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Part Moyes, part the squad SAF left him. Naive in the extreme to think yesterday would've ended up any different with SAF at the helm

Nick, Simeone will love you back if you spell his name right!   

I can't believe what Cholo Simeone has done for this team. 2 UEFA cups, 1 SuperCup and now a Champions final with a League win likely. Imagine a selling club like Everton going for the CL and league double and you realise the magnitude of what this guy has done with this limited squad.

They don't have the resources of the big squads and have to compete in games at key moments like today. If you were at games three or four years ago, with much the same squad, you wouldn't believe the difference in attitude and performance. Fairytale stuff and it's been a privilege to watch them this season and I'm happy for the fans who have suffered over the years and not faltered with their support. Just look at the reaction of the fans who travelled over for the game.

Lovely stuff.

Wickham will be too rich for our blood now, Myst. English and fashionable all of a sudden.

Its what makes me hate English football sometimes. Chelsea will probably buy him and put him out back on their farm. The fact that in football nowadays West Ham, Palace, Norwich etc would have to probably have numerous meetings and scout consultations to put forward a package for Wickham, whilst City or Chelsea can just go "£10m? Why not? If hes good then good, if hes not then who cares, hes not our problem"

Atletico are the fairytale that keeps the faith alive. Vamos!

Where do Atletico keep finding these strikers? Aguero, Torres, Hulk, Falcao, Costa...

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Wickham will be too rich for our blood now, Myst. English and fashionable all of a sudden.

Its what makes me hate English football sometimes. Chelsea will probably buy him and put him out back on their farm. The fact that in football nowadays West Ham, Palace, Norwich etc would have to probably have numerous meetings and scout consultations to put forward a package for Wickham, whilst City or Chelsea can just go "£10m? Why not? If hes good then good, if hes not then who cares, hes not our problem"

yep its gutting. hopefully he will see the sense in picking a mid table team to play week in week out.

the problem for them though is the fact there careers are so short and the potential for injury is so high if they did do the right thing and pick a team at there level it could end up costing them there future.

The Special Juan wrote:Where do Atletico keep finding these strikers?  Aguero, Torres, Hulk, Falcao, Costa...

fashionable Spanish club gets the leftover hispanic players from the main two then sells them on. Its the culture of spain and they get first dibs of the ones not wanted by Madrid and barca

Falcao was from Oporto, Torres was always Atleti, Costa came from Vallodolid via Braga, Forlan came from Villarral, Kun Agüero came from Argentina. No way Madrid and Barca are selling to their rivals. Why do you think Falcao is in Monaco rather than Real Madrid?

The truth is that players know if they want a leap frog in their career, they can go to Atleticó for a couple of seasons and then have the pick of the big clubs. But no way are they coming from Barcelona or Madrid to appear for Atleti!

Except Villa

Maybe i didnt explain it well enough but isn't what i was suggesting.

I was suggesting that Athletico are high up on the list of clubs that Hispanic players(spain,portugal, south america) would like to come to if barca and madrid dont want them.

Anyway Kia- we all know the issues that surround Athletico. Do you think a rich owner will come in and try and keep you up there?

You can't compare Atletico to Everton at all, one has no money while the other is in massive debt because of excessive spending that they couldn't afford.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:You can't compare Atletico to Everton at all, one has no money while the other is in massive debt because of excessive spending that they couldn't afford.

exactly- Everton would never ever be able to do such a thing. NO PL team can

So this cinderella story garbage is just that, a fabricated lie to enhance what they are doing, it's impressive to be going for the double but it's no different to what Dortmund did and they did it within their means.

Just for comparison - last season even newcastle united's turnover was more than Athletico- whilst the La liga filled the two top spots - they dont even have another team in the top 20. the PL has 7

I think Everton and athletico were both very similar with about a 70m turnover(top 30 maybe and about 50m short of newcastle). Whilst one tries to break even the other just spends- and well yes the spending has worked- but they will be screwed unless real capital is drawn in. This year they will make a shed load but i doubt they will even break even- so they will have to sell which is sad if they do the double..

I see oakey.   

I don't think Atleti has excessive spending. Not with the players they sell and the prices they buy at. I think their debt stems from more illicit dealings. Whilst that might not happen in the PL, I stand by the analogy. There is no reason why a club like Atletico in terms of its squad should be in the Champions Final or competing for the league title. Whether they should be able to be in that position from a financial point of view is irrelevant. This is still David and Goliath stuff in terms of the players they have at their disposal.

kiakahaaotearoa wrote:I see oakey.   

I don't think Atleti has excessive spending. Not with the players they sell and the prices they buy at. I think their debt stems from more illicit dealings. Whilst that might not happen in the PL, I stand by the analogy. There is no reason why a club like Atletico in terms of its squad should be in the Champions Final or competing for the league title. Whether they should be able to be in that position from a financial point of view is irrelevant. This is still David and Goliath stuff in terms of the players they have at their disposal.

They have a net spend of £150mil since 2004 despite having debts of over £450mil including owing the spanish taxman conveniently the same amount as there net spend. 


Uli Hoeness in 2012 had this to say on the spanish bailout; "This is unthinkable, we pay hundreds of millions to get them out of the sh*t, and then the clubs don't pay their debts."

The more you read up on the club the more disgraceful the way the club is run appears to be.

I wasn't exactly buying into the fairytale either.

La Liga does appear, from the outside, to be incredibly corrupt in monetary terms.

You can pretty much pick a reason to dislike any club if you look hard enough. Happy for Atletico, nice to see the duopoly broke .

Gotta back Carlo in the final mind

You cant blame the players or the manager or the fans- so kudos to Athletico.

And if they hadnt done what they had done- they would never have broken the classico situation. so....whats the bigger crime!

Its feicked and great at the same time. And to us fans- its all about the football.

The whole of Spanish football is in debt and only Real Madrid and Barcelona have the international clout to break even with their merchandising. Even then, there are still dodgy goings on like the Neymar transfer. It's not just limited to football: there has been corruption and overspending all over Spain.

The PL is much more competitive across the board and the Spanish league is excessively top heavy. There has been day and night between Barcelona and Real Madrid and the rest traditionally. This year, somehow Atletico has managed to hold on with a much more limited squad. Until the Spanish government stops turning a blind eye to the debt of Spanish football, overspending will continue. But overspending in proportion to the size of the club. I can fully understand how this might aggrieve people but it won't stop me from marvelling at what Simeone has done with this squad.

I totally understand Kia- but imagine this.

Sources suggest that Athleticos debt is actually pushing the 1 bill euro mark- not half a billion

evertons debt is 45 mill

lets split the difference in the debt as there debt figure is only reduced due to over estimating land values it owns(the main problem with spain and irelands debt problems within the EU in the first place)

that would give Everton 700m to spend to put them on an equal footing finacially.

just think about what type of team everton could make with 700m euros to spend!!

I totally get that too oakey.

For a start, with that money they wouldn't need to sell players like Rooney. They wouldn't have to buy many players.

But when you have teams supported by sheiks or an oil billionaire, maybe Everton's rise in that scenario would be welcome. Of course they would have their fair share of detractors as well. I understand that.

I don't imagine this streak will last long for Atletico. They last made the CL final in 1974 and last won the league in 1996. Knock them if you like. Diego Costa is a good start! But forgive me if I savour this moment. It's likely not to be repeated in my lifetime!

Its not your fault, its not the players fault and please celebrate as much as you want. But you did compare them to Everton- Which in a way is a perfect comparison(same turnover- has to sell there best players, same footing in world football, same amount of fans)- until you go deeper and realise the financial positions of the two clubs. If Everton tomorrow took out a 700m loan they could become the best team in the world yet financially be in exactly the same position as athletico- yes millions of that debt(athleticos) may have gone of in brown paper envelopes rather than players and business ventures but all the same that is the situation the club finds it self in.

What annoys us in England more is that we are actually paying for the athleticos of this world to survive- we are a contributor to the EU that is bailing out countries like spain.

Yet we also seem to get the most stick from UEFA anyway. Its all a bit feicked up.

But I dont begrudge it.

However say what you want about our rich owners but we are bringing money in to europe from other nations. The La liga is sucking money out.

Looks like Mourinho is trying to wrest the mantle of specialist in failure from Wenger, he just can't let Wenger get over on him. Choked away the league, bombed in both domestic cups, and got beaten by team that spends a fraction of what they do both in transfers and in payroll. The fact is Chelsea did this to themselves by being completely negative at the Calderon. Jose's team is stocked with talent and has one of the highest payrolls not only in football but in sports worldwide. No one can question his resume, but Jose has had a very poor year in managing this club. Loaning Lukaku to Everton when he had no quality strikers, and the fact that another Chelsea loanee in Courtois stuck it to them in this match is so sweet.

Before we cast aspersions on la liga and Atleti lets remember that a polygamist oil dictator whose country treats cheap foreign labor like serfs owns one of our teams and Chelsea is owned by a man who made billions in the Aluminum wars, over 100 killed to gain control of Russia's aluminum industry. Oddly, when Roman and his partner came out winners of the Aluminum wars the killings stopped, what a coincidence. Oh but he is a close chum of Putin so that must mean he is nice guy.

Don't worry Socal. Jose has another 7 years before he reaches Wenger's pathetic record.

I thought all the Russian billionaires were chummy with Putin? And that includes the Arsenal owner. It's how Russia works, you become a billionaire, have a meeting with the manliest man of all time, and later announce your donating a lot of money to some initiative.

Absolutely no shame losing to Atletico. I remember losing in the UEFA Cup early rounds to teams like Hapoel Tel Aviv, St Gallen & Viking Stavanger.

Have you ever heard of those teams, Socal?

Simeone's side beat Chelsea 3-1 with a commanding performance in the semi-final second leg at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday and he ended his post-match press conference with the unexpected tribute.

“I want to congratulate the mothers of these players, because they gave them big balls to play like this," he said.

   

I love this on the Betfair Twitter 

Bus W*nkers

kingraf wrote:I thought all the Russian billionaires were chummy with Putin? And that includes the Arsenal owner. It's how Russia works, you become a billionaire, have a meeting with the manliest man of all time, and later announce your donating a lot of money to some initiative.

Exactly, Kingraf my point was that Athletico being in debt is hardly something to cast aspersions on the morality of the club or the ethics of La Liga. I mean the EPL is hardly the bastion of morality either it is a business and if the Spanish government wants to waste its money that is the taxpayers problem.

CFCNick wrote:Don't worry Socal. Jose has another 7 years before he reaches Wenger's pathetic record.

The fact is that Chelsea underperfomed this year Nick. They were most experts pre-season pick, I know I had them there. To me Jose did a bad job this year. Lukaku, the Mata situation, negative football at the Calderon and the late choke away of the title when just a month ago they were in a strong position. Plus the fact that Chelsea buy up all these players and then loan them out came back to bite them on the backside which I thoroughly enjoyed. If you don't want a player or won't play him don't buy him. Man City could pull a double, Arsenal should win the cup (finger's crossed), Liverpool finally got back into Europe's preeminent competition and Chelsea didn't do much with Jose. In fact the only big side to do worse than Chelsea was Moyes at United.

Can people stop with the myth that we buy top players just for Poopie and giggles and loan them out. We have loaned out Lukaku because he isn't good enough (30 goals in two seasons would be called bad form if he was scoring those 30 goals for Chelsea). Courtois was loaned out because why waste him on the bench behind Cech?

We aren't Man City. Buying Jack Rodwells and Scott Sinclairs. 90% of the players we've loaned out aren't good enough for the Premier Peague, not even at clubs like Cardiff or Sunderland.

Oh, we underachieved. Well if we could have beaten one of Sunderland, Villa, Palace we'd be top with only Norwich and Cardiff to play. If being one win short of the title is underachieving than if take that over the season Arsenal have had with yet another collapse in March.

Fernando wrote:Simeone's side beat Chelsea 3-1 with a commanding performance in the semi-final second leg at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday and he ended his post-match press conference with the unexpected tribute.

“I want to congratulate the mothers of these players, because they gave them big balls to play like this," he said.

   

I love this on the Betfair Twitter 

Bus W*nkers

That In Betweeners tweet is pure gold.   

CFCNick wrote:Can people stop with the myth that we buy top players just for Poopie and giggles and loan them out. We have loaned out Lukaku because he isn't good enough (30 goals in two seasons would be called bad form if he was scoring those 30 goals for Chelsea). Courtois was loaned out because why waste him on the bench behind Cech?

We aren't Man City. Buying Jack Rodwells and Scott Sinclairs. 90% of the players we've loaned out aren't good enough for the Premier Peague, not even at clubs like Cardiff or Sunderland.

Oh, we underachieved. Well if we could have beaten one of Sunderland, Villa, Palace we'd be top with only Norwich and Cardiff to play. If being one win short of the title is underachieving than if take that over the season Arsenal have had with yet another collapse in March.

Then why Frak buy them?! Its because you have more money than sense and don't give a Poopie about their careers. They flourish on their own or fail on their own, Chelsea just own their rights if it goes well. Your idiotic transfers of Matic just prove what a cesspit for ideas Chelsea are as a club.

The vast majority of players out on loan are from the academy anyway. The likes of Chalobah and McEachran will play for the first team one day.

What are we supposed to do? Let them all rot in the reserves and youth team? Surely loaning them out is the better option.

We've got 25+ players out on loan. Only about 5-6 are Premier League quality.

TBF, loads of clubs put youngsters with potential out on loan to give them game time that they would not otherwise get. Many come back a better player. But 25? and not all young.

CFCNick wrote:Can people stop with the myth that we buy top players just for Poopie and giggles and loan them out. We have loaned out Lukaku because he isn't good enough (30 goals in two seasons would be called bad form if he was scoring those 30 goals for Chelsea).

I dunno. One in two league games (or thereabouts) isn't too shabby to be fair.

He'd be presented with a lot more chances for Chelsea I'd imagine and I doubt he'd have done any worse than the dross you've had up front this season.

He's a bit rough around the edges granted but he's been decent at least for West Brom and Everton. Perhaps Mourinho just didn't fancy him? Even the top bosses make bad judgements.

If you had put Ba, Eto'o and Torres on loan I'd agree with the not good enough.

What are you supposed to do? Stop just hoovering up anyone with a sign of potential. You have no interest in their development. Its the ruination of English football. I'd say about 20 of the players you've got on loan you don't need to own. Its dirty.

Says it alot about Chelsea when they have a player who has to appear in the first team is on 20K a week and from reports, they aren't even sure if he is good enough. Ridiculous.

As for Nicks comment about Chalobah and McEachran, they will never play for Chelsea. Chelsea want success now, and they'd rather buy than use the younger guys. McEachran has already spoken of his desire to leave Chelsea.

Is most of the anger to JM, and his ridiculous comments and at times negative playing style or Roman Abramovich and his buy success at all costs ways. We also gave it loads to Liverpool last week!

Do we just like to vent when we see them fail, and give it back to our fellow members  

Fernando wrote:Simeone's side beat Chelsea 3-1 with a commanding performance in the semi-final second leg at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday and he ended his post-match press conference with the unexpected tribute.

“I want to congratulate the mothers of these players, because they gave them big balls to play like this," he said.

   

I love this on the Betfair Twitter 

Bus W*nkers

     

BUS WAN*ERS

            

Been shouting that to all Chelsea fans today

#swag
#yolo

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:If you had put Ba, Eto'o and Torres on loan I'd agree with the not good enough.

What are you supposed to do? Stop just hoovering up anyone with a sign of potential. You have no interest in their development. Its the ruination of English football. I'd say about 20 of the players you've got on loan you don't need to own. Its dirty.

Exactly, and especially when you consider that in league you can block the loaned out player from playing against your team while said player plays against everyone else it becomes even more damaging to the competitive fairness of the league. Buy up players that other squads might want and move them around strategically on loan to other teams, if those players play well great they still can't directly influence your matches against those teams but can knock your rivals back. That is why I especially love the Courtois loan coming back to bite them.

skyeman wrote:Is most of the anger to JM, and his ridiculous comments and at times negative playing style or Roman Abramovich and his buy success at all costs ways. We also gave it loads to Liverpool last week!
 

All of the above. Roman, John Terry, and Jose are not really loveable figures despite their success. Jose in particular seems to go out of his way to promote himself and take credit for successes and out of his way to shift blame for his losses. Pretty much any win for Jose is a loss for football in general. Say what you will about his personality but his reliance on defensive tactics is the main reason I don't like the guy. Just look at Real, look at how much more entertaining they are since Jose left. Every trophy he lifts is another incentive for young managers to copy his defensive tactics. Hazard himself stated as much when he said that their team is not set up to play football but instead are set up to keep the other team from being able to play football.

I don't actually think Real play a better brand of football without Jose. 121 goals in 2011/12 league, 100pts. There was a dip the following season, but these lads aren't playing much better.

Okay, we've made the final for the big ears, but it's not like Real had Citeh like results under Jose, three consecutive semi finals, one of which ended in penalties, the other was a soft penalty away.

kingraf wrote:I don't actually think Real play a better brand of football without Jose.  121 goals in 2011/12 league, 100pts. There was a dip the following season, but these lads aren't playing much better.

Okay, we've made the final for the big ears, but it's not like Real had Citeh like results under Jose, three consecutive semi finals, one of which ended in penalties, the other was a soft penalty away.

I find Real better and more watchable this year than they were with Jose in charge. I personally believe that the reason he felt unloved at Madrid was that he couldn't find a way to make their team more boring and cynical and that the culture their was opposed to Jose style football. La Liga favors attacking and positive play. Plus the fact that he failed to break up Barca's dominance in the rivalry hastened his departure.

socal1976 wrote:

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:If you had put Ba, Eto'o and Torres on loan I'd agree with the not good enough.

What are you supposed to do? Stop just hoovering up anyone with a sign of potential. You have no interest in their development. Its the ruination of English football. I'd say about 20 of the players you've got on loan you don't need to own. Its dirty.

Exactly, and especially when you consider that in league you can block the loaned out player from playing against your team while said player plays against everyone else it becomes even more damaging to the competitive fairness of the league. Buy up players that other squads might want and move them around strategically on loan to other teams, if those players play well great they still can't directly influence your matches against those teams but can knock your rivals back. That is why I especially love the Courtois loan coming back to bite them.

OK. I don't think the likes of George Saville, Patrick Bamford, Matej Delac, Milan Lalkovic, Patrick van Aanholt, Jhon Pirez, Stipe Perica, Bertrand Traore, Kenneth Omeruo, Nathaniel Chalobah, McEachran, Billy Clifford and Todd Kane are good enough that makes it unfair to any Premier League team. They're all very young don't have much experience above Championship level. Pretty soon we'll probably be sending out Loftus-Cheek, Feruz, Baker, Dabo, Boga and Isaiah Brown for loans.

The only players I'll agree we've truly Frak around with are Ryan Bertrand, Gael Kakuta, and Marko Marin.

Aside from Bertrand and Lukaku, how many games has Moses actually played for Liverpool. Hardly been an integral cog in their system.

All of these players, bar Moses, are getting first team football and REAL match experience.

As for those above knocking my Lukaku not good enough comment. Have you ever seen him play for Chelsea? He's awful. Just doesn't seem like it'll work. The pressure must be immense, he said he liked Chelsea growing up, Drogba was his hero, he then got dubbed the new Drogba at 16 at Anderlecht, he then signs for one of his favourite teams to replace his hero. Yeah, I'd like to see any of you try to deal with that kind of pressure. When in reality there is absolutely no pressure on him from outside his own mind. He has freedom at West Brom and now Everton. I hope to god he comes back and scores 30 goals as a Chelsea striker next season.