I see there's a match day thread, and I should really post this on there, but I thought it'd get lost amongst other comments and I'm selfish so... First things first, thanks for taking part in the minutes applause and the 11th minute singing. Speed was a great servant to our club and it was a fitting tribute! The sending off that wasn't will rankle with us, and rightly so. with only 4 minutes of the game played it was such an important decision and it was wrong IMO. However it wasn't your players fault that Dean bottled it and they responded well. If the footballing God's enjoy a bit of cruel irony then Luiz would've scored, thankfully he didn't, but they still got a little smidgen of it in the performances of your LF/RF Sturridge and Mata. Its probably (given your line up) that it would've been one of these lads who would've made way for Luiz' replacement, and they were your 2 best players beyond a shadow of a doubt! Sturridge is certainly my favourite player in and around the England set up and he NEEDS to be on the plane to Poland next year! I really like AVB, mainly because of his links to Sir Bobby and his apology to the Porto fans that the Europa League final was a tedious 1:0 win for them, and so I'm glad the pressure has eased a little on him. It would be a travesty if he was fired! As it is, I think the scoreline is harsh and I'm convinced the game would've been different had a little luck gone our way, but then again, we could say the same about last week's draw with Manure...Either way, today we provided the neutral with some quality entertainment: a penalty, 5 strikes of the woodwork, 3 goals, a massive talking point and an all round great game of football! Good luck with the rest of the season lads...Hopefully we'll have a repeat of last season's trip to the Bridge!
Thanks mate much appreciated, I understand your annoyance at the decision at the beginning but like you said there's nothing we could do about that other than play on and try and win. Great game to watch for our fans and the neutral, hard luck for you guys. I like Newcastle a lot, I wish them all the best for this season and hope they put a challenge in for a Europa League spot at least! Good luck
I missed the match because I was under orders from Mrs Ginge that we were Xmas shopping but AVB did say when asked that we got the rub of the green today meaning we lucky to get away with it. I like you will be keen to see it on MoTD later but sympathise with you as these decisions can change matches and we have had our share of being on the wrong end. Everybody says it was a good game so can't wait, good luck for the rest of the season
Just want to add how much I like AVB too; I already respected him before today but, in the post match interview I've just seen, I liked that he pulled up the Sky interviewer for his agenda-fueled questioning and it's also good of him to apologise to Pardew for any over-excited celebrations (though I have no idea what that was about because I don't remember anything of the sort - probably just more daft interviewer questions.) I love the story behind him meeting Bobby Robson and starting out in his career too, hope he's with you guys for a while .
Chelsea were comfortable in the first half, but I have to say my fingernails were getting well worn down, until Kalou of all people, scored! You look good enough to me to be safe for a top 6 finish!
