Comments on: Are Chelsea the new Newcastle United?

By: Andrei

Andrei — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 00:41:24 +0000

okay i have been on holiday so i have not been abole to reply to these, but in case you get around to reading my comments here they are:

steve, you made me laugh for about an hour with your comment

as to why arsenal were crocked last year I think it was because of too many games like the World Cup and Euro qualifyers but i think that the fact they went behind so many times also played a part since they had to work more to get back into the games rather than just realx towards the end like Man Utd tended to do.

Don, owen broke his foot a while into his Newcastle career not in the first day of training like barton did so it might be down to the diet that the manager kept him on (you do know that they are told what to eat, right?). maybe he did not have enough calcium or maybe his bones are weak, but that was not a hard tackle when he broke his foot.

By: steve

steve — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:16:52 +0000

vibrating machines – not sure i like the sound of that. Suppose it’s gonna work when he says “if you get injured we stick super dong vibrator up your ass” – we’ll soon see the injury list go down

By: Ollie Y

Ollie Y — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 08:53:10 +0000

imo newcastle had far worse injury problems than chelsea, who lost their keeper and arguably best player terry without these two in the team the premiership witnessed the real chelsea, a home draw to reading folled by another home draw to fulham then yet another draw this time at villa park, chelsea just couldnt stop conceding goals and imho without drogba in there team they would have struggled to score aswell. Chelsea were faviourites to win the prem last season and rightly so, free spending, c a player you like? Give Big bucks Abramovic a ring and hes in the chelsea team!!! Chelsea should be the best team in the world by now if all had gone to plan, however they are not, man utd once again have their trophy back and have vastle improoved their squad, unlike chelsea: tal ben haim – free (bolton) steeve sidwel – free (reading) pizaro – free (bayern) and last but not least malouda for around 13mil and it looks evermore likely that they are going to sell robben who i regard as one of there better players, but what do i no. Man utd will win the prem again with an formidable attack force that will strike fear into the hearts of defenders up and down the country, the question being who 2 mark??? the list seems endless: rooney, tevez, ronaldo, giggs, nani, anderson and not forgetting the ginga ninga himself and with OH in the squad surely now man utd have the best midfield and indeed team in the premiership. The title has come a year 2 soon 4 liverpool and arsenal should be more wary of tottenham that the top 3 of united chelsea and liverpool.

By: clagger

clagger — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 07:56:38 +0000

no. newcastle are better than chelsea any way so there u go.

By: Robin

Robin — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 03:44:25 +0000

Michael Owen has horrible luck with injuries. I think the thing that needs to be looked at is the amount that some of these players play for the national team. As an Arsenal fan Henry provides the best example, France basicly ruined his season last year. Even when Henry wasn’t playing entire matches for Arsenal because Wenger was concerned with his fitness, Domenech selected him for meaningless friendlies that further aggravated his injuries. By the end of the season Henry had an injury that ruled him out for the remainder of the campaign and, in my opinion, was suffering from a burnout that lead to him leaving Arsenal.

By: WOOF

WOOF — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:09:03 +0000

The vibrating tables have been here over a month

By: Liverpool_Fan

Liverpool_Fan — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:47:46 +0000

Owen is dogey not newcastles fault

By: Don

Don — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:28:52 +0000

How can you say that Owen’s injuries are down to their treatment at Newcastle. He broke his leg, what can they do about that. And then he damaged his knee badly playing for England. Neither of those injuries were preventable.

By: LiamOKelly

LiamOKelly — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:45:24 +0000

Good article, what I noticed most about last season was that when Jose had the injuries at every chance he was whining and moaning about it which may have put more pressure on his injured players to get back and resulted in them maybe aggrievating their injuries even further. I also noticed how much more press coverage Chelsea’s injuries got over United’s. Towards the end of the season United’s whole back line were injured at one time or another and yet there was no article about Ferguson saying that this cost them the CL so maybe you have a point in the article.

By: Tomas

Tomas — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:14:53 +0000

Very interesting article, and there’re definitely some signs that you’re right as well… obviously you mention these yourself.

But look at how, Alex Ferguson takes care of his players. Hargreaves and Nani both had minor problems (perhaps like Lampard and Terry’s broken toes), but they weren’t allowed to play (despite them being new players unlike Lampard and Terry), until they were fully recovered. That’s the general way, Ferguson deals with injuries: accepts them and moves on.

In Mourinho’s case, things appear to be a little different, and I think it’s connected to the fact that he’s way more under pressure now, than he’s ever been in his time at Chelsea. His first 2 seasons were smooth, he cut through the league like a warm knife in butter and had few injury concerns. Last season he was trailing the whole season and probably rushed players back… the tendency seems to continue.

I think that unless Mourinho changes his attitude and accepts these injuries in stead of using them as an excuse, he’ll continue having these injuries, simply because he doesn’t know how to deal with them. If you accept the injuries, you’ll tend to move on in stead of getting stuck in a vicious circle that brings more and more players to your field hospital.

Having said that, as a United fan there’s nothing better (in terms of news from other clubs) than seing Terry sidelined for another month at this crucial time of the season.