I didn't realise until i got back, that there was a playoff game on last night.

Good to see Sheff Utd going through, i like them.

It wasnt a bad game actually once Sheff utd scored Preston attacked like crazy had a shot cleared of the line and one deflected just wide, they have got some good young players by the looks of it

Yes I do. If you're claiming what might have been's with your reference to the ref in the CL semi final, [iwhat if[/i Gerrard and Torres had started 36 PL games apiece this season? Would we have won the league? Where would Benitez rank then? Still out of the top 5? Cos Hiddink managed to win matches against......well other than the Liverpool away in the Champions league, no-one of note.

Warped.

About as right as your assessment on the league's best manager this season.

If they do go down they will not come back up for a very, very long time!

He acts as though they are all Hiddink's achievement's; they're not. Scolari was at Chelsea for half a year and he kept them in those competitions, so to say well Hiddink done this, and Hiddink done that was wrong because he took over the club in a fairly decent position.

Which is another point. It's not as if Chelsea were already out of FA Cup and he miraculously got them re-instated. If he really thinks his beloved Chelsea squad couldn't get passed Coventry and a poor Arsenal side then he can't rate them that highly.

16:00 Arsenal 1 - 4 Chelsea

19:45 Chelsea 1 - 1 Barcelona

15:00 Chelsea 3 - 1 Fulham

19:45 Barcelona 0 - 0 Chelsea

15:00 West Ham United 0 - 1 Chelsea

20:00 Chelsea 0 - 0 Everton

17:15 Arsenal 1 - 2 Chelsea

19:45 Chelsea 4 - 4 Liverpool

15:00 Chelsea 4 - 3 Bolton Wanderers

19:45 Liverpool 1 - 3 Chelsea

15:00 Newcastle United 0 - 2 Chelsea

15:30 Tottenham Hotspur 1 - 0 Chelsea

13:30 Chelsea 1 - 0 Manchester City

19:45 Juventus 2 - 2 Chelsea

12:30 Coventry City 0 - 2 Chelsea

19:45 Portsmouth 0 - 1 Chelsea

15:00 Chelsea 2 - 1 Wigan Athletic

19:45 Chelsea 1 - 0 Juventus

12:45 Aston Villa 0 - 1 Chelsea

The games in bold are the ones were Chelsea have performed to their ability since Hiddink took over. The rest of the results would have been gained with Don Kiddick in charge, never mind Hiddink. There's nothing special there. Other than conceding more goals than they normally do, I'm struggling to see anything owrthy of being the 2nd best manager in the Premier League.

As much as I suspect it will be a few years, it's impossible to say with the certainty you seem to have. Nobody has any idea what next year's squad will look like yet.

No-one is denying that - it's just laughable that Benitez hints that 'success' has been achieved on a relatively limited budget. Although to be fair, it looks like he was told he wasn't allowed to 'invest' in both Keane AND Barry last summer.

You forget about the what if of the cup final. I always consider it strange that a final appearance is held in such high regard, even over those who went out to the winners in earlier rounds. When it comes down to it, should Everton do the unlikely, Chelsea's final appearance is better than both Liverpool and Manchester United's (amongst others) performances in the cup only by virtue of the luck of the draw.

Maybe he would have been if he'd sold some players. Personally, I have no sympathy whatsoever over Benitiez's transfer sulks. If it's about being told who he can and can't sign for playing reasons, yes, that's his job and he should be trusted to do it. However, for money reasons, the purse strings need to be drawn at times to be sensible. He seems to want some kind of divine right not to work to a budget, which is ridiculous. If he wants to play with magical, infinite amounts, maybe he should get himself a copy of champ manager.

Also, regarding those he chose to compare with:

1. Chelsea is a special case, and everyone knows it. To whine about it when you've outperformed them anyway seems silly.
2. Arsenal. Has he even looked at the last couple of years of their spending?
3. Man Utd. Maybe he should question why Ferguson can make such big money moves. A lot of it is because he brings a lot through (as do Arsenal), saving or recouping money on a regular basis.

In the case of both Wenger and Ferguson, they have a proven track record of getting the large majority of big-money moves right, so their boards back them as good investors. Benitez has spent a fortune, signed a gob-smacking amount of players, and it's very debatable whether more than half a dozen of them are up to the quality their rivals have.

They are the typical Barnsley, Ipswich, and Bradford type team. They simply do not have the financial clout to cut it at the top. Should a team like Newcastle, Sunderland or even Boro go down I would expect them to be challenging to come straight back up.

I just can not see Hull City doing that.

And here lies the key point. Benitez regularly buys gash, which he has to get rid of and start again. Examples of such players include...

Mauricio Pellegrino
Robbie Fowler
Philipp Degen
Charles Itandje
Andriy Voronin
Scott Carson
Mark Gonzalez
Gabriel Paletta
Craig Bellamy
Robbie Keane
Antonio Nunez
Jan Kromkamp

IIRC, at the start of the season there some articles on financial stability in the premer league and they were one of the few clubs to be turning over a profit. The difference is that they have chosen not to spend enough, whether it be fear of over-stretching themselves or a lack of ambition.

If the 3 to go down are indeed WBA, Boro and Hull City, there shouldn't be much in it in terms of available resources. What's likely though is a few departures from the other 2 which will in turn be spent on replacements for a promotion charge, whilst City only make a few bob on 2 or 3 players and then spend about half of it on lower leaguers and supplementing the rest of their squad-building with a load of freebie thirty-somethings.

Thy need to get out of the small-club mentality if they truly want to make the next step up, which is why I say we need to wait and see next season's squads. If they make that change in their approach there's no reason they can't make another go of it.

What he should have said is that the only teams better than us are the ones who have outlayed more.



The thing is, we'll never know the full ins and outs of what goes on behind the scenes of any club. Do Arsenal have the money but Wenger is unwilling to spend it or are they just pumping all the money they have back into what they owe for the ground for example. Man U seem to be able to sign £30m players when needed yet are so far in debt it makes you wonder how. Chelsea, although they have seemed to have tightened the purse strings, could probably go out and buy anyone at any price, similar to City now, Liverpool haven't been in that position for a long, long time, if ever and i think that's what he's getting at.

Benitez has spent a lot of money and made some poor buys, but he's not on his own there, but when you are assessing his spending, you have to put each signing in context and not look at it in an overall sense. When he first came, he needed quantity to overhaul the squad he inherited. Don't forget we were 30 points adrift in the League when he came. Obviously Liverpool didn't have the money to splah out on 4 or 5 £10m + players in one go, so he's had to wheel and deal and take gambles to get him to the stage he was when he signed the likes of Torres.

It's took him 5 years to get to the stage where he has got a squad that can challenge in the Prem and the Champs league in the same season. If he had came in and had say £100m to spend in one summer, I think it's safe to assume this would have happened quicker, but the money hasn't been there and still isn't.

Now he's at the stage where quality is more important than quantity and hopefully from my point of view this is the stage now where we need to make a couple of excellent acquisitions to take us that next step.

There's not much point reading any further as he clearly stated during his contract negotiations that what he wanted was to be given a budget and let him, the best person, decide which player comes into the club.

If you can't even get that fundamental part right, your opinion is worthless.

Precisely, which is why his little moans strike me as that of a petulant child. I think there's little doubting his tactical nouse on the field, but he really needs to start looking closer to home about his problems with player signings and start getting the right ones more often.

The majority of those came in for zilch, or nominal transfer fees. The only ones of note, ie over £2m were Bellamy (sold for a profit) and Keane who was sold at a loss, but may get the majority of it back anyway. We made over £3m on Carson as well.

What part of "the right ones" cost big money do you not understand?

The point is he has had to sign players like that to bolster his squad because the quantity and quality of players coming through hasn't been good enough - you can't blame Benitez for that as a successful youth system is a long term project, one he may not even be responsible for, depending on the way the club is structured.

The reason Ferguson can go out and spunk £30m on someone each summer is because he knows his youth development and scouting network ensures enough "filler" will be coming through. When that let him down for a few years even he was wasting money on signings like Kleberson, Miller and Djemba-Djemba for example.

Correct and that was another part of his new contract, having a say on what happened at the academy where previously his input was very limited.

But the article I was discussing has him suggesting his budget is not big enough. Maybe a slight exaggeration that he wants no budget, but the point stands that he wants more to spend. If he genuinely wants that, maybe he should off elsewhere to a club who are either in a position to do so or willing to pander to his folly anyway.

All I ever see regarding him has him pleading to be allowed to do his job with no interference whilst not acknowledging the fact that those above him are only trying to do theirs.

Hello!!! He's a football manager.

But can't you see, we had the money to sign Barry, his number one target, but the powers that be decided that he wasn't worth the outlay and that money and more was subsequently spent on Keane.

Fabregas, Van Perise, Toure, Rafael, Fabio, Macheda. Even Adebayor, Park Ji-Sung, Rosicky, Eduardo. They all are either proven to be or look to be better value for money than any of Benitez's medium-sized dealings.

Quite, it would be unfair for anyone to do so.

My point is that he knows the position of the club, and what resources he has available to him. Instead of bitching and moaning about it, he should just get on with getting the best from them.