This Weekend's & Midweek Fixtures (12/13/14/15/16/17/18 May)

[Letters]

What will it take for Chelsea to, for want of a better phrase, die? Will Abramovich ever get bored and bugger off?

I'd say 3 seasons without a trophy could be the magic number (apart from in our case, of course). It might tempt drastic, wholesale changes for the worse.

They've really turned football into crap for me since 2005

I remember a couple of years after Abramovic took over we played them at Highbury and (as we always did back then) beat them and thinking "they'll never by a title".
I was wrong, they've bought plenty. And now so have City.
Money and success in football have always been linked to an extent but in the Sky era it's got increasingly ridiculous.

Football

PS: Just remembered. I was talking to a Chelsea fan recently and he was bemoaning the way Man Utd have splashed money around recently.
A Chelsea fan moaning about another club spending silly amounts of money in an attempt to buy success...

[Gooner23]

Even if he were to fuck off there would be another billionaire waiting in the wings.

[selassie]

Some of you guys sound so bitter!

I don't even look at Chelsea as a big spender anymore, sure they splash the cash but they don't spend like the Manchester clubs do, they don't even spend more than we do.

What is difficult to take for me is how they have bounced back from last season, how they were able to retain all their star players then convince other top players to join them. They have ambition, they will not accept second best. It's in total contrast to us and it's one of the reasons why I feel we have literally no chance of winning a title under the current regime because if it's not Chelsea it will be someone else winning the league, it won't be us irrespective of the circumstances.

[Letters]

I am bitter. Bitter about how money and football have been so inextricably linked. Not because it means we're not successful right now - we are one of the haves, with better management we would be successful with our resources. But the sums involved are so obscene, the players are such cheats, the referees are so incompetent and spineless and possibly corrupt. These things were probably always so to an extent but it's got a lot worse in the PL era. So yes, I am bitter about the way football has gone as a sport - well, it's not a sport any more, it's a business and we are now customers, not fans. That's what I'm bitter about. It's not that Chelsea and City have bought success, it's the environment that means that is possible and really the only way to be successful these days.

What Leicester did last year shouldn't be possible in the modern game so that was a ray of hope but they took advantage of a rare season where all the big guns were rebuilding or were Arsenal. This year it's business as normal again.

[selassie]

I am bitter. Bitter about how money and football have been so inextricably linked. Not because it means we're not successful right now - we are one of the haves, with better management we would be successful with our resources. But the sums involved are so obscene, the players are such cheats, the referees are so incompetent and spineless and possibly corrupt. These things were probably always so to an extent but it's got a lot worse in the PL era. So yes, I am bitter about the way football has gone as a sport - well, it's not a sport any more, it's a business and we are now customers, not fans. That's what I'm bitter about. It's not that Chelsea and City have bought success, it's the environment that means that is possible and really the only way to be successful these days.

What Leicester did last year shouldn't be possible in the modern game so that was a ray of hope but they took advantage of a rare season where all the big guns were rebuilding or were Arsenal. This year it's business as normal again.

Fair play Letters, I geniunely feel the same so I completely hear where you are coming from. I do share these same concerns for life in general, global politics, the economy, just general social shit.

[Niall_Quinn]

Anything that adheres to the corporate model is SHIT or eventually turns to SHIT. That's a fundamental truth of humanity when you look honestly. The thing I have realised over the last decade is Arsenal is a far more cynical club than Chelsea. Chelsea is like your barrow boy come good, the suit doesn't quite fit but, by whatever means, he's at the table nonetheless. Arsenal are the suave, smooth, well heeled and well dressed toffs that are offended by the presence of a chav at THEIR perpetually reserved restaurant. The chav has a criminal record FFS! The Arsenal bankers would never commit such despicable acts. That's their stockbroker's job. And their ticket office's.

The chavs are a sustainable club. The chav in chief sustains them out of his own pocket. What has he bought with "his" money? Success. We're a sustainable club too. The fans sustain the few and we've bought ranches and gridiron franchises.

At least the chav in charge turns up and cheers like a fan. I wouldn't eat with any of them, feeling is mutual for sure. But, if I was forced to, at least Abramovich might deign to speak to me, rather than have the butler sternly pass the salt.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Bitter about a team I don't like winning something when they didn't have to play in Europe this season? You could say that.

Anyway, Man City v Leicester's programme is on Sky now. Opening up with a Chelsea montage for some reason.

[Niall_Quinn]

Another thing. Wenger should be fucking embarrassed that Conte can waltz in and land a title. Wenger has had years to achieve this. Now he has money too. First Leicester. Now this. All the excuses are gone and what we are left with is a man who is no longer capable of getting the job done.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

NQ and Pardiola are in the studio.

[Niall_Quinn]

NQ and Pardiola are in the studio.

The fake NQ.