Someone made a point today of saying that Benitez has rarely started Mata, Hazard and Oscar together. All are exceptional players, but playing them together leads to conceding goals because of the imbalance in midfield and lack of cover for the CBs. Fair points, but I seem to remember that Di Matteo was also heavily criticized (mainly by Chelsea fans) because he wouldn't play the 3 together. That's why I have such a hard time taking anyone on the front pages seriously- RDM is an idiot for not playing them together, Tubby is a genius reverting back to not playing them together.

As for Rafa da Gaffa- I agree with Radio. I actually like him less as a person now that he is in charge of the team. He worked for snake oil salesmen with Hicks and Gillett at Liverpool, but it wasn't his fault that they were terrible owners.

To make amends for his insults to Chelsea fans in the past, an apology would've been sufficient. I've been an ass to almost everyone in this forum at one time or another, I've been wrong about my convictions, and I've tried to make amends by apologizing when I'm wrong or out of line. It goes hand in hand with owning my comments.

But Rafa's "We can analyse what I said and I didn't say. Some things are untrue, some things are not true" or "I was praising the fans of my club, my team. But I'm here now, it's my club, and I will do my best for them. That's my explanation, very easy and very simple" comments aren't an apology. Hell, I don't even know if that gibberish qualifies as an excuse.

If you said something you didn't mean, just say so. If you said something you meant but understand that it was was offensive, just say so. If you didn't say it, refute the story and set the record straight. Tubby has simply avoided giving anything close to an appropriate answer- at times implying some sort of moral high ground or hard working answer more than makes up for directly insulting Chelsea supporters. And thats what chaps me- because it implies that he doesn't just think we're plastic, he thinks we're too stupid to realize that we're indirectly paying him to insult us. Jose has the charisma to be an ass and still be liked, Tubby doesn't (although he tried to mimic Jose at the Club World Cup with his "With the economic crisis around the world everybody is under pressure" comment). I'll watch Chelsea because it's what I do when we win or when we lose, when we're playing for the Milk Cup or the Champion's League, when we're managed by Glenn Hoddle or Ruudy or Vialli or Ranieri or any of Roman's lost boys.... No fat Spanish waiter will change that, no matter how many prestigious jobs he's been fired from, no matter how pretentious his comments, no matter how desperate for work and press he has been, no matter how silly this whole "interim" appointment may be.

As long as Rafa rules, I'm proud to be plastic.

Edited by rslack 3/1/2013 05:57

Wow Rslack that sounded like some presidential speech (Obama style) Lol. I do agree with you whole heartedly,and I have made that clear on the front page several times. "We don't care about Rafa,he don't care about us...All we care about is CFC"

Sorry for the rant. But like I said, his refusal to apologize really rubbed me the wrong way. He can call us anything he wants, silly titles like 'plastic' are just words. But insisting that he wasn't wrong before, and professing that hard work is all that he can/will do for the club and fans is much worse. It one thing to call someone an idiot, it is quite another to sell them beachfront property in Arizona.