Steve K

Any bold predictions for tomorrow's PL finale? QPR's performance could affect things at both ends of the table, but with their away form being so dismal, it's hard to see them stopping Man City's final push. Besides, it's a while since Cisse has been sent off, isn't it? Whether he'll manage to score before he goes, I don't know, but my prediction, such as it is, is that QPR will likely finish with 10 men or fewer, and lose by 3 or 4.

I think something similar still occurs in Scotland, with, for example, the 9th team in Div.1 joining the 2nd, 3rd and 4th in Div.2 in a playoff. Anyhow, the final whistle's not yet gone*, but I think we can safely say that Chelsea have secured 6th place in the league tonight... oh well, we've always got Munich! Liverpool too good, and Chelsea not good enough on this occasion. I still don't rate Daniel Sturridge, not as a man you'd trust to play for the team - maybe as a 15-minute impact man, but he's nowhere good as he seems to think he is. At the other end of the table, I was pleased that Villa have survived, but also that Wigan beat Blackburn. While I have much sympathy for Steve Kean, and admiration for the way he's handled himself, I am appalled at the ways the crowds have treated him all year. So goodbye Blackburn - the nastiest bunch of supporters in the league can go and spew their venom in the Championship. Do they not think that their spite and negativitiy have affected the players, and cost the team at least a couple of points? On the positive side, I am tremendously pleased for Roberto Martinez and Dave Whelan - was there ever such obviously genuine warmth between manager and chairman? Fantastic. *It has now. Congrats to Liverpool. Where were you all year?

I hadn't realised it wasn't on TV - I had assumed that Arsenal's early start, coupled with the ludicrous 5.15 FA Cup kick-off, was specifically to squeeze an extra few hours football into Sky's schedules. If it wasn't even on TV, I agree - what's the bleedin' point? Anyhow, off to watch the second half. TTFN.

I like the idea of sticking torches at the top, and calling them the "four candles"...

TBH, I've never been to Stamford Bridge, so a move to Battersea wouldn't cause me too much upset! Honestly, I'm not sure. I only heard the news a couple of hours ago, and from what they are saying, it's only a speculative enquiry for now. There's nothing to say that Chelsea will be moving soon, or even at all. However, if the idea goes forward, why not? My understanding is that due to the listed nature of the power station, the iconic chimneys (although "towers" sounds better) would have to be kept in situ. That would remain quite some landmark, even with a football pitch in the middle. It's about the right size. Maybe they can leave the whole building intact, and have an indoor stadium. Imagine a sliding roof on that thing! My knowledge of London geography is pretty hazy, but the location, next to Chelsea Bridge, seems pretty sensible - at least as sensible as playing in Fulham, which is the case now.

I see that Wayne Rooney's overhead kick against City has been voted as the best ever in the Premier League: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17946376 Is it just me, or is this a bit like one of those polls for the "greatest pop song ever", where the leading contenders are always songs from the last few years (and "Angels" by Robbie Williams usually wins), and older songs - or in this case, goals - are forgotten about? Don't get me wrong, Wayne Rooney's winning effort was fantastic, but it's ironic that the award was announced in the same week as Cisse scored that incredible second goal against Chelsea. As a result, I don't think we can even say that Rooney's goal was the best this season. Elsewhere, I see that members of Villa's squad are sparing no effort in making their preparation for Premier League survival as thorough as possible: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17952036 They may be thick as pig muck (admittedly, I'm only basing that guess on their actions here), but at least the players concerned have had just about enough brains to offer effusive apologies pretty quickly. Although I'm a Chelsea fan, I'm from Birmingham, and I want to see Villa survive in the Prem, so I do worry when I see stories like this!

I'm convinced that the supposed national Harry love-in was largely a figment of the press' imagination. Yes, there are plenty of normal fans I've spoken to over the last few months who would have been delighted to see Rednapp as manager, but the majority, in my limited experience, weren't banging the drum for him in any huge way. I think that the papers have been believing their own hype, and assuming that, by saying "everyone wants Harry", that the FA could be led down that path. Hopefully, in a day or two, they'll get bored of telling us why Hodgson is the wrong man, and just be grateful that we didn't have to get behind Stuart Pearce for the Euros! Seriously, I loved SP's toughness as commitment as a player, but a top level manager he is not - not yet, in any case. Me, I'm not too fussed which one of them got the job, and now that Hodgson has been confirmed, I sincerely wish him all the best, just as I would have done for Harry Rednapp. They were probably the best two of the likely candidates, and in my view, it was a toss-up between them. Anyhow - look on the bright side. Harry's talents have always included wheeler-dealing in the transfer market, whereas Roy has always seemed to do well with relatively poor, untalented squads. I know which of those skills will prove more useful as England manager. Now, let's just hope that the new man has the courage to drop some of those who, despite brilliant displays for their clubs, have utterly disgraced themselves by their ineptitude at one or more big tournaments...

Really, therefore, the competition should only be for national champions who are also assured of winning this season. No controversy then! No, you've clearly got to allow more than one club from the stronger leagues, just to balance the competition up. I'm not sure that any league should send more than 2 teams, though, and as for lucky losers from the group stages dropping into the UEFA Cup Europa League, a load of nonsense driven purely by TV money. Far too many teams in both cups. Anyway, whoever wins the competition this year will be a champion, if only of the Champions' League itself.

Blimey. What a nerve-shredding game that was. Never doubted Chelsea for a minute, of course... As for the other match tonight, - I'm afraid that's starting to ring even truer now.I hope that Villa stay up, and I think they probably will, but then again, looking at it dispassionately, where are they going to pick up points from? West Brom this weekend? Not looking that easy.

Obviously, as a Chelsea fan, I'm delighted at the (still quite slim!) chance of a Chapions' League final, but before anyone else says it, Didier Drogba absolutely does my head in on occasion. The guy is built like a tank, and regularly pops up with fantastic goals, but he's seemingly got the pain threshold of Samuel L.Jackson's character from Unbreakable. I'm only grateful that most of his antics last night were of the "time-wasting flop to the floor" variety, rather than the "leaping into the penalty area as if shot" type. Fortunately, I don't think anyone got booked as a direct result of his silliness, and obviously, no shots on target were gained as a consequence (I know this, as Chelsea only had one all night...), But still, he's been so much better than that in recent years, and for a man of his physique, it's so unnecessary. Ironically, given his early reputation at Chelsea, he's been reluctant to go to ground in the last couple of seasons, and has been even more dangerous as a result. Last night was a reminder to all those who'd forgotten what he used to be like. Ironically, on the odd occasions last night when I think he was actually slightly hurt, the referee just let play go on, which might be poetic justice. Anyhow, because it didn't ruin the game, I'll just have to allow myself to be happy for my favoured team, I guess! Chelsea did exactly what they needed to, which was to be patient, careful, and maybe a bit lucky as well. Nothing controversial about the win, just a few neutrals slightly surprised. Roll on Arsenal this Saturday - anything is suddenly possible... You've all been talking about favourite games. Well, I wouldn't say that this is my favourite, but one of the most memorable I've been to (though I haven't been to that many, to be honest) was a game between Coventry and Chelsea in the mid-1990s, which no-one else I talk to seems to recall. To be fair, I don't remember much about the match itself, other than Gordon Strachan - probably Coventry's player/manager at the time, and about 40 years old - being the best player by far on the day. No, what I remember was that Chelsea came out to play in some rather odd shirts. I wondered what was up until I noticed the name "Peugeot" on them. It seems that Chelsea hadn't arrived with anything that the ref had deemed suitable, so they ended up playing in Coventry's 3rd strip! Now, I'd love for somebody to tell me that I didn't imagine all this, but have so far found no evidence, pictorial or otherwise, to prove the matter either way. Can any of you wise owls put me out of my misery? EDIT: Found it after another search! See http://www.chelseafc...1580613,00.html and scroll halfway down for a picture of Gianfranco Zola in a CCFC away shirt (turns out it was only Coventry's 2nd strip, not 3rd!). According to the stats under the article, Coventry won 3-1. At the time, they were one of the longest-standing members of the top division. Let's hope they bounce back sooner rather than later.

Well, I for one would feel it a hollow victory. In any sport, what's the point of winning if you have to cheat to do it? I went right off Michael Owen the day he dived to get a penalty against Argentina in the World Cup. It was pathetic and cynical, and the fact that it set Beckham up to score a winning penalty was neither here nor there in my view. The victory tasted rotten. As for yesterday, I almost feel robbed of seeing my team do well, even though the scorecard says 5-1. Chelsea got better and better in the last 30 minutes, but what would have happened if that second goal hadn't been given? In a way, it seemed that Spurs only really upped their game for a while after it went 2-0, but in reality, it's impossible to say what the result would have been. I like to think that Chelsea would have won anyway, but I'm a fan, and therefore biased. I only thank goodness that 3 of the goals were so good, and quite uncontroversial! Incidentally, I wouldn't say that all of the Chelsea team claimed the goal (and by implication, are therefore a bunch of cheats). Juan Mata certainly did, but John Terry, for one, only cheered after the ref had given it, as far as I could see. As for the rest of the Blue half of the field, they probably couldn't clearly see one way or the other. Goal-line technololgy, though? Do me a favour! you don't need a microchip in the ball when the simplest TV replay clearly showed it not to be a goal. At least the Chelsea players interviewed after the game had the good grace not to be too smug. Likewise, after Ashley Young's heroic plunge yesterday, the game was effectively over as a contest - a contest which Man Utd would almost certainly have won anyway. But likewise, we'll never know for sure what would have happened in a fair contest. And I'm sorry if I offend anyone by mentioning Young again. He's simply the latest in a long line of Premier League cheats, and he's now effectively won two games on the trot by dodgy means. And let's not have this "contact=foul" nonsense. If the attacker deliberately causes the foul by sticking out a leg, and then flies through the air like Greg Louganis (one for the kids, there...), he is the one who has committed the foul, not the defender. It's one thing running at a defender in the expectation that he'll do something reckless, but to make sure of the foul after the defender has pulled his leg out of the challenge, is cheating, and inexcusable. To me, the worst thing ever to happen regarding cheating was the overturning of Eduardo's ban. It clearly sent out the message that diving was acceptable in most cases, and now, they're at it more than ever. Notable exceptions are Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez - neither of which I particularly admire as personalities, but both of whom would rather chase a ball through the box than take an easy dive.

I think that the simple answer, to start with at least, would be that whatever the division, the 4th referee can refer to whatever pictures are available. Of course, that would mean that all the focus would be on the top couple of leagues, but that's where all the arguments are now, precisely because we, the viewers, get to see all those different angles. I still say, though, that it's not just about making the referees' job easier - a key part of the video reviews would be to punish the divers. There are enough of them around, cheating on a regular basis, that matches are being literally ruined as a spectacle because of it. On which note, I'd just like to congratulate Ashley Young for bravely chucking himself to the ground, with no thought to his personal safety, in order to win a penalty for his team. I trust that he and his manager are extremely proud of his selfless actions against a team threatened with the drop.

For all the talk of goal-line technology, disputed goals are nowhere near being the thing which most ruins a game. How many times would the much-vaunted technology be required? Half-a-dozen times in the season, if that? On the other hand, there are usually at least that many examples of cheating every game, and the same number of times when the referee makes a contentious decision. Until the referees are given the kind of assistance that we, the viewers, get, with replays and different angles, and until the FA takes action (retrospective, probably, but better than none at all) to deal with the real cheats, then it's pointless to talk of introducing machinery to detect whether the ball has crossed the line. I appeciate that this means that my team, Chelsea, might very well have lost to Wigan yesterday, but then again, they'd possibly have won a few more matches earlier this season. They may even have reached another Champions' League final a few years back! I know everyone will say that these things even themselves over a season, but they don't, not even close, and if QPR or Wigan get relegated by the odd point this year, I don't suppose they'll see it that way, either.

As fans, we're all hopelessly blinkered and biased, of course. If I ignored this thread every time I read some contentious comment I didn't agree with, I'd never read it at all. From my distant vantage point as a fan of the 5th best team in the league, all this City/Utd bickering is faintly amusing. Yes, the current Man U team might not be the strongest ever (would the Saliva twins actually make it into any other top-4 side? Probably not), but they're the best of this season's bad lot, and justifiably top of the table. City might occasionally seem like they're about to implode, but they're a darned good side, and fully deserving of the results that have seen them push their rivals all the way this year. I can't be done with all the silly rivalry where it's more important to hate the other team than support your own. Take the positives, guys, and ignore the brickbats! As for me, I'm consoling myself that I support the only British team to have done anything useful in Europe this year, even if Barcelona might be the end of the road for now...

Always? Really? I find them OK for what I want, and at least with fixed prices, you don't have to enter some dodgy auction to see whether you can buy or not... Anyway, it's an Ebay thread, so I won't continue arguing about Amazon!

Logically (a word that doesn't always apply to Ebay, but I still think of Amazon as a bastion of sanity in a mad world), those must be a couple of decimal points which have slipped 2 places to the right, surely? £10 for the paperback, and £59.40 for the hardback, would seem to be sensible prices.

Here's a hair-raising bit of winter driving from the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17589298

I think the vendor's ID is definitely the giveaway here. We can all occasionally type "brought" when we mean "bought", I guess, but to do it several times, in bold type, and in red as well, just highlights Gary's illiteracy. Simple tip, Gary - if you don't wish to prove that you're a tool, try to learn the difference between "of" and "off", and realise that "apper" isn't a real word. And lose the huge shouty text. This item contains all the things that would put me off even contemplating bidding. As for "THIS SET ALL INCLUDES A BR TAVERN CAR SEE PHOTO", I'm mystified, frankly. EDITED, ironically enough, for lousy typing.

In one of the recent Titianic-themed dramas (thus pretty much fixing the supposed date, I should have thought...), some of the passengers arrived in Southampton in a rake of blue-grey carriages! Can't remember if it was Channel 4, 5 or whatever, but it had David Calder as the Captain, if that helps (sorry, too tired for Googling).

Not quite - that would be 135-0! Still, 58-0 is pretty awful, and it is about 1.5 minutes per goal, which is bad enough.

Grr... I couldn't actually bring myself to place a bet against Chelsea in the end. More fool me, apparently! I didn't see the game, but tried to follow it on the radio. The Radio 5 gang were suggesting that the penalty leading to the equaliser was a bit harsh - ie no way was the handball deliberate, which is what the law requires for a penalty to be given, I believe - but I'm not going to bleat. I can't be bothered to get annoyed, to be honest, after Chelsea's rotten season so far. In a twisted kind of way, I can actually manage to be quite pleased for Roberto Mancini. If he'd picked Tevez and City hadn't won, RM would suddenly have found himself rather unpopular with the blue part of Manchester!

I might do that myself, despite being a Chelsea fan. Call it "disappointment insurance". Usually, if I have a bet, I get it wrong, so the more money I put on City, the more likely Chelsea are to win, I reckon. And if I do by some miracle win the bet, at least I'll have some monetary consolation...

Just in case you thought I'd gone completely mad with my suggestion, may I make the excuse that the white box half-way up the OHLE mast in middle shot looked, to me at least, like a lighthouse in the middle distance? No idea with the latest square either, I'm afraid...

A more recent statement says that Muamba is "critical". Let's hope that the morning brings some better news.

Is that a lighthouse?