Rousseau

I agree Costa could/should have been sent off, but not for the incident with Koscielny. Do we not see the 'deliberate' failing arms from others quite often? I don't think it's necessarily a red card offense. I feel Costa gets unfairly picked on. He's not innocent, far from it, but others do similar things and they're not picked out at as much. Perhaps it's just my blue-tinted specs?

West Ham have been exceptional. However, they are more of a counter-attacking side; It's worked well, but they need to find a way to win at home, when the onus is on them. Great result yesterday. Bilic is a very good coach. I do have a soft spot for West Ham -- great historic, traditional club -- and I'm looking forward to seeing what the new stadium does for them.

Glad to get the win but Costa badly needs to calm down. A red card waiting to happen, quite a bizarre situation actually because he does not conduct himself like a world class footballer a lot of the time. You would expect to see this kind of petulance in the lower leagues. A great player but he needs to sort his temperament/wind-up style.

I think if you take away the aggression you take away a big part of the player.

Gribz is a West Ham fan.......

Really?! Argument dismantled in 6 words...

(They certainly weren't blue tinted glasses.)

What game you watching? He Swang at Koscielny after grabbing him in the face the his body weight knocked him to the ground - it wasn't a fall at all. Ant at half time they clearly showed Costa turning away and stopping on purpose right behind Gabriel looking for further agro. Plus he kicked out at Oxlade Chamberlain - he should have been sent off twice.

 

The Gabriel v Costa thing goes back to a Villareal v A Madrid game a few years ago. Both were silly but both should have walked.

There's no point in debating the points: we're both looking at it through blue and red tinted glasses. (There's no way his body weight knocks him down there; clear fall.)

The second-half was dull, but I thought the first-half was good. There was a good 30 mins where it looked like the Chelsea of last season. Red card(s) spoiled it.

Seriously, everyone's biased when it comes to Chelsea and Mourinho. Marmite. Any fan can find excuses for anything 'dirty' Chelsea/Mourinho do, likewise any that dislike Chelsea/Mourinho can find something 'immoral' in the most innocuous incidents. There's a clear divide on this forum.

Ummm, because he IS the aggressor.... I haven't seen it yet but plenty of people have said that he hit Koscielny in the face with an elbow - was that not what started it ? Would that not make him the aggressor ?

Yes, he was booked for that though, wasn't he? Koscielny was also booked for grappling with him immediately before the flailing arms, or was it Gabriel? I can't remember now! Koscielny was definitely grappling with Costa though. Is Costa or Koscielny the aggressor in that situation then?

I actually thought it was quite an entertaining game: end-to-end, counter-attack after counter-attack. The Red has somewhat spoiled that now though (depending on one's colours!).

0-0, not a great game until it kicked off with Gabriel and Costa. Cheating tink Costa got Gabriel sent off when he was equally to blame plus he hacked Koscienly (sp) twice.

 

Ref didn't even see the kick but sends him off. Ruining a potentially good second half.

Why is Costa always deemed the aggressor? They were both booked for the tussle in the box -- fairly in my eyes. Then the "cheating tink" Gabriel back-heels Costa 2 mins later, getting another yellow and sent off. What about Koscielny falling to the ground after bumping chests? Cheating? Costa is an aggressive player, perhaps too aggressive at times. Opposition players look to play on it. On many occasions he is in the wrong, but he is also unfairly targeted.

The irony is the Costa of last season would make Arsenal title contenders IMO. One would rather have him than not, surely?

(Chelsea are a Marmite club -- even Mourinho is a Marmite manager. One is biased either way regarding any incidents/judgements involving them.)

The 'perfect' hat-trick they call it...only the sixth player in EPL history to achieve it (1993 on)

Is he also not only one of very few that have come off the bench and scored a hat-trick?

Can you provide a link to where it confirms she is still on 1st team duties ? Because when I looked the other day the article I read said she was relieved of 1st team duties along with the physio.

Apparently She and the Physio have not returned to work, but as far as I was aware, they were just dropped from the bench, not from 1st team duties.

"I would argue that a Football Doctor and a GP are two distinct branches, with separate roles and scope."

 

Tell that to the GMC. Both are physicians with professional obligations.

A Sports Medicine Expert couldn't become a GP, could they?

If you think he was right to a) chastise his doctor for doing her job and b) have her demoted from 1st team duties for doing her job then we will have to agree to disagree.

I would argue that a Football Doctor and a GP are two distinct branches, with separate roles and scope. Eva Carneiro is a Sports Medicine Specialist, a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise. In the case of Football, it is a branch solely concerned with making sure the players are in peak condition to win football games. In that sense surely the role demands a level of game awareness? So, was she doing her job fully? I don't think so. Therefore I think Mourinho was right to chastise her.

On checking, she's not actually been demoted, but merely removed from the bench; She still carries out 1st team duties.

(Again, I think the player is equally, if not more, to blame; he shouldn't be going down at a crucial stage in the game.)

Or a different way to look at it.... Warburton came in, saw what he had at his disposal, bought players cheaply that he felt were critical positions to fill - and then, with the window almost closed knew he needed a Zelalem type of player - so get him in on loan where you have no need to worry about a transfer fee and just pay his wages..... little risk with fairly good short-term upside.

 

The other advantage to this is that Warburton also knows that at the end of the current two things are likely to happen :

 

1. Zelalem will return to Arsenal

2. We will likely be back in the top league.

 

Warburton thus has :

 

1. A full year to scour the market for a similar type of player

2. A full year to assess the players in his own squad properly and determine if any are capable of carrying out that same role, whilst already being on the books and therefore saving a transfer fee and wage

3. Probably will have more money available for transfers once we hit the top league again

4. Will have an increased pool of interested players - there can surely be no doubt that it will be far easier to convince players to come when we are in the top league.

 

I don't mind the odd loan signing - a team full of them is destructive but a couple is not the end of the world.

I agree with that. However, is it realistic to expect a permanent replacement for Zelalem on our budget? For me, it's a little deflating to think that a linchpin-type player is not here for the long-term. I don't mind loan signings if they're squad players or something different to complement the team (Ball I am OK with because we can get another utility player quite easily IMO), but it's feels a little deflating to bring in a loan signing to be the main linchpin. Ah, I'm just being picky. I don't mind loan signings, but I'd prefer permanent ones. (And, to be fair, at our level we are not going to be able to keep a quality player for any length of time anyway.)

He's probably right, but I would still like to see quality added.

Meh. They started poorly the last couple of years, but still ran away with it. The Scottish league is so annoying because Aberdeen can beat Celtic one week then lose to Partick the next. There's no consistency in the performances. I think that's because the tactics are not based on control, but chance, in the sense that they play the long ball time and time again; add in a lack of quality and it's no wonder that they are so inconsistent. It seems like Rangers are able to control games and approach them in an objective manner.

I think there is a decrease in quality at Celtic though. It seems like they're replacing quality international players, with 'quality' Scottish players, which is inevitably going to see them drop a level or two.

I thought Man Utd were excellent. They just couldn't score. You can't account for a player just fluffing up his shots. I didn't see the City game, but I do enjoy seeing them get beat.

I think Chelsea will win but Arsenal have a banana skin. Good luck with the bet though....

 

It must be a mental block with City, they couldn't do it under Mancini either, but as you say with Aguero, Toure and Silva they should be doing better. Just shows you the Premier League standard isn't as high as people make out.

Macini's record in Europe before Man City was poor also. I'm not sure what Pelligrini achieved, but could it be the managers themselves not adapting to the European situation?

I'd like to point out she wasn't the first member of the medical team on the pitch, but she was the one singled out by Jose. Medical teams can't go on the pitch unless invited and they are bound by their oath to do their duty. She could get in serious trouble refusing to provide medical treatment to someone.

 

Jose did that because he could, because she is one of very few women in football and therefore it's easy to claim she doesn't understand the game.

Erm...No. Mourinho did not single out the female Doctor. He criticised his "Medical staff", saying:

"I was unhappy with my medical staff. They were impulsive and naive. [...] You have to know you have one player less and to assist a player you must be sure he has a serious problem. I was sure Eden did not have a serious problem. He had a knock. He was tired." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33837212)

The sexist aspect was added by the media to create a story.

I would argue that if it is the case that the team were desperate for play to continue to try and secure 3 points then Mourinho should be criticizing Hazard (who was the player in question IIRC), not the doctor. If Hazard was desperate for the team to win he would have found a way to the sideline, particularly if it was only fatigue. But instead he went down and he certainly didn't complain when doctor and physio tended to him.

Yes, absolutely. I said it was naive and poor game management from Hazard's perspective.

But, no, Mourinho managed to do what Mourinho does best - deflect from his failure and deflect from his player's failures. And the victim in all of it was the club doctor, who was doing nothing more than her job. As I said, Mourinho scored a calamitous own goal with this one.

Don't all the best manager 'deflect'? Ferguson was very good at deflecting attention away from him and his team; and always created that 'us versus them' mentality. It's clear that you don't like Mourinho, whereas I do, so perhaps we are both biased in that sense. Like I said, I understand why He criticised the Medial staff.

Yes, you said the demotion was harsh, but you also felt she deserved to be criticized. I would disagree that she does. Until she tends to someone she doesn't know what is wrong with them. I give you an example, though probably quite poor.... here in Bermuda in local football the lad goes up for a header, but the keeper wins the ball and they collide. Lad goes down and as soon as he hit the deck the physio rushed onto the pitch without waiting for the ref - everyone wondered why because it looked inoccuous enough..... turns out the physio had seen the same type of collision before - and he was proven right as his swift intervention prevented the player from swallowing his tongue.

I've said previously: If it's a serious injury, then get on the pitch as quick as possible. I'm not disputing a Doctor's obligation. I'm suggesting it's poor game management, like Mourinho said. It was quite clearly a fatigue related 'injury' (it wasn't an injury) -- and yes the player should be criticised -- so there was no need to come on the pitch. There are plenty of occasions where a player is down, but the Medical team don't come on.

Now, if something WAS wrong with Hazard and the doctor simply stayed on the sidelines, trying to not get involved and giving Chelsea some time to score the winning goal.... and they found out afterwards that the doctor's inaction has Hazard out for 3 months.... where would that leave the doctor ? Not only would her Chelsea career be over but she could lose her livelihood for incompetence too.

That's a completely hypothetical situation that has no relation to the actual circumstances. (I don't think they were trying to score the winning goal, but trying to hang on to the draw because they had 10 men. The Score and the objective is irrelevant. The fact is Chelsea were disadvantaged -- rightly or wrongly; I don't know because I can't remember who or why they got a man sent off -- and were even more so because the Medical staff came onto the pitch.)

I just can't see how anyone can defend Mourinho in all of this. If he needed to complain about anyone it really should have been the player.

I agree that the player is even more guilty in this situation. However, I also think that the Medical staff should have been a little shrewder in their judgment. I'd be pretty annoyed if Rangers were down to 10 men in the Scottish Cup final against Celtic leading 2-1 and the Doctor comes on to 'treat' fatigue in the latter stages of a game leaving us with 9 men.

The loan system is great if you are the loaner, not so much the loanee, unless it gives you a better calibre of player. However, if one is trying to build a team then loans would just be destructive IMO. It's great that we've got Zelalem, but what happens when we move up a league and haven't got him? It'll be very difficult to get a similarly-skilled player for a reasonable amount of cash.

I thought that the ref waved her onto the pitch, no ?

It looks like I'm in the minority here. I think you are right, after checking: the Ref did signal for them to go on. I still think it's naive and poor game management/awareness. If it's a serious injury, then sure, get on the pitch as quick as possible. However, the medical team is there to help the team be successful. I think it was pretty obvious it was fatigue -- quite common at the latter stages of a game. Nothing serious, and could cost the team points (I think it was 2-2 and they were down to 10 men?). I would certainly also blame the player for going down in that situation, for the same reasons: Naivety and poor game management/awareness. I also said the demotion was quite harsh. She (and He -- I don't know why it turns into a sexist issue?) should have been criticised in private, not in public.

Yup you probably are. Can you explain how you think he was right....we have seen players die on the pitch recently so for tactics to be more important than that then its a joke. Horrendous comment.

I think you've jumped the gun with your judgement there. Of course if it is a serious injury, she should be straight on the pitch. However, it was fatigue and he would be fine after running it off; it happens all the time. Because the doctor came on the pitch, the player then has to leave, leaving Chelsea with 9 men. It can cost points, and potentially titles, if one considers how close the season finishes. Like I said, perhaps demoting the woman was harsh, but I still think he was right to criticise her.

Think he is finally being found out, he sulks if he doesn't get the players he wants which says he cant manage unless he is happy. He swore at Martinez because he was second in the press conference after the game - as you say, cunt of a man...terrible manners. Martinez oozes class. Id love to see Chelsea finish outside the top 4.

 

There is no doubt about it, the doctor issue has made him lose a lot of respect from everywhere and fair play to her, she isn't backing down. If Arsenal go their on Saturday with confidence they could give them a hiding.

Am I the only person who thinks Mourinho was right regarding the doctor? Perhaps demoting the woman was harsh, but she did deserve to be criticised IMO.

He is a bad loser, but he's not used to it. Chelsea need a few fresh faces. It is the one criticism of Mourinho's career: he hasn't quite managed to re-fresh a team like Ferguson used to do; usually he adds finished players, then moves on before the team gets past their peak.

Official site, "90 in 90"

 

Another couple of assists for McKay. He's been exceptional this season. I'm pleased he's getting his chance and delivering the goods. I've always been a big fan of his style of play.