The Battle Of The Bridge - Chelsea V Barcelona UCL semi-final 1st leg(k.o19:45)

Hope Torres plays and scores tbh

Head says 1-2 to Barca though

Really hope Chelsea win after the fix 3 years ago. How there wasn't a serious investigation into that match I don't know.

Chelsea needs defensive masterclass to stop Barca from scoring, imo Drogba is the key player and they need Essien of the past very badly.

If Droga bring his top form to the game then Chelsea can take something from this game. He is the best striker when it comes to route 1 football and that is what Chelsea should be doing. Defend deep and hoof it to Drogba, that is how they played in 2009 and they got many clear goal scoring chances only for Drogba to mess them up.

Caveman1 wrote: »

I think this game is set up for Drogba, he looked sharp on Sunday and he will want revenge on Barca for that infamous night at the bridge, I think it's going to be a tight game, I'm going 2-0 Chelsea, I don't want to jinx it but Messi has a crap record against Chelsea hopefully it continues

->Messi never scores with his head . . . scores an empathetic header against someone I can't quite remember now.
->Messi never scores against English Clubs . . . scores in 2009 Champions League final.
->Messi never scores on English soil . . . scores in 2011 Champions League final.
->Messi never scores against Italian teams . . . revises statement to never scores against Italian teams from open play.
->Messi never scores against Chelsea . . . hmm

Once it isnt an El Classico final I'll be happy.

Couldnt be dealing with another game of kicking, diving and cheating TBH.

Anyway, tonight, I think it will be 1-1 tonight and we'll get picked open in the Camp Nou looking for goals to go through and eventually get beat 3-1, losing 4-2 on over the 2 legs.

I'd expect a team of :

Cech
Ivan Cahill JT Cole
Mikel Lamps
Ramires Mata Kalou
Torres

If we can pile pressure on Barca early we'll see what their made of, traditonally they will ship goals early in either half before they get going so the first 10 minutes are cruical and so to are the first 10 after half time.

The media have billed this as a grudge match and expect the build up on Sky to be dominated by the events of a few seasons ago, we have a couple of players playing tonight that we're in the team and so do Barca but I dont think that will have a bearing on the game.

The worse thing about tonight is we wont get props for anything we do.

If we get any positive result it will be looked as a blip and you'll get fans saying " Oh sure Barca will destroy you at the Camp Nou anyway " and if we lose you'll get the same crowd saying " Told ya so, you lot are crap "

I have my plastic flag ready for tonight anyway and remember lads, in beating Benfica and Napoli we've done something both Manchester clubs couldnt do.

Roll up for your plastic flags, plenty go around, all courtesy of our devine owner.

Giggsy11 wrote: »

There are few who will say point out at something no matter what happens, not only for Chelsea but for any clubs they hate.

Point is who cares. :pac:

I agree with ya, the only positives will be if we qualify for the final and in which case we'll porbably see the " sure you'll get beat by Real/Bayern anyway "

I'm going have this picture on stand by just incase. :P

Zebra3 wrote: »

Have Chelsea being kicked out by UEFA and replaced by someone decent? :eek:

Nope, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient#UEFA_Team_Ranking

Jernal wrote: »

->Messi never scores with his head . . . scores an empathetic header against someone I can't quite remember now.
->Messi never scores against English Clubs . . . scores in 2009 Champions League final.
->Messi never scores on English soil . . . scores in 2011 Champions League final.
->Messi never scores against Italian teams . . . revises statement to never scores against Italian teams from open play.
->Messi never scores against Chelsea . . . hmm

Messi never scored against Liverpool :pac:

Barcelona's victory over Chelsea in 2009 was one of the great club football injustices. I hope the playersn surviving from that Chelsea squad use it as motivation tonight.

If Chelsea were to win this tie, it would probably be a modern classic. Most definitely the lessor of two evils.

Zebra3 wrote: »

You reckon Chelsea are better than RM or Bayern?

Over 180 minutes it was an injustice?

I dont reckon it, UEFA do due to recent UCL campaigns.

It was an injustice, one of the worse officiating I think I've ever seen this side of a rigged match.

Bodhisopha wrote: »

A couple of dodgy decisions in it, alright. Abidal should never have been sent off and Chelsea were denied a clear penalty. Wouldn't class it as one of the worst, though.

We we're denied at least 1 penalty.

Its hard to say I'm not bitter about it but the whole thing stunk IMO.

Still, I have a little hope we can go through, against Barca sometimes thats all you have but once we give accoutn of ourselves I'll be happy.

We're not this shite team that people make us out to be at times, consistency, or lack there of, has cost us major this season, so much so that we might not get into the UCL next season and we'd only have ourselves to blame if it does happen.

amiable wrote: »

Chelsea get more than their fare share of decisions now in fairness

On that night? We didnt.

:pac:

Giggsy11 wrote: »

Messi never scored against Liverpool :pac:

gavredking wrote: »

On that night? We didnt.

I dunno. The british media like to point out it was injustice. Jose Mourinho likes to point out refereeing injustices a lot. What's noticeable though is they rarely mention how the gifts of decisions that wen their way. I think Guus Hiddink nailed it on that night when he said the refereeing performance was poor. It was atrocious.

Chelsea were denied at least two penalties. The others were arguably a case of ball to hand.
Barca were denied at least one penalty. Abidal was unfairly sent off and crucially there were at least two occasions where Barca were in behind the defensive Chelsea line and were flagged offside when they weren't. Barca played for over 30 minutes with ten men so I can hardly see how the game was rigged. The sad fact is that the team that dominate the game tend to get bigger decisions going their way mainly because it's like everything from Rugby to boxing if the referees think one team has the upper hand or dominance then now matter much they want to deny it that will always subconsciously influence their opinion. Oh and apparently as far as Chelsea are concerned playing in blue doesn't help either. (But Barca don't wear red so I dunno. *)

Anyways that was then, this is now. Is the standards of refereeing any better now? Nope. Just hope an error doesn't seriously cost any team, but if there is to be a refereeing error it will most likely favor the team that referee thinks is superior.


*See here.

Got to be Drogba.

He is only one of two showing the type of form that can destroy a team.

Torres will have his day but tonight go with Drogba to start for me.

weiland79 wrote: »

Tricky one Drogs or Torres?

My head says Torres but if Drogba from Sunday evening turns up he could run rampant about the park.

Subbing either of them into the game at any point just doesn't seem to work. Drogba will have his stroppy head on him for not starting the game and Torres always looks like he's struggling to catch up to the pace of the game if he doesn't start.

C'mon the Blues!