Naitch

Apparently Reece James and Mason Mount are out for the rest of the season? I don't think that's a bad thing, given that Chelsea don't have anything left to play for at this point. Let them rest up and give some younger players the minutes. I want to see Datro Fofana, Chukwuemeka, Hutchinson, and Hall getting some first-team experience.

I'm also hopeful not to see Aubameyeng, Felix, Zakaria or Ziyech put on a blue shirt again.

I totally forgot about that one. Looking it up also led me to discover Wikipedia pages for the following:

Belgian Big Three (Brugge, Anderlecht, Standard Liege)

Costa Rican Big Three (Saprissa, Alajuelence, Herediano)

Greek Big Three (AEK, Olympiacos, Panathanaikos)

Dutch Big Three (Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV)

Peruvian Big Three (Alianza Lima, Sporting Cristal, Universitario)

Swedish Big Three (AIK, Goteborg, Malmo)

Turkish Big Three (Besiktas, Fenerbache, Galatasaray)

Mexican Big Four (Club America, Cruz Azul, Guadalajara, Pumas)

Argentine Big Five (River Plate, Boca Juniors, Independiente, Racing Club, San Lorenzo)

Brazilian Big Twelve (Atlético Mineiro, Botafogo, Corinthians, Cruzeiro, Flamengo, Fluminense, Grêmio, Internacional, Palmeiras, Santos, São Paulo, Vasco da Gama)

I'm curious what the discourse is on what constitutes the 'big' clubs in other leagues, beyond our predominantly English perceptions. Certain clubs obviously have good runs of form but that doesn't typically extend to a consistent group of teams at the same time.

Italy, France, and Germany have all had one dominant team for a while, but even they've had breaks in form and the other teams around them haven't been anywhere near the same level.

Celtic/Rangers is the only really obvious established one I can think of, and even then it hasn't exactly been a factor for most of the last decade. I guess Spain is quite consistent with its top 3 still being somewhat competitive between them (and Sevilla being consistently 4th but fairly solid in Europe), as well.

3 hours ago, Skummy said:

A lot of supposed "one hit wonders", outside of outright novelty singles, are far more interesting bands than they're ever given credit for.

Bands like Chumbawamba and Dexy's Midnight Runners are only known by one (or, in Dexy's case, arguably two) singles that are far from their best, and far from representative of their best work.

There was a trend in alternative music in the mid-00s toward Swedish electronica, which produced a lot of artists that never reached the heights they could have done. The Knife - and Fever Ray's solo material - looked prised to become something pretty exceptional, especially after Jose Gonzalez's cover of Heartbeats ended up in some commercials and seemed to be everywhere for a little while. 

Lykke Li was another in that same vein; from her first album, I thought she was going to be huge. I thought Little Bit from her first album, and Sadness Is A Blessing from her second in particular should have been massive, but the zeitgeist moved quickly on from that genre. 

Someone I used to work with was involved in music in London throughout the 90s, particularly working for One Little Indian, which was Chumbawamba's record label before they were known. I recall him saying that they hate the song because it's so different to the style of music they actually enjoy, but it's the one that makes them money.

2 hours ago, stokeriño said:

6th? We should be so lucky.

I'm just happy that we no longer seem to be the 'chaos' club in English football. We absolutely still should be but the Spurs implosion has been brewing for a while and its fresh, whereas people have been ripping on Chelsea for over a year at this point.

18 minutes ago, Twist said:

True but not quite what I had in mind.

Was it that Liverpool are the only team without the letter 'C' in their shorthand name?

I appreciate that the lineup looks like a giant arrow pointing at Chelsea's goal. It's a very visual metaphor for "this is where the ball goes".

Just found out about this image from the last UFC event. What a parade of dickheads...

1 hour ago, damhausen said:

Shirts like this are my reference for the inevitable end state of shirt sponsors, especially at lower leagues.

https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p/charly-cf-pachuca-22-home-replica-jersey-22bvamwspchc22hmrscr/22bvamwspchc22hmrscr

Not too dissimilar from motorsports livery really.

21 hours ago, Colly said:

I could be wrong but I think you're only allowed a front of shirt and a sleeve sponsor in the Premier League, the EFL have different rules. Struggling to find a source for that though. 

This would explain the appearance of the odd-looking tramp stamp sponsor (for an Italian lighting company, of all things) on the back of the otherwise quite nice Norwich kits.

We're very much East of England!

I once had to explain to a uni flatmate from Lewes that I wasn't a "northerner". She was a very sheltered individual...

Just now, damhausen said:

Isn't he at Watford now or did they already sack him?

He's got the Tuesday shift.

I'm sure you mean Backlund's first reign but pretending that you're referring to his second is much funnier.

Fun fact: Roman Reigns has been the WWE Universal champion for the entire duration of Lampard's absence from Chelsea, plus a further 148 days.

Equally though, Spurs are desperately clinging onto 4th place and could even drop out of the European spots entirely if the final run in doesn't go their way. It's basically only the fact that they've played more games than anyone around them, and Man Utd have only gained one point in the last six weeks, that's keeping them in a Champions League spot.

34 minutes ago, Szumi - A Polack said:

wait until the summer and have much better opportunities 

Who knows, maybe the Chelsea job will be available again by then?

On 23/03/2023 at 16:07, stokeriño said:

Now you all got me pondering what would be Chelsea's "darkest age of the last 50 years"...

Footballing-wise, the nadir was coming within 2 points of relegation to the 3rd division back in 1983. But more existentially, the fact that only sheer luck prevented the club from being liquidated in 1992 makes that the obvious choice for me (even if they were in the top division at the time).

I've always been fortunate to only know Chelsea as a post-Matthew Harding top PL side challenging for domestic or European silverware. Very privileged on that count but I'm sure my Dad, who used to sit in the Shed End in the early 1970s, appreciates the relative safety of the club's current position. Meanwhile, you've got post-Abramovich youngsters, glory hunters, and plastics moaning that not consistently challenging for the league is a sign of the apocalypse.

I'm also very fortunate that Chelsea's worst season during my "support" came when I wasn't paying that much attention to football. I very much fell away from following the sport in ~2011 and only really came back during Euro 2016.

Kinda wish I'd actually formed a connection with my local club (Norwich) but my Mum being a lapsed Ipswich fan kind of saw that of, and I never quite got into following the Tractor Boys either. Is it weird to have a mutual level of interest in both Norwich and Ipswich?

23 hours ago, Lineker said:

 

Never watched it. Was it actually any good?

10 minutes ago, Cymbols said:

Turns out he’s now the first, second AND third oldest managerial appointment in the Premier League.

Who's fourth?

Ipswich almost certainly has to be one of them.

I don't believe I ever saw Marcos Alonso use his right foot, sometimes even contorting his body to use his left in ways that defy physics.

6 hours ago, Chris2K said:

At what point do we "forget" to book Conte a flight back to London?

Can you send him back to Stamford Bridge? It sounds worth trying at this point.

3 minutes ago, DavidMarrio said:

Any chance this can be voided and there's no winner? 

We could just collectively pretend that the Forest/Southampton game on May 6th is the real League Cup final.

On 12/02/2023 at 13:45, stokeriño said:

Fun fact: if Chelsea fail to win at least one of their next three matches (Dortmund, Southampton, Tottenham), then Graham Potter will officially have the lowest Win % of any Chelsea manager since Danny Blanchflower's relegation run in 1979.

On 12/02/2023 at 17:55, Naitch said:

My quick interpretation of the maths and Wikipedia says that wouldn't be the case. Ian Porterfield (31 in 90, 34.4%) and Glenn Hoddle (53 in 157, 33.8%) would both still be worse than Potter (hypothetically 9 in 26, 34.6%). Both Porterfield and Hoddle also had 3-6 times as many games to achieve their low scores in.

The fact that we're having to make this detailed a breakdown while technically still World champions and when half a billion has been spent in a January transfer window, however, is a little bit concerning.

On a separate note, Hoddle was made England manager with that win record. Jesus.

@stokeriño I guess the question now is, can Potter make it to the Leeds game next weekend for the deciding match on this?

The missus used to complain at me for spending too long playing FM. She's just turned the tables and spent near enough 6 hours playing as Ipswich on FM05 😂