he gives a penalty. So when Malouda is kicked from behind as he lets to ball run to Drogba, then it is a penalty.

“It is to be discussed by commentators, just like they discussed the goal we lost the Champions League semi-final by here two years ago.”

The penalty incident set the tone for the rest of the match, in which Styles practically lost control.

In the latter stages he appeared to book Michael Essien for a second time without sending off the Ghanaian only for the fourth official to reveal the booking had been issued to John Terry.

The simmering feud between the two sides erupted on the pitch with nine bookings, and off it with more controversy between Benitez and Mourinho.

Confronted with questioning over his team’s alleged gamesmanship and constant harassment of referee Styles’ decisions, Chelsea boss Mourinho claimed: “We are a naive and pure team.

“I have a naive team, they are naive because we do not have divers, we do not have violent people we do not have nasty tackles.

“We do not have people diving into swimming pools, Chelsea is a naive team. It is a pure team, that is my opinion.”

On hearing the Portuguese coach’s version of affairs, Liverpool chief Benitez could not stop himself hitting back.

He said: “I will not name people, but you can check their team and see how many times they do things that he (Mourinho) says they do not do. I don’t want to give names but I remember a lot of situations in the last three years, and today you could see the players talking all the time at the referee.”

He added: "But it was important for Torres to score at Anfield - it will prove beneficial for him in the future."

CLICKY - The Echo

[JohnDoe]

Speechless :whatever:

[Manofthebog]

**** off mourinho, **** off mourinho, **** off mourinho, **** off mourinho.

[Reece]

The man is deluded IF he believes that.

Otherwise he is just plain bull****ting and is a laughing stock.

[desertscouser]

How any non Chav fan can like Mourinho I'll never know. He's a lying loathsome cock sucker.

[Harv]

He really is a piece of ****.

I would rather listen to Fergie than this ******.


Seriously, what is he on? Did he not see his players continually surrounding the ref?, did he not see Dogbreath continually jumping into players?, did he not see Obi Mikel kick out at Stevie? or Lampturd tripping Xabi on purpose?

he needs to shut the **** up

[publiusscipio]

“We are a naive and pure team.

“I have a naive team, they are naive because we do not have divers, we do not have violent people we do not have nasty tackles.

“We do not have people diving into swimming pools, Chelsea is a naive team. It is a pure team, that is my opinion.”


Maybe the Portuguese gentleman thinks we are all naive and pure, and that we came down with the last shower of rain.

He knows he is blatantly lying and that his coat is from Matalan.

[Joe King]

He's a piece of **** still about us winning the Champions League. His achievement of winning the Champions League was somewhat ok but who did they play in the final? The mighty Monaco who had a form on-off Morientes and Guily as their best players. We had the best technical team in the world at the time: Kaka, Shevchenko, Crespo, Seedorf, Gattuso, Pirlo to name a few. He needs to shut up, count his money and get on with the game.

[cobain]

I don't give a flying f*** what that deluded dude says. As a matter of fact, I'm encouraging him to say more about this week in week out, because he is making the biggest arse of himself in the history of history

[RedWolverine]

What utter complete BS by him yet again