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Listed below are comments made by stonao between Thursday, 8th January 2009 and Sunday, 6th December 2009 (20 Hours Ago) .

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Tough World Cup draw for African challengers 7:16pm on 06 Dec 2009 27. At 10:05am on 06 Dec 2009, fabulousRedsReds wrote:

I am a little confused that many people Ghana and Ivory Coast as the teams that will Shine for Africa. Fair enough Ivory Coast, but Ghana? Probably because people in England know that Essien is arguable the best midfielder in the world? Unfortunately besides Essien there is not much else. Probably Suleiman Muntari? Or people are confusing the junior side that won the world cup wih the senior side??
Anyway, Cameroon and Nigeria will be the big Arican sides. They have experience, are dynamic, use thie physical strength well and are well balanced generally. I think that Cameroon will reach the 1/4 finals, with Eto'o top African scorer with 4 goals. I don't think that Drogba will explode, sorry fans - reason is that he either scores goals or does nothing. Without the Chelsea midfield he will be doing nothing most of the time. Just watch the ACN and you will see the 'other' Drogba..

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i'd just like to take a moment to defend the African Nations that you've just insulted. they have as much of a chance as anyone else, that's football...did anyone predict Liverpool going out of the champions league in the group stage? no but it still happened. And with the comments on Drogba, i couldn't disagree more. when he's not scoring them, he's busy creating them for everyone else. Drogba scores bag full's of goals for the Ivory Coast, he has scored 41 goals in 60 games, that a goal/game ratio of 1.46! which is amazing by any striker's standards. so fabulousRedsReds, make sure you pay close attention to the ACN and to the WC and you'll see the same Didier Drogba for them as the one that plays for Chelsea.
Man City come out of the darkness 5:36pm on 06 Dec 2009 I have a few points to get off my chest.

1. 'Surely beating Arsenal and Chelsea at home is at least a sign of real potential?' And this means what exactly? Burnley beat United at home, does this make them potential top 4 finishers? The whole point and enjoyment of football is that everyone has the potential to beat everyone else, and every now and then even the biggest and best clubs lose matches to smaller opposition, which is what Manchester City are. Until they can win something, apart from one football match, then i shall still consider them a small club and wouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as Chelsea, Arsenal, United, Liverpool, Spurs and even Portsmouth!! (at least they've won all won something in the past couple of years, well apart from Arsenal, but a class above City anyway)

2. Does beating Chelsea mean you are going to finish in the top four? I don't think so. Under Mourhino i believe we lost to City, but we still went on to win the league, and city done finished in their usual 6-10th place. And also, due to your logic, that means Villa and Wigan deserve to be in the top four (personally i think Villa should anyway)

3. Try not to sound so one sided in your blogs. I read them every week and it's always favouring one side rather than the other even if that team won. i watched the game and the way you've written about it here, it seems like we were facing an unstoppable machine for 80 minutes, apart from the first 10 minutes where we were on top. it was a lot closer than that and the both teams deserved something out of the game. City may have exploited some of our weaknesses, but so did we i.e the o.g. City can't defend corners properly to save their lives and it showed throughout the match with there being several occasions where the only way to defend it was to drag down and push Drogba, Terry and Ivanovic.

4. None of the goals should have counted. Our goal, for one it wasn't even a corner in the first place. end of. City's equaliser. Richards might as well have caught the ball and throw it to Adebeyor. now some may say it was unintentional, but when the balls going to hit your chest, why do you need to stick your arms there. he shouldn't. he moved his arms towards the ball which signals 'INTENT'. it doesn't matter if he's making a goalkeeper-esque save or doing what he did, he moved his arms towards the ball, handball. i play football down in the nether regions compared to the premier league, but i have the ball blasted at me week in week out, and do i stick my arms in the way because i'm afraid it will hurt? no. you take it and get on with it. and finally the tevez free kick. well it shouldn't have even been a free kick. Carvalho cleared the ball which was a good four and and half feet in the air, and as you do, you follow through whenever you kick the ball to get maximum power. Tevez runs into carvalho's leg and wins a free kick. how? what did Carvalho actually do wrong, and then to get booked for it afterwards? crazy. i'd also like to point out before i leave that the ref had a pretty dire game yesturday. it was very stop and start and he got very card happy with the chelsea players for very menial things that didn't deserve them. the one that annoyed me the most was Belletti's booking. it was a 50/50 ball between him and bridge. bridge kicked belletti (unintentially) in the ribs when they both slid, bridge hurt himself and went off injured because of it, Belletti then recieves a yellow card. that's the first time i ever saw someone get booked because they used theire ribs to hurt someone in a tackle :S. To be completely honest, what most of the bookings where for, both teams where doing it, blocking off the player etc. yet it was only chelsea players to get booked because of it.
Ferdinand must sharpen up 1:12pm on 11 Oct 2009 96

your criticism of green seems very harsh, the striker had got past ferdinand and was clear through, as a goalkeeper what else should he have done? coming out was the only positive option. if he stayed on his line, the striker would have had time and space to pick his spot and put it past green. so he had to come out and unfortunately he got red carded. remember they may only be 'Ukraine' and not exactly setting the world on fire, but they are playing for the national team for a reason, because they are good!!! one thing i've noticed recently is goalkeepers getting sent off for giving away penalties again, yet before a goalkeeper could give away a penalty and only getting a telling off or at most a yellow. what about almunia against united? brought down rooney. was there a red card shown? nope. Petr Cech gives away a pen and gets a red. green gives away a pen and gets a red. where's the consistancy?
Ferdinand must sharpen up 1:05pm on 11 Oct 2009 personally, from what i heard from the commentry on 5 live and watching the highlights last night, our right hand side was where most of the mistakes were coming from. granted, Ashley made a costly mistake, but he tried to make up for it by doing something about it, unfortunately he turned the ball into our own net but can you blame someone for trying to make up for the mistake he made? Ferdinand was sluggish and wasn't at the races. with what appearences he has made for england and united, the mistakes he made were costly (E.G the mistake against Holland, and the one last night) and if those games had greater importance for example world cup semi's or final then we would all be calling for his head. Johnson is our weak link at the back, his defending was shocking all night, granted his movement going forward is very good, but it can only be rewarded when it pays off, and last night it didn't. every single cross he put in went straight to the goalkeepers hands or the head of a ukranian defender. another problem is, he doesn't get back half as quick as he goes forward. which last night left the vulnerable ferdinand having to cover the centre and right back positions. and when we has back defending, he wasn't in line with the rest of the defence, wasn't picking up his man coming round at the back post. and when milner entered the frame and was going down the right, he was having to drop back and pick up johnson's man as he was marking space. i remember there was a cross into our box and johnson was right underneath it with milner behind him, we made a right hash of it and fortunately it bounced off milner for a corner. if anything, we need to reassure that right hand side with someone more defencive minded. could you imagine what ronaldo or messi would do to us down that side with johnson going on a jolly up field then not getting back as quickly as he went forward? it would be a cricket score.
Man City challenge is no fake 00:19am on 07 Oct 2009 personally, i think City are showing potential so far this season, whether they succeed is yet to be seen.
as to their spending spree's, i admire the way they are signing players that have proved themselves to be good players in the premiership. however i have my doubts. what happens if they do get into the champions league and play the likes of Barca, Real, AC and Inter. can you honestly see gareth barry and de jong trying to contain xavi and ineista of barca? or lescott, bridge, toure and richards against messi, henry, ibramhimavic? everyone saw how stretched we (chelsea) got when playing barca and in all honesty we hung on by the skin of our teeth. another point is, the team has no experience of how to win trophies and tournements. yes they have a few players that have won things over the years but none of them are going to be the JT or Ferdinand or even Stevie G to get the teams heads back in the game and try and get a result. for example, could you see city doing what liverpool done in Istanbul? i don't think so.

finally, my last point is if they are going to succeed, they need to do what chelsea did with essien and drogba. two players who had experience of winning league titles and european tournements however not played at the big time. the players will come into their own and prove themselves to be worthy assests to the team. at the minute they seem to have the opposite idea of bidding on the worlds finest or the premiership regular stars. they need to try and find some hidden talent and surprise everyone with it.
Manchester City making waves 10:33am on 24 Aug 2009 "is the heavy use of pounds, dollars and roubles not how success was secured for Manchester United, Liverpool and in particular Chelsea?"

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i would just like to point out that yes United and Liverpool may have earned the right to spend big due to winning trophies. however when Roman took over at the Bridge, we were finishing 2nd and 3rd respectfully without his millions, we won the FA cup, League Cup, European Cup and European Cup Winner's Cup. all we needed was the spending power that United and Liverpool and even Arsenal had to push us that little bit further towards winning the league. unlike Manchester City who are a strong mid table team. now with this money they are pushing to win the league. if that isn't trying to buy the title then i don't know what is? if we, Chelsea, were criticised about it and we finished where we did before Roman came in, then what of City?
How will the Premier League unfold? 11:31pm on 11 Aug 2009 36. At 10:11am on 11 Aug 2009, Phil McNulty - BBC Sport wrote:

To akaTommySmith...take your point about Torres and injuries, but these are imponderables. What if Rooney got injured and was ruled out for months? How would Manchester United cope? What if Frank Lampard got injured and Chelsea were without him?

Of course all the top teams hope their best players stay fit - and at this stage we have to make the assumption they will. I do make the point, however, that Liverpool's chances do depend on Torres and Gerrard staying fit.

Let's call that my prediction's safety net shall we??

And let's hear from fans of every club. Don't let supporters of the top four hog the debate. I want to hear from you all.

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personally i feel that Liverpool, without either Gerrard or Torres fall to pieces and with a previous comment from a liverpool fan using the excuse of 'youngsters' in pre season for their lack of wins, most of those youngsters have all played premiership football before so it's not something completely new to them. with Chelsea, if they lose Lampard, they have Ballack as cover. remember two seasons ago when Lamps was out towards the end of the season? Ballack stepped up and scored some very vital goals and filled his position brilliantly. the same with United, if they lose Rooney, it's not all over, they still have Berbatov (who on his day is just as hard to deal with as some of the world's finest) and Michael Owen who is a class act. plus now he is playing for a very strong side i think his injury problems shall disappear, when the teams playing well, there are very few injuries.
in addition to this i'd like to point out the previous 2-3 years where Liverpool have been tipped for Premiership glory and what became of it? they lost interest and focused on the Champions League instead. but as a top four club, as Ferguson pointed out on Sunday, that the reason behind Chelsea's and United's recent success is because they want to win everything there is. Liverpool only care about the premiership (until they can't be bothered) and the Champions league. they will play their reserve side in the cups and if they reach the semis or the final, the first team will step up and take the glory, much like most top teams.
Ancelotti strikes first blow 12:05pm on 10 Aug 2009 look, just to clarify some things to you all, through the power of Sky+ i rewinded to see why the ref stopped the game when Ballack was down. and it was because he SAW evra stand on Ballack. therefore if he sees something he can give it. if he did not see ballack drop his SHOULDER, not elbow, to collide with evra then how can he give it? plus as many have already stated, united continued to play on so it was their own bloody fault. and no one has apparently come to mention the RESPECT FOR REF'S campaign that started last season and what did we see in the very first game? United surrounding the referee with every decision he made. and i thought that it was supposed to be chelsea that do that?
with Rooney's goal it is very tight and i'm not going to speculate on whether it was or not as it shall result in more arguing. someone above mentioned that penalty shoot-outs where lotteries and you don't know what could happen, but he had to drag up the CL final? why? that was two years ago? one last point, with Nani's 'injury' that was his own bloody fault for re-inacting ronaldo by rolling about 20 times. as you can imagine that is not going to be too good for your shoulder now is it?
Life's just not fair 10:50am on 19 May 2009 i think i'm going to be the first chelsea fan to comment, and to take the discussion away from the scouse and the mancs i'd like to talk about how impressive Guus Hiddink has been at the bridge. within 3 months, he was totally revitalised our team, players like Malouda, Drogba and Anelka are now playing out of their skins. it also looks as if he has had a word with Drogba about his antics on the pitch and recently he has not complained once about a challenge on him, and not dived. against Blackburn the first time he was on his backside was when Robinson punched through him. Ronaldo on the other hand seems to believe he is bigger than the club and his childish tantrums show it. at least when Drogba came off against Barcelona he showed some respect to the manager, didnt have a hissy fit on the touch line and sat down without arguement.

now onto 'Boro. everyone's talking about losing out on goalscorers at the riverside, however i personally think what you've missed is Schwarzer's presence in goal. in past seasons he has kept boro alive and losing him has been the biggest blow of all.
Should there be a winter break? 1:57pm on 08 Jan 2009 I don't think that lower league teams shoulf have a winter break, not least beacuse players are entitled to a holiday, and if the season was to finish in june, and start in september, they would get two months pre-season, during which players would have their holiday, effectivly making a month pre season.
Also, as a Luton fan (I'm posting on stonao's account as I cant be asked to make one) I have seen my share of football in teh lower leagues over the winter, and while some games have been called off..its only this season a lot of them have been.

Also Gavin, what are your views on Lutons 'punishment'?

Once again a superb article, I look foward to teh next one.

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stonao