gumps

Chelsea are only in the top 8 for next season because Juventus weren't in european competition last season and so couldn't earn any points. Fair enough you might say, but even so. Looking at the ranking points though, the Chavs will rightfully earn their place in the top seeds for season 08/09 if they have a reasonably successful run next season as they will lose their pathetic points for season 02/03 (5.52) in the ranking calculation.

Pity. But they could probably mix & match combinations of the white and black in some situations.

Its not painted. Apparently its a load of vinyl stickers pieced together. Does hurt to see it though, what might have been and all that. Wonder if ManU had anything prepared to parade the double???? AFAIK Chelsea didn't even do a parade of their 2 cups. Remember a few years ago (2001 probably) when Utd had the hotel in Cardiff all booked in advance? As has been said, the bitters wouldn't know anything about this sort of thing as they don't need to prepare for parades and stuff. All they can do is ruch out cheap DVD's of a single league game FFS!

Any idea what colour the shorts would be for the white shirt? If they're black then that'll do for me. I just love the white shirt/black short away kits, they just seem "right" for our change colours. Probably coz when I started to follow the reds in the 70's that was our away and it didn't change every season. First replica kit I got was the white/black "Hitachi" one. Happy days! Only downer was the 77 FA cup final.

Oooops, sorry everyone. I missed Daves PM about starting last Saturday a few weeks ago. I'm going to setup the payment today (backdated to last Saturday of course)

Just to simplify, I hope! 2-1 to Barca on the night at 90 mins is the only score that can take the tie into extra time. If extra time remains goalless, ie still 2-1 to Barca then its penalties. If they get more than 2 goals before 90 mins then basically we have to outscore them or score draw with them. This scenario would also apply once extra time has started. Fuck, it sounded simpler before writing it down!!!!

Thats exactly what I meant! You're right though, there is no "weighting" for results gained in the CL only bonus points for getting through certain rounds. Fair enough I suppose, as our UEFA cup scores were included in our ranking. Great wee site that Bert Kassies one though. Well done for someone to actually put UEFAs system out in the open.

The scores are worked out from a teams results. Roughly 2 pts for a win, 1 for a draw etc IIRC. Newcastles score is high because they have played A LOT of intertoto & UEFA cup games the last few years. so they've racked up a good score. Of course, their co-efficient ranking is only applicable in whatever competition they qualify for, so they're hardly going to worry the Champions League rankings are they!!!!

They're surely not having new kits afte only one season. I thought there was some rule about 2 season life for a kit. No?

Looking at that "draw", if it had've been seeded they couldn't have come up with a more predictable draw than that one. Only thing wrong with it is that Spurs are away.

Erm, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole point of a round robin league was that every team plays each other home and away over the course of 10 months. If we beat Fulham, Watford, Spurs and Charlton and Man U lose away to Everton and Chelsea and draw with sheff Utd then what da ya know, we've got the same number of points!! If you fall for Skys hype then why dont the top 4 play each other over the first few weeks and get the whole frightful business over with.

Well, if you could've picked opening day sacrificial lambs to the slaughter, sorry "opposition", then Fulham or Man City at home would be near top of the list. We, however, were playing away to a newly promoted team, who are never going to be more up for it than the 1st match.

Do you think there's that many folks who come on here and/or regularly pay for the fanzine at the moment who would stoop to this level? Whats to stop anyone scanning the paper version and distributing it at the moment. I know you'll say thats with a pdf its only a matter of clicking a few buttons but surely there is some security measures no? What about documents and e-books that you can buy at the moment?

Dave, does the fanzine really weigh more than 500g? I wouldn't have thought it was that heavy. Anyway, the idea of a pdf version sent via email or something, sounds like a really good idea to me and certainly possible in this day and age. May even cut down on your printing costs? I always get my issues by ordering online anyway, so if you want to do a trial or something, count me in. And anyway, as has been said, every f'in thing is going up these days and the cost of postage is not your fault as I'm sure all P&P costs will be going up for all goods and services.

I take it you all mean the white one? Why are we wearing it all the time anyway, is it purely to stoke up demand for it? Could backfire according to the comments on here. You'd think they would like to showcase the new red and yellow kits

I know I am. I know some will say that yeah its all about fitness and players getting into form, but the latest few results have been ridiculous. the teams we've been putting out are not weak really, especially the last couple, yet we've been well and truly spanked. This can't be good for morale, hows it all suddenly going to change next weds against a team with something to prove who will be really up for it. Then again, I've always thought that preseason form and "real" form when the proper games start usually go the opposite. You know have really good results preseason then get worse when the real games start. I seem to remember a few years ago when we beat Parma 5 or 6-0 and thought "yes this is looking good" and I dont think the following season was that great. Whats anyone else think?

Italy, best of a bad bunch really. The team that annoys me the least. Germany- can't believe they've done so well to be honest. The host factor carrying them through. Ballack (arrogant twat) France - arrogant twats. The thought of Gallas, Makalele & co with the trophy doesn't bear thinking about. Portugal - horrible, diving cheating cunts nuff said. thinking about it after writing that, it seems my unhealthy anti-Chelsea feelings are coming to the fore as Italy are the only team without a Chelsea connection. Is that right?

Just had a look at our fixtures for the new season. Our first 6 weekend league games are all lunchtime kick offs, either 12.45 or 1.30 presumably because of TV. 'Kinel, price of being popular I suppose.

They could very well do unless they do well next season, ie , at least semis/final as they are due to lose their best year of the last five, 28 odd points for season 01/02.

Do you really think that UEFA would have the goolies to throw them out? I think not

Here ya go http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/

It'll take at least another 2/3 seasons of getting to semi final/final stage for Chelsea to climb into the top eight , unless they win it for the next few years!!! (gulp) According to the latest rankings on Bert Kassies site(brilliant by the way for all those stattos!!!) Liverpool are top English ranked side!!!! Also note the Mancs gradual slide down in the last 5 years

Yeah guys, I hear what you're saying, but we put them out weeks ago, they had plenty of time to arrange a premiership only parade. It just reeks of stealing our limelight. Since when did you have a parade for the league anyway? don't remember us having one when we used to win it regularly.

Just seen the Chavs "parade" on TV. What the fuck are they parading today for???? Surely the proper time was last week after the league finished. No? Talk about trying to steal some of our thunder. ME! ME! ME! Look at me!!!!!!! Cunts. That is all

Although I think Flintoff is a cert for this award, it would be nice to just get Carra on the short list ahead of nobs like Terry and Lampard. VOTE CARRA!!!! GET HIM ON SHORT LIST!!!!