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Champions of Europe 2012/13 Thread


Philip Rolfe

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Well that was the definition of scrappy. Nobody really turned up and we need to be better. Looked tired and lethargic for most of the game. Have to say I was impressed with Torres when he came on. Tough game away at Fulham in our next PL game and we will have to play a lot better to beat them.

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Will take that scrappy win, not been grinding games out in a while and its great to see us in the driving seat for the top 4 spots. Thought the defence was solid, Mata and Hazard were good as was Mikel and Torres when he came on. Rambo was quite poor and a part of me dies whenever I see Benayoun on the pitch

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We've blown it now I think so you and Arsenal should probably get 3rd/4th - would imagine Sky would have wanted to schedule our match against you for near the end of the season, hoping that it would be a champions league decider...but we'll probs be out of it in the next few weeks so they might schedule it sooner.

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Will take that scrappy win, not been grinding games out in a while and its great to see us in the driving seat for the top 4 spots. Thought the defence was solid, Mata and Hazard were good as was Mikel and Torres when he came on. Rambo was quite poor and a part of me dies whenever I see Benayoun on the pitch

I didn't think Hazard was great today. Didn't do anything bad but wasn't quite into the game. Although from his recent performances he set the standard pretty damn high.

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http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/rafa-benitez-forging-future-chelsea-1817900

Interesting article about the roles of Lampard and Terry in the team now. More worryingly in that article is that it suggests that if we get through to the Europa League Final and FA Cup final our schedule in May will be this:

May 5, United (away); Tuesday, May 7 Spurs (home); Thursday, May 9 Aston Villa (away); Saturday, May 11 FA Cup Final. Then Europa 4 days later with Everton on the Sunday of that week. If that happens that is an insane schedule and it is a bit ridiculous that something couldn't be done to help us out a bit. That said, if anyone here had to choose between the Europa league and FA cup, which would you choose? Personally I would love to win the Europa as it would be great to hold both trophies for the first time but that would mean at least 3 extra matches after Rubin, whereas the FA cup would only one, so I would probably so the FA cup.

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In other news it appears as though Courtois knobbed De Bruyne's girlfriend. Apparently they have made up and even 'joke' about it.

But Courtois is in Spain and De Bruyne's in Germany, how did that work? Did KDB grow suspicious at his girlfriend taking weekly flights to Madrid?

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But Courtois is in Spain and De Bruyne's in Germany, how did that work? Did KDB grow suspicious at his girlfriend taking weekly flights to Madrid?

Well in the article I read (presuming it's true) it implied that his girlfriend didn't like it in Germany and either lived or went to Madrid a lot.

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She went to Madrid with a bunch of friends once and did/does not have a relationship with Courtois. His father is the one who rubbished the story.

Any chance of a link to the denial (doesn't matter if it's not English)? Useful to be able to shoot folk down etc.

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http://www.nieuwsblad.be/sportwereld/cnt/DMF20130408_00533934

The story was that she went to visit Courtois in madrid and that they had a relationship. His father is quoted saying "the first part is true, the second part is not" He also added that she went with a whole group of friends and that both him and Courtois' mother were there when they came to visit.

They all had a good chat to clear things up and lived happily ever after.

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I think you are right actually, I took it from the hosts site but it looks like a copy and paste job from the Ivorian FA website from March, even the misspelling of Chelsea hasn't been corrected. :)

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Aké's left footed but not a great left back.

Don't know why I always though he was right-footed :D

Will probably be Ferreira so no doubt will probably see a lot of traffic going down that side. Times like this I wish we didn't have so many players on loan. Tbf I wished that most of the season rather than just now. If we kept Essien/Meireles, De Bruyne and another defender then all these games wouldn't be as straining on the squad.

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I was thinking of Malouda actually but couldn't remember if you managed to sell him

Rubin are hardly a 'streaming forward attack, attack, attack' type team anyway. Although they mentioned that forward (Rondon), who they left on the bench, had the most shots on target in the tournament this season :eek:

They always seem decent with the clean sheets in Europe, even in the CL group stages

Just hope you don't do something stupid and make things difficult like ship a silly early goal

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The game is tomorrow at 5 yeah?

Gotta go all guns blazing, which is something Rubin don't do particularly well, though they have done it previously (2 goals late on vs Levante). Obviously Rubin don't even gain a massive home advantage, with the game in Moscow. I think for the last Europa game played there, only around 600 of their fans travelled for it.

I'd predict: Ryzhikov; Kuzmin, Sharonov, Marcano, Ansaldi; Orbaiz, Natcho, Gokdeniz, Kasaev, Eremenko; Rondon.

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