Lazlo78

That Boruc is no fragile player

Come on - we could really do with a good result today. COYS!!!!

Villa in control. Loads of fast, low crosses + Hooiveld = disaster...

2nd Law of Pompey?

LAMBOOOOO! Was that a dive from Jay Rod for the penalty?!

Penalty for Saints!

We're getting on top of this game. Need to keep concentrated and we will get a goal...

Great intervention from Shaw *phew*

FFS what is the ref doing?! First a blatant back pass to the keeper, second they get to waste a throw in and get a new, and then they are allowed to take out Gaston

Niemi14 beat me to it: Rammstein. German industrial rock meets pyrotecnics; what could go wrong?

That's just crazy - rather goes against the idea of having a successor when he is only two months younger. When Shaw retires at age 37, the 36-but-37-in-two-months Targett will finally get his time in the sun after waiting patiently for 20 years

Steve Cotterill? Gary Megson? Mark Hughes? I can list a number of managers I wouldn't mind seeing in charge of Villa come Saturday

Villa will be brimming with confidence after this...

Darren Bent carrying an injury perhaps? Doesn't look to comfortable after his huge miss...

Whatever they chose it would always be a distant second in relation to *Halo*'s legendary advent calendar

Enjoy Moneyfields

The hand kissing was an unfortunate coincidence - seemingly that is how he celebrates all his goals. T'was a classic, feisty FA cup match between the underperforming giants and the plucky underdogs giving it their best. On to the pitch steps Mr. Multimillion and shamelessly murders the romantic in me. I turned off the tv immediately after his "goal"... Liverpool fans claim that it was unintentional "ball to hand", and that it was the refs responsibility to spot it. Yes, but still it's Suarez' responsibility not to be a cheating tw*t...

As much a penalty as this was:

Meh. Strong Chelsea side that obviously cruised home when we resigned to having 4 regular starters from the 10 outfield players (Yoshida, Shaw, Puncheon and Cork, with the latter played out of position), and 6 that may currently be regarded as reserves in relation to our strongest XI (Hooiveld, Davis, Ward-Prowse, Guly, De Ridder, Rodriguez). We gave them a good fight in the first half, but then decided to cut our losses... Highlight for me was Shaw. First half there was one episode where he turned Hazard around and kept going up the flank. Cheeky for such a young player to just push forward at any time! Also he saved a goal when Boruc only managed to block the ball into the area - again he kept his balance extremely well and shielded the ball. Such a cool head - way beyond his age... Downsides: Fonte's injury overshadows pretty much everything about this game. Such a blow! We have loads of squad players that - as harvey states in post #506 - played "ok" today. No, they weren't the worst ever, but they weren't really a match for an expensively assembled squad of players who do have that extra something. Actually, Lallana, Lambert and Ramirez may have been our best hope of producing something remarkable, but without them we had a team of "ok" workhorses with little star quality. Bottom line: the moment the Chelsea lineup was revealed we knew we were in for a tough afternoon - they simply need to advance in this tournament and we don't.

I don't agree. Lots of passion but with little star quality on the pitch. It's slowly becoming Saints reserves vs. Chelsea first XI so a loss is no big surprise... no need for overreactions!

Never mind the score or the result. Fonte's injury is the really significant thing today

Shaw is so good. Amazing twists and turns from him saved us a 4th goal conceded there...

None other that the enigmatic, brazilian, fanbase-splitting, tackle-bottling, drink-driving GOOOOOLEH

Cynics would say that we are championship material when playing 45 minutes per half

We're a quite ok side - this is an almost full strength Chelsea side that has obviously decided that they are going for the FA Cup instead of the PL or CL... Would prefer a win but I wouldn't mind a narrow loss with a good team performance from Saints that will keep confidence up. We need as few fixtures as possible and this fixture is "free" unless we take a heavy defeat. I'd even take a narrow defeat over a draw. An extra match would be highly unwelcome, especially if Chelsea decide to rest key players against our relegation rivals in the league before the cup match *grrr*