Just got back from a few days in Rome and, apart from Italian club shirts, saw five Arsenal, including an Italian wearing an away top, two Liverpool, one Luton, as well as a few Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Haven’t the Italians heard of Man City, the greatest club in Europe? 
What next, choose between Bendtner or Henry
Just watched the first half back.
Arsenal could have ripped this Chelsea team apart.
Walcott should have had the biggest go sign on top of his head as that Chelsea narrow setup was so exploitable.
Aliadiere was dangerous. He’s certainly got talent and I could easily imagine him being played as a wide forward if it was 2024
Baptista has something but the lack of tactical instruction was easy to see. Not quite a striker, not quite a midfielder either.
Cesc-Denilson midfield…that was never going to work defensively 
Chelsea were wank. No width and only looked dangerous when Arsenal came out of their shape. Most of the time it was long balls to Drogba’s chest, and trying to play on Armand Traore’s youth.
Arsenal had 2 or 3 presentable openings. Should be leading
EDIT: Second Half
Mourinho brings on Robben and Chelsea immediately look better. Shape is good as they have naturally width.
Robben has Traore on toast and cooks him repeatedly.
Arsenal a bit more ragged. Less control of the game due to Chelsea’s changes.
Walcott is meh. No idea why he’s on the pitch after 60 mins.
That Denilson-Cesc midfield plays a part in the second Drogba goal. Denilson tries to go for the glory pass rather than keeping it simple and gives it away. Cesc dives in to try and win the ball back and leaves Arsenal open. Naive
Arsenal couldn’t get near Robben and it’s his cross that creates the goal
Hleb 
He comes on as a second half sub and has his moments. His start-stop-wiggle style of dribbling is great on the eye. Intelligent passer too
The red cards to Mikel, Toure, and Adebayor kill the game
Anybody from OA around that time period knows what a big Baptista fan I was. It was infuriating how badly Wenger misused him. He wasn’t a striker at any stage of his career yet Wenger didn’t utilise him properly. He should have been playing between the midfield and the striker making them late runs into the box. That’s where he was most dangerous. Had an abundance of ability but was criminally misused by Wenger.
We chased him for 2-3 years yet when Wenger finally got him he didn’t have a clue what to do with him.
Baptista did have this one nice moment where he slipped Diaby through. But Diaby completely telegraphs the finish with the way he opens his body up. Gets poor contact to boot and Cech makes an easy save
Back in the day when I was like 11/12 he used to be one of my favourite football players
Ronaldinho
Lifetime football ban is required here. Maybe an arrest too (not sure in laws there). Disgraceful.
https://x.com/_mrdoorey/status/1797733965450920044?s=46&t=Y_daqNeXhWEl-obTsWZMCw
The kind of footballing story that I like.
I didn’t know Yannick Bolasie was not trained in an academy.
https://x.com/centregoals/status/1800811289218032064
This has to be one of the biggest falls in 18 months I’ve seen.
Sacked by Portugal, Poland, Besiktas and has now got the Azerbaijan job. A shame because despite how it ended, he’s done a great job for Portugal in his 8 years there.
I wouldn’t call it a fall from grace. Until he somehow got the Portugal job he was basically irrelevant for years and if anything was punching way above his level when he somehow lucked out on the Portugal job.
Even his success at Portugal is as fortunate as it gets. He didn’t win a single game in the group stage and only won one game in normal time if memory serves me right.
He followed up Euro 2016 by essentially doing nothing at every tournament that followed and when sacked he continued slide back into irrelevance.
Portugal did win their only two trophies with him.
He does deserve some credit for it.
I do think the team did outgrow him towards the end. The talent pool nas gotten aggressively better the past 6 years and he was stuck a bit in his old ways.
I know Martinez is laughed at quite a bit(I’ve done it myself too) but Portugal look a totally different team under him and he’s way more flexible with his tactics and the players he picks.
Bawahahahaha Roberto Martinez.
Some are awful but some have me in tears. But this really is foreign to Americans. Been witnessed anything quite like it until I moved here. Now it’s just the norm.
