I think Chelsea will beat Barcelona tomorrow. 5.4 is a massive price. have saver on draw at 4.3.

think the play here is to lay barca if they score first. they often ease up after getting the away goal in the first leg and would certainly be happy with a score draw

Anyone thinking that Pep will field a "weaker" team thinking about the weekend is clearly a MUG.
With Messi, Iniesta and Xavi in the starting 11 he can pretty much improvise the rest and get a result. Alexis+Tello would be my choise up front with Messi, but Cesc and Pedro/Cuenca would also work.
In midfield, Keita would cope well as CDM tonight, but maybe Busquets will be his choice. Same difference. In defense he has less to pick amongst. I would play Alves-Pique-Macherano-Puyol, but if he wanted to rest old boy puyol, Adriano could play LB, or if he wants to rest Pique due to recent injury recoving, he would play Busquets CB instead.

The joys of Barça.

just read this on twitter - Torres, Drogba, Sturridge, Lampard, Mata and Kalou have scored 63 goals between them this season. Lionel Messi has scored 63 by himself.

I do agree with highlander 3 definate pens hit the post 3 times and the bar,2 50/50 penalty appeals,then mesi has his only shot on goal after 128 mins of play 8 mins of added on time i wonder if it would have gone into double figures if they hadnt scored ??,and that **** Andy(you cant find a more biased scotsman)Grey saying thats why barca are so fantastic.If that was an english team playing rubish negative football like they did he would have slated them for winning.Go on you blues we keep em out tonight and score the away goal and dump uefas preferred team out..

jamdav, my point is that Barca seem to get the help from ref's when they really need it. In the 2nd legs, when it looks like they might go out, players mysteriously get sent off for no real reason, penalties are refused and pens are given for nothing much.

mafeking
18 Apr 12 18:38 Joined: 24 Sep 02 | Topic/replies: 9,300 | Blogger: mafeking's blog
think the play here is to lay barca if they score first. they often ease up after getting the away goal in the first leg and would certainly be happy with a score draw
Rate reply:


WOW! The most sensible and impartial thing ive read during the whole build up of this game!
Barça dont know how to defend a result, they play the same 0-0, 1-0 or 5-0. Thus its fair to say they could well concede if they go a goal up (green up IMMEDIATLY after Chelski score of course!!).

Excellent trading strategy.

high_lander still eething about the RVP sending off

seething*

RVC (-unt)

aaronh, you are right I am still seething about that. I wont pretend othwrwise, it was disgraceful by the ref. Even with 10 men and the handicap of Bendtner we almsot KO'd them

Arronh yes my mum could score 50 goals when your playing against teams who would struggle against weybridge town their league is pant its like the scottish league but not as tight.Do you honestly believe he could score that amount of goals in the prem NOT a chance he wouldnt be allowed to ponce on the ball for 5 minutes at a time without anybody going anywhere near him...

Cech, Ivanović, Cahill, Terry, Cole, Lampard, Mikel, Meireles, Ramires, Mata, Drogba.



from twitter

wrong smiley it was meant to be

yes with 0 shots on target

Highlander in the Arsenal game Barcelona had 4/5 big decisions go against them before the referee sent off Van Persie.

By your logic the referee's give Barcelona nothing and then decide to give them a dodgy call near the end of the game.

Why would a bent referee chalk off a perfectly good Messi goal in the first leg against Arsenal and ignore two possible penalties for hand ball and then in the second leg turn down a stone wall penalty on Messi.

To then decide Barca must got through and give them a dodgy call. It doesnt make any sense.

Yes because Bentner cant shoot straight

19 shots to nil. would have been the biggest travesty in the history of football if arsenal had somehow scraped through that tie.

does show that barca do fly close to the sun sometimes in just doing enough

Apr 18, 2012 -- 6:45PM, alansure1 wrote:

Arronh yes my mum could score 50 goals when your playing against teams who would struggle against weybridge town their league is pant its like the scottish league but not as tight.Do you honestly believe he could score that amount of goals in the prem NOT a chance he wouldnt be allowed to ponce on the ball for 5 minutes at a time without anybody going anywhere near him...

Is this the league where a team incredibly far behind Barca + Real embarrassed the English champs home and away?

you think he wouldn't be so prolific in the English league? CR7 was, Messi will find the space, people can try and hack him down but they will probably be too slow for him

Arronh yes my mum could score 50 goals when your playing against teams who would struggle against weybridge town their league is pant its like the scottish league but not as tight.Do you honestly believe he could score that amount of goals in the prem NOT a chance he wouldnt be allowed to ponce on the ball for 5 minutes at a time without anybody going anywhere near him...


LOL!!
8 teams left in European competitions, how many are English?
5 are Spanish.

think a lot of ppl on here are chatting a load of sh!te ... do you even watch football u mugs??? Barca are way ahead of all the EPL teams.. I've watched them against Arsenal .. arsenal got smashed so did utd and so will chelsea.. and wat excuses are u going to make then? stonewall penalty ..ref on barcas side??? stupid morons.. watch the beautiful game the way it should be played... oh and if la liga was so ****... then why is there only one epl team in the semi's of the european competitons and 5 from la liga? I mean seriously.. wat kinda games do u watch? FIFA?? PES? wake up and enjoy the total football that they play...!!!

The argument that Messi could not do it in the Prem falls down when you see how well the likes of Mata, Silva, Aguero and Van Der Vaart are doing.

Even Robinho scored more league goals in a season for a mid table Man City than he did at Real MAdrid as champions in Spain.

If Aguero is on pens and plays every week like Messi does he would be pretty much guaranteed to get around 40 goals for Man City and hes is not near Messi.

Can't stop laughing at that chelsea team

NO WAY! Where did my reply to jamdav disappear to???? It must have been removed.

highlander u chat a load of sh1te m8..  I think if chelsea or arsenal tried for the next 100 years they would still never play fottball like barca.. why? Cos mugs like u support em!!!

highlander u chat a load of sh1te m8..  I think if chelsea or arsenal tried for the next 100 years they would still never play fottball like barca.. why? Cos mugs like u support em!!!

Lets wait and see eh,if we getted smashed by em i will take it all back but theyve never smashed us before and i still dont believe they will now.we are the only epl team capable of beating them...

aaronh where did my reply from?

Apr 18, 2012 -- 6:53PM, JamDav1982 wrote:

The argument that Messi could not do it in the Prem falls down when you see how well the likes of Mata, Silva, Aguero and Van Der Vaart are doing. Even Robinho scored more league goals in a season for a mid table Man City than he did at Real MAdrid as champions in Spain.If Aguero is on pens and plays every week like Messi does he would be pretty much guaranteed to get around 40 goals for Man City and hes is not near Messi.

Agree with that JamDav re Messi.

Ronaldo got 42 goals in a season for Man Utd, not too many less than he manages in Spain.

If anyone serious thinks Messi wouldn't fill his boots v Wolves, Blackburn or Bolton than it's the funniest thing I've ever heard.

will chelsea even get a touch of the ball tonight?

they removed aaronh's post as well

what ever happened to free speech??

i  think we should watch the two legs and let the football do the talking!! may the best team win!!!

Messi would probably get 20 goals against the bottom 5

shocking scenes occurring in this fred

Da Luck One, what part was sh!te? Either elaborate or stfu you loud mouth t!t

What was the gist of the comments that were removed?

there's two different threads on which most of us are arguing the same matter, make sure it's not in the other thread high_lander

jamdav, my point was that all the weird sh!t happens in the 2nd leg.

That is possibly the smallest Barcelona side I have ever seen.

Puyol must be the tallest outfield player and even he is hardly a towering centre half!

Busquets as well I suppose.

It was definitely on here aaronh, you should know, you posted my removed statement with one of your replies, which was in itself removed.

Highlander what does it matter when decisions happen?

The ties are 180 minutes long.

Having looked at both teams, I really fear for Chelsea.

Come on jamdav, that's a bit naive.

No you are being naive.

Why would the referee deny a stonewall penalty on Messi, in the second leg, only to decide he has to cheat them through.

It makes no sense whatsoever highlander.

what stonewall pen was this?

Jeepers highlander, the fact you cant remember that shows the way you think.

Go and look it up, he was taken down in first half. Clear pen.

In the 2nd leg against Arsenal? I cant remember it, are you sure that you weren't the only one thinking it was stonewall or even remotely a  pen at all. I know how biased you are jamdav.

Im on Barca -2.5 highlander, what do you think?

No,no highlander it was a clear pen.

Not surprised one bit that you dont remember it however.

YOU ARRRA MUG!

Notice how the loud mouth plastic Barca fans - aaronh, jamdav, biscuit et al always disappear before kick off. And like the snivelling cowards they are, wont appear again tonight unless Barca win. If Barca lose you wont see them for days, if not weeks

Strange post, getting increasingly desperate I think there highlander.

It's the truth, wont see any of you again this week if Barca lose. You can dish it out but you cant take it.

What have I been dishing out exactly?

bad advice

What advice is that then highlander?

You are beginning to ramble a bit here.

Come on the jamdav, aaronh, have you bet on your heroes? Shirley you've had  abet after all this big talk. Will you incur significant losses of they lose tonight?

I have backed Chelsea to win and laid Barca large.

ready up

what are your bets???

No bet at all for me highlander.

but jamdav you seem so sure of a barca victory, why no bet?

Apr 18, 2012 -- 7:44PM, high_lander wrote:

Come on the jamdav, aaronh, have you bet on your heroes? Shirley you've had  abet after all this big talk. Will you incur significant losses of they lose tonight?I have backed Chelsea to win and laid Barca large.

I have said Barca are too short and there is merit in laying them, but your bittnerness and mug reasoning is what I have been arguing against

I'm not bitter aaronh, I am not a Barca fan that's true, but that's mainly because of all the weird ref decisions that go in their favour. I don't care enough about football to be bitter

what's the score chaps? is it 0-5 Barcelona yet?





MUGS!!!!!

Highlander do you honestly just make things up?

My only comments on this game were that Barca were short at 1.75 and that Barcelona had out the shortest starting eleven I had ever seen.

Never once said they would win, let alone 0-5.

mugs need to learn to save it til full time to brag

Goals goals goals come onnn the goals

I don't care about full-time aaronh, profit is in the bag already

Money Money Money.... all the way to the bank. 5.4 was far too big to ignore.

eh? not rocket science is it....

Is that a lead I see for Chelski to take to Barcelona  a goal in the New Camp and Barca need three, are Barca goin out ?

bad week for the backers. Chenkui!

great call inspiron,backed chelsea draw no bet myself,reckon barca are going out,dont have long to recover from el classico either

Chelsea are either going have to play a damn sight better or get extremely lucky to stop them next week. Though anything is possible ey...

high_lander
18 Apr 12 12:45 Joined: 11 Nov 10 | Topic/replies: 2,647 | Blogger: high_lander's blog
I believe that a team like Chelsea are Kryptonite to Barcelona, very much in the same way that Inter Milan were. Do we believe Inter were world beaters? Of course not! IMHO ManU would have torn Inter to shreds and the tie over in the first leg. So why is that? Inter like Chelsea are a very good spoiler side, very difficult to play through, very physical, very strong. The kind of side that Barca hate to play, Barca will not be able to get into any rhythm, and that will cause them to fall apart like they did against Inter and like they did against Chelsea 3 years ago.

higlander, have you been on the forum all day?

Valid

good call highlander...right on the money...who's didier drogba bytheway...lex luther

Well, I've been on at different times of the day...why?

fair play HL

you confounded the doubters

now care to tell us how the 2nd leg will go?

Well done highlander.  Barca missed chances but Chelsea won fair and square.  Is you're money now going on Chelsea to qualify.

Not sure what Drogba is but I can tell you that Messi isn't superman

I already backed Chelsea to qualify at 6.4 before the match tonight. I'm going to let that one run.

Low lander get out while you can, should have been mauled tonight...any unquoted on next week

or find a way to narrow barcas pitch

Chelsea have given themselves an excellent chance. I'm not saying they will definitely go through but they are capable of scoring over there. Put it this way, I think Barca will need to score at least 3 goals at camp nou to go through. I think it's going to be very close.

Fabregas and Sanchez will get hooked after that performance.

Cesc must have put in the worst Barcelona performance since Guardiola took over. Thiago looked much better when he came on and Barca started to move

fabregas looked frightened to me....needed a left foot for that 2nd sitter he missed.

It looked like the tactics may have been to play Messi a bit deeper and for Fabregas and Sanchez to play into the space left but both failed to take their chances.

Fabregas did look a bit scared. Maybe some mental scars of facing Chelsea in the past or feeling pressure but his finishing, passing and movement were poor.

Fabregas had a very poor game! And I think we are now seeing exactly how much Barcelona miss Villa. They have no teeth up front at all now - they rely on Messi far too much.

A great win. Lucky.... but luck had to be a major part of the strategy. I don't think you can beat them any other way. Same again please...

It won, but was it a good bet? I'm not so sure.

Well a bet of Barcelona or a draw wasn't very good....

Sorry RMB - A very predictable response. I take your point and at the odds... it probably was

Very true. Overall it probably was very marginal either way. Pleased I backed none of them!

RMB if you didn't see the huge value that was to be had laying Barca at 1.74 - then perhaps you should give it up son.

high_lander will be bragging about this winning bet for weeks

Hey it wasn't only that one, I was also banging on about laying RM in Munich the day before. It was a clear case of over estimating the 2 big Spanish clubs - and long may it continue - my bank balance agrees with it