I watched the game and come away from it thinking "Good performance" and "Good result, we're through!" and being honest I cannot believe the negativity that has come from "Chelsea fans" on here and Twitter to me after the game.
Some of you lot need a kick up the arse and to get a sense of realism right now.

If you had asked any Stevenage supporter a couple of weeks ago who Gary Smith is, the majority would have replied 'Who?' It would have been a justified reaction because until his name began to be linked with the vacant managerial position, Gary Smith's reputation within this country was, well, non-existent.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is infamous for exposing his players to 'hairdryer'-like rants on the training ground or the locker room.
It's referred to as a 'hairdryer' when Ferguson shouts at his players, because he is yelling so loud and hard that it pushes the player's hair back like someone blow-drying their hair.

Player-Manager sideshows are interesting to say the least and it seems like Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has gotten himself involved in another spat with an unhappy player.

The dust from the Tevez debacle is yet to settle and already the Italian tactician is involved in a war of words with defender Wayne Bridge.

Des Kelly: Fernando Torres is for life, not just Christmas

The prevailing wisdom appears to be that Chelsea have been sold a pup. An expensive pup, too. But shoving him out once the holiday is over would surely represent a disastrous failure of man management.

View the full story here: The Mail

A news article on 2011-12-16 23:00:19 from: The Mail

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

According to The Sun, Sours boss Harry Redknapp wants to unite Man City's wantaway striker with on-loan City star Emmanuel Adebayor at White Hart Lane.

A source close to the talks is quoted as saying:

"People at Tottenham reckon a deal like this could be bigger than anything since they signed Jurgen Klinsmann.

Despite scoring against Chelsea in his last game, Maxi Rodrigues has been dropped by Kenny Dalglish for the Fulham game, which marks the third time this season the Argentinean has been dumped on the bench after scoring.
Here is the team:
Reina, Johnson, Skrtel, Agger, Enrique, Henderson, Spearing, Adam, Bellamy, Carroll, Suarez.

Dalglish Hard to please everyone

Kenny Dalglish has admitted his man-management skills are being tested as he struggles to keep all the players in his Liverpool squad happy.

View the full story here: Sky Sports

A news article on 2011-12-04 22:47:27 from: Sky Sports

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Here is the provisional line-up for today's game against Manchester City at Anfield.
As reported earlier, a distraught Craig Bellamy has pulled out of the Liverpool team as a result of Gary Speed's death this morning.
TEAM: Reina, Johnson, Skrtel, Agger, Enrique, Lucas, Adam, Henderson, Kuyt, Suarez, Downing
SUBS: Doni, Carra, Kelly, Coates, Spearing, Maxi, Carroll
I know I go on about this a lot but, once again, a player who scored in the previous game has been dropped.

Guus Hiddink is unemployed. He likes Chelsea, a lot.

So, is a return to London in some capacity other than manager represent good business for the club and Roman Abramovich? Yes and no.

London calling?

Hiddink resigned his managerial post this week following a turbulent near two-year spell in charge of the Turkish national team.

Dimitar Berbatov has praised Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson's man-management style despite the striker struggling to break into the first team this season.
Berbatov, 30, has started one league game and his future at Old Trafford is far from certain with a year remaining on his contract.

Kevin Keen is relishing his role as Liverpool first-team coach, and explained why he felt a tinge of nerves when coming face-to-face with Kenny Dalglish for the very first time.
The Reds boss' illustrious reputation in world football left the former West Ham United man - who has been working at Anfield for four months now - feeling a little apprehensive, but Keen reveals how he was pleasantly surprised after their initial Melwood meeting.

Manchester United midfielder Park Ji-Sung has lavished praise on manager Sir Alex Ferguson for his ability to stay at the top of his game after 25 years in control at the Premier League giants.
"He knows past and present things about football," the former South Korea international told the club's official website.

Liverpool legend Steve Nicol has revealed that he was initially 'concerned' about Kenny Dalglish's appointment as Liverpool manager in January.
In a recent interview, Nicol - who won a bucketload of trophies as Liverpool player, including 4 league championship titles - said:
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly concerned when Kenny took the job on, but that soon disappeared when I saw how the team was playing.

Spurs legend Gary Mabbutt has been talking about some of the latest Premiership news recently and when he spoke to Absolute Radio last week, our former FA Cup winning captain took the time to focus on his old club.

Mabbs played in virtually every position in his time at Spurs but eventually settled down to command a regular position at the heart of the defence and it was the current centre half situation at Spurs that caught his attention,

"I couldn't believe at the end we didn't go for Cahill," Gary said.

With the FA indicating that Capello wont be kept on past the European Championships in Poland and Ukraine the search is on to find the next England boss.

David Berstein said that Capello is to stand down from his position of England manager after the tournament. This is not a shock to everyone, as after the string of poor performances at the World Cup in South Africa.

Newcastle's defensive record at the moment is the best of all the 92 football league clubs. Alan Pardew - showing excellent man-management Newcastle have conceded just three league goals in their six games and have restricted the opposition to just 18 shots on goal in those six games. One other record the Newcastle defense has, is they [.

It's looking a bit like a video game where you score points for bad behaviour

Tell me whose jaw did not drop seeing Roberto Mancini sub Edin Dzeko with Nigel De Jong with City two goals down? Which manager does that? There is enough attacking talent left on the City bench to launch a third world war and Mancini goes for a holding midfielder.

Imagine a time when Arsenal had a decent back four –

HA.

No, not ‘The Invincibles" – they were a pale shadow of the 1998/99 quartet that stood as a brick wall. In front of Seaman roamed Adams, Dixon, Keown and Winterburn – together they allowed a miserly 17 goals, thirteen less than the next best record that season.

I was going to write a carefully crafted piece about whether it is possible for footballers to lose their mojo. I was going to make reference to people like Gaizka Mendieta and Michael Ricketts to determine whether mediocre players just have one great season (Ricketts) or whether once great players (Mendieta, Torres) simply lose their mojo and never get it back.

From single-mindedness to first-class man management Ronnie Whelan on the five key qualities Kenny Dalglish brings to Liverpool

The Reds manager's former team-mate and friend speaks to Goal.com about the personal traits the Scot brings to the Merseyside club as they prepare to take on Tottenham

View the full story here: Goal

A news article on 2011-09-16 11:01:00 from: Goal

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

Liverpool's latest accounts show that the club's wage bill for 2009-10 increased by a whopping 21% to £121m (up from 100m for the previous year). Whilst £121m is a barely defensible figure (especially compared to Man United's much lower figure), it's chicken feed compared to the gross sums paid out to greedy Chelsea players.

Sir Alex Ferguson has been through a lot in his 25 years as manager of Manchester United. Through a combination of man management, manipulating the press, psychology and outwitting opponents through his often surprising team selections, the Scot has...
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One of the most maddening things about Liverpool under Rafa Benitez was his frustrating penchant for playing square pegs in round holes (Peter Crouch on the left-wing, anyone?). After today's disappointing draw with Sunderland, let's hope history is not going to repeat itself under Kenny Dalglish.
I grew up idolising Dalglish so I wouldn't presume to question the King's tactics; however, I just can't understand the decision to move Downing to the right and play Raul Meirelles on the left wing for the last part of the game.

I've had a couple people ask why I dropped down from Grade 7 to 8, even though (apparently) the assessment requirement for sevens are gone. It's not the physical, although I'm training more for a different type of activity than running, it's the number of games I'm working. I can tell I'm rusty when compared to a couple of years ago.

It's kind of interesting how standards change because of needs. I've mentioned a few times on here before, that I had a conversation with an assessor who said her first decision is who needs a real referee crew, and who can get by with just a "body" to fulfill USSF requirements. On the other hand, now that I'm involved in roller derby, it's very very common to see significant others wearing stripes (or non-skating official jerseys) in matches.

Alan Pardew has given his support to Joey Barton today, by giving him the captaincy for Friday's friendly game at Darlington. Joey Barton blow with his Visa That's an excellent gesture by Pardew, and very good man management too. As we found out this morning, Barton will not travel to the United States on [.

Some kind soul has uploaded our new manager's first full interview with Chelsea TV to Youtube.

Based solely off the interview, I like the guy.

Points of interest:
- The proper way to pronounce "Villas-Boas"
- Already referring to Chelsea as "we," even when discussing recent years when he wasn't here
- Acknowledging the work that Ancelotti and other past managers have done for the club
- Sounds like he really wants to focus closely on man-management as well as the team management
- Just seems very aware of the situation at the club and eager to impress and do well but keep the focus on the team rather than himself

As I've said already, this appointment already has me excited for preseason and seeing our Blues in action once again.

A new matador making his way to Aston Villa? Roberto Martinez - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Somewhat ironic that Aston Villa's Hollywood supporter Tom Hanks starred in a film called ‘The Da Vinci Code' where he made more luck at cracking that than he did at predicting the club's new manager.

Man Utd were the real caricatures in the final

In a nod to the Guardian one will attempt five things we learned from the Man Utd vs Barca Champions League final which will for obvious reasons not go down as a classic. It takes two teams to make one. And I will clench my fists a la Sir Alex and resist the urge for redundancies like, " Messi is a genius.

David Sullivan is a tough man to love. He dresses like a sun-dried Stalin. He's got the man-management skills of a frisbee. He wants to see the return of Norks on Sunday. He's friends with David Gold. And, after relegation with West Ham, snarks the Guardian's Fiver, he wants a return to chest-beating, badge-kissing, half-time-riot-act-reading, teacup-smashing Englishness in the Hammers dugout.

Carlos Tévez proved his value to Manchester City last night with two superb goals that saw them leapfrog Arsenal into third in the Premier League. The free-kick, which left Tony Pulis grappling for superlatives, probably could have orbited the earth if it hadn't been stopped by crashing into the Stoke net.

Liverpool's director of football Damien Comolli has likened Kenny Dalglish to Arsenal counterpart Arsene Wenger in terms of their philosophies on football.
The 60-year-old Scot was confirmed as permanent manager on a three-year contract, having turned around a foundering season after replacing Roy Hodgson in January with the team struggling in 12th in the Barclays Premier League.

One of the things that we've been impressed with Alan Pardew, is that his man management skills seem very good. Joey Barton a leader on Tyneside My former best man is a Southampton supporter back in England, and he said as much when Newcastle signed Pardew to replace Chris Hughton, and Pardew has done [.

Jose Reina believes Liverpool must hit the ground running next season if they are to re-establish their top-four status in the Premier League.
The Reds are likely to miss out on UEFA Champions League qualification for the second season running after suffering a disastrous first half to the campaign.

Alan Pardew seems a reasonable enough down to earth guy, and certainly he has impressed most of the senior players at the club, with both his coaching and man-management skills. Better communication from these two would be good start After some bad defeats he has been very level-headed, and we heard last week that he [.

Martin Skrtel has distanced his name from the group of players expected to leave Liverpool this summer, insisting Kenny Dalglish has changed the mood of the football club.
Following the departure of Fernando Torres to Chelsea, Pepe Reina and Glen Johnson have both been linked to summer departures, but Skrtel will not be following suit.

2 Critical wins in 2 matches: 1 in the Champions League, 1 in La Liga: puts us right into the thick of things and still be in contention for 3 titles this season. An amazing display of man management by the coach, avoidance of interference by management... and above all CHARACTER by the team.

Eric Cantona has hailed Sir Alex Ferguson's ability to work with players to ensure that he gets the best out of them. Whilst his man-management is second to none, it has been widely reported that our manager made special allowances for Eric that he hasn't made for any of the others.

Cantona has also revealed the pride he had in wearing United's famous number 7 shirt.

Emmanuel Adebayor experienced mixed fortunes during his time in English football. Still the victim of some less than favourable chants from Arsenal fans following his controversial big money move to Manchester City, and with his ridiculous goal celebration against his former club that came shortly after that move, his time at Eastlands wasn't much more [.