Heard a couple of interesting bits of information at Christmas folks. First is on how the Chelsea academy operates - apparently they keep a tally on exactly how much is spent on each academy member under 18, and the success of the academy at that level is based on the profit made on expenditure on each player, and the head the academy is judged on such, not on performance or anything else less intangible. Interesting to hear from anyone involved in our or any other academy setups on if that is the norm or something Chelsea alone do. Second titbit is that several City academy players over the last few years have had failed drug tests absolved by having an expert match the illegal genuinely failed tests to certain herbal teas/remedies that are allowed, in order to explain the discrepancies. Specifically, the failed test results were taken to certain people and then analysed to see which 'legal' substances could potentially match up, the assumption being at the time that the players really had taken illegal substances and that the 'explanation' would be needed to absolve them as the testers' complaints were entirely valid. I would hate to think this practice was in any way widespread, especially as these are young kids we're talking about.
League goals for the calendar year so far: please log in to view this image Really impressive figure for Kane and a suggestion for Hodgson in there, too. No doubt that Lukaku's finally fulfilling his potential, either.
Just looking at the links on our BBC page. There is the amusing article "Are Man United genuine title contenders" which also mentions pressure easing on Brendan Rogers. I was more interested in the pundits predictions: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33764700 Obviously this was before the season started but 22 out of 30 pundits predicted Chelsea would win the league. Also there were only five different teams predicted to finish in the top four, with 29 of 30 pundits picking the same top four (the usual culprits) in various orders, and Liverpool mentioned only once in fourth. I am not mentioning this in order to pick on BBC pundits, just punditry in general. If anything I would think TalkShite's pundits might be even worse as half of them would put Liverpool winning the league (not that TalkShite would ever do a list like this).
I remember that article . Same 4 teams apart from Dublin who had Pool instead of City. Everyone is just guessing. Everyone had Chelsea top 3. Experts my arse.
To be fair to the experts on this one, I don't that anyone had any reason to see this coming. Chelsea seemed to have a meltdown during the summer over something pretty petty. Did anyone anywhere predict it? Would've looked utterly ridiculous at the time.
Oh I agree, but it shows they have no more insight than any of us. We'd all have predicted something similar, but wouldn't have got paid for our expertise. Shame it is only top 4 being predicted, I suspect they'd have looked even sillier if it went further down.
Chelsea's season couldn't have been seen by anyone. To be halfway through the season and the defending champions down in 14th with only 20 points from 19 games is unheard of.
I have never placed any particular value on pundits predictions. Because you have the ability to play football very well, it does not follow that you have an analytical brain. Pundits always go for the obvious as do reporters, even mention of a dark horse is unusual nowadays. Spurs Everton & Liverpool are the more interesting prediction because they are close to making the breakthrough each year. We would all love to go back to the slightly less predictable leagues we used to have that's why this season is so interesting.
I'm not sure which was worse, the initial decision itself or looking at Roy Carroll's face and not seeing a guilty man. How on earth that pillock's still allowed to take charge of our games, I'll never know.
I was at that game. I have never raged so much in my life. You just had to watch the reaction of the 20,000 or so United fans behind the goal to see that it went in. I still need to excuse myself from the room and go for a double scotch whenever I see that clip.
