shurlock

Never said anything different - said many jumped ship in the late 1970s, implying they were well-supported till then. What would be interesting to know is what would happen if they went through another slump - their new, jcl fanbase which replaced the traditional one is arguably far more fickle.

Spazza's suggestion that they are a working class club and are consequently very different from Arsenal, the subject of this thread.

You telling me that the numbers who came back in the late 1990s were the same as those who attended in the early 1950s and 1970s? Chelsea changed dramatically in the 1980s and the fanbase and identity that emerged is totally different from generations lost in the mists of history. And that's all that matters.

If you want to compare Westquay with Knightsbridge and the Kings Road, go ahead...

A lot were quick to jump ship when they dropped to the second division; but more than that numbers didn't exceed 30,000 till the late 1990s -by which time, hooliganism had been on the wane for almost a decade and it was fashionable to like football -Damon Albarn or not. Chelsea reached the FA cup final in 1994 which hardly registered a dent on attendances -not what you would expect from a supposedly well-supported team; it was only after they won the FA cup that their attendances started to climb beyond 30,000, aided and abetted by a European run. And they only hit 40,000 after they won the league. Go to Stamford Bridge nowadays and you'll see those numbers are made up of jcls and the flood of skilled foreigners who've camped to west London and want to relieve their boredom on a Saturday afternoon.

For such a class warrior on the changing demographics of football, your dewy-eyed reverence for Chelsea is baffling.

Excellent piece and really makes a mockery of England's attempts to graft on a pressing game. You can see the attraction to the national side: it suggests you can make up for deficits in technique with fitness and physicality but it requires brains and constant drilling. This ain't mongloid Rooney chasing down back passes to the keeper but involves split second decisions when to leave your zone to support others while working out which passing lanes are the most dangerous or threatening.

Would say its truer of the jcls that have jumped on the Chelsea bandwagon - Arsenal catchment covers some pretty gentrified parts -Islington, Regents Park, Highgate, Muswell Hill, Finchley, Totteridge etc. These arent students but people who were born and raised in north London and, if anything, left London when they went to university and then returned when they started working.

Alas season records go out the window during the playoffs Do the top two teams get byes or is it straightforward elimination?

I live bang in the middle of Arsenal country and cant stand their support but it's all from London - it just reflects the fact that North London is probably more diverse than any other part of London, made up of poncey parts inhabited by the chattering classes.

Shows very little - so we spent years in a tiny, capacity constrained ground? So what? No reflection of our real support.

Poch seems to believe in old-school virtues of loyalty - don't think he'd up sticks unless it was a job of a lifetime or seen things out here a bit longer. The yids right here, right now tick neither of these boxes.

McInnes or facepalm? Pick your poison....

And any suggestion to the contrary will mean that you're 'shouting down' said trolls.

Predictable and pedestrian in the final third - the Hull and Fulham results were certainly encouraging but I'm still concerned we're not creating enough clear-cut chances.

To be fair, their style is pretty similars to ours. They like to press and are very well-drilled. Dare I say it, some or the criticisms of Spurs -that they are slightly pedestrian and predictable- also apply to us.

It cuts both ways. Didn't he come over to us at the end (again) to clap?

The story emanates from MIke Ashley's shower of s**te, cowboy outfit which was responsible for some truly bizarre stories over the summer e.g. Demba Ba off to Leicester. Hope you didn't click on any of the adverts and cleared your computer of all cookies and various other STDs afterwards.

Brilliant goal. Two great passes.

Agree about our fullbacks - dare I say it, someone with a bit of pace would have offered more balance and threat than Davis after Shaw went off and JWP dropped to RB.

Boruc's blunder shouldn't be seen in isolation. Things were coming to a head as he was getting visibly frustrated with his distribution and the number of his clearances sailing out and camping us in our own half.

Was it the secret footballer per chance? All three of them

On a side note, Giroud is a dirty, cynical ****. The constant pulling and backing into our CBs coupled with the willingness to go down like a feather. Can't believe it's not picked up on more. See lloris is not covering himself in glory...

Think the whole team could distribute the ball quicker - Gaston does that, though there are too many doubts around the rest of his game. It's pretty easy to predict which teams Lambert will struggle or fare well against - the matchup with Mertesacker didn't look promising before the game. The Arsenal CBs looked pretty to vulnerable to movement and pace as Jrod and Osvaldo briefly showed -and we should have exploited that more.