Chelsea v Sunderland (15:00 GMT)

Well, what a week. That guy – what’s his name? – left, or something, and the Premier League went into meltdown. What went wrong? What happens now? What does it all mean? Whatever: José Mourinho is no longer the coach of Chelsea, and Steve Holland and Eddie Newton are in charge for today’s game against Sunderland. The champions are in a serious slump, and they need really a win this afternoon.

There’s been so much great stuff written about Mourinho, not least by my fine colleagues at the Guardian, but this from David Runciman in the LRB mused on the elephant in the room: Mourinho’s diminishing looks:

When he arrived in English football in 2004 Mourinho came trailing not just a reputation for arrogance and achievement but unquestioned sex appeal. He was frankly a lot better looking that any of his players. In such a deeply homoerotic sport, this counts for a lot.

The extraordinary hold he had over homely superstars like Frank Lampard and John Terry stemmed in large part from their desire to please their handsome boss: they used to look at him with adoring eyes, just waiting for a hug. Their fondest hope was that some of his stardust would rub off on them. Not any more. Now he looks more like Terry’s grumpy uncle.

Chelsea first team coach Steve Holland has made two changes to the team that Jose Mourinho picked for the Leicester game on Monday. Cesc Fabregas and Pedro both come in for Ramires and Eden Hazard respectively.

Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce makes three changes as Younes Kaboul, Jermain Defoe and Jack Rodwell all come into the side.

Chelsea: Courtois, Ivanovic, Zouma, Terry, Azpilicueta, Fabregas, Matic, Willian, Oscar, Pedro, Costa.

Subs: Begovic, Baba, Ramires, Mikel, Traore, Remy, Cahill.

Sunderland: Pantilimon, Jones, Coates, O’Shea, Kaboul, Van Aanholt, Watmore, M’Vila, Rodwell, Toivonen, Defoe.

Subs: Borini, Johnson, Gomez, Graham, Yedlin, Mannone, Fletcher.

Referee: Roger East (Wiltshire)

I believe in a thing called love
Just listen to the rhythm of my heart

Why do Soccer Saturday pundits have such hard-ons for British managers?

Pardew at Chelsea?
Warburton, Dyche and Rowett ahead of Bielsa?

s m h

Chelsea pls win I can't handle the bantz any longer

Hoping for some more quality entertainment.

>>6
why wouldn't you want Chelsea to win? Sunderland deserve to be RELEGATED

anyone else think Mourinho will return to Chelsea at the end of the season?

Who is managing Chelsea today?

Judas "The Players" vs Jose

HAHAHAHAHA

Chelsea on the way to being the cringiest twats in Europe

Chelsea fans

Kek what are these """banners"""

Fucks sake sunderland

blandalan

JUST

Fucks sake, Chelsea. At least pretend you weren't playing shit because of Jose. Don't go all guns blazing straight away.
This pretty much confirms the players betrayed him

Chelsea winning 1-0

Everyone laughed when I bet on them

So if Chelsea win this 5-0

its pretty much confirmed the players turned on him right?

>>15

everyone laughed when i bet on them

why? Mou gone, sunderland are shit. odds on chelsea win, i got 2-0 chelsea

Oscar finally being useful

Thank God, I've missed having a box-to-box midfielder

>>16

its pretty much confirmed the players turned on him right?

I think the case is more that Mourinho is a miserable lunatic and a horrible cunt to work for. The sporting director actually said that there was a "palpable discord" between Mou and his players.

Fuck chelsea

2-0 Chelsea

fuck off chelshit
the fun is over guys

so this basically confirms mou was right and the players were boycotting him

Either Chelsea deliberately bottled it in the last few months or Sunderland are just ultra shit.

Wonder what odds I can get on Chelsea finishing top 4

>>24

Sunderland are just ultra shit.

we cant rule this out yet

>>23
Nah, the refs have stopped being biased against Chelsea now that Mou's gone.

why would the players turn against mou?

snuderland

they are still shit and have no chance of top 4. if anything a bit of delusion will make their 7th place finish even more amusing.

Its sad these players went hiding because they may of had an issue with Jose. I honestly feel the Swansea players were doing the same judging by how they played against city.

Sunderland is so fucking shit.

>>31
Thats how the Premier League works, one Chelsea player cost more than the whole Sunderland team.

oh fuck, Mourinho to Yanited is confirmed

and he'll make them park the bus and counter attack and they'll win the league

fucccccccc

Sun'land had their chance and they missed it.

Fuck off Chelsea you stinky fucking jews

Who /still in bed because they're a fucking waste of space/ here?

Blunderland
only conceding twice

They're probably all quite happy the special one has fucked off.

sunderland
defending

pick one and ONLY one

not a pen

>>37
Just realized it wasn't the late game my bad
Chelsea will win yeah

Chelsea: You will never be this pathetic

So does anyone actually agree with the NO FOOTBALL ON TV BETWEEN 3PM - 515PM rule ?

Utter horseshit.

BORINI rofl

>>42
It's retarded. How would you even fill the stadium with all the people that want to see the game.

If only Chelshit hadnt had that penalty

>>42
what the fuck? they don't let you guys watch your only sport?

>>42
Funny, I get every game.

>>46
Not the 3pms on saturday

It's to encourage attendances which I think is so outdated because any PL game will sell out nowadays

chelshit plastic fans would rather be relegated with mouyes than actually place high with another manager

all the media are blaming the players for Chelsea playing bad and saying mouyes dindu nuffin

Why is everyone such cucks?

jesus, that's rough. they used to "black out" NFL games here if they didn't sell out but they realized there was much more money in showing every game on tv no matter what

>>50
It's alright though

The scoreline programmes like soccer saturday are very entertaining

borini's celebration for a tap-in to make it 1-3

lel

>>52
Chelsea players celebrating a dive and cheap pen.

>>50
They literally can't watch 6 of the 10 premier league matches this weekend. Unbelievable tbqh.

>>51
It's not really ok, but it's a moot point now because of all the live stream sites.

>>51

no kidding. we have a premium service over here called NFL Redzone where it's one guy in a studio narrating basically every score all day long

>>42
It's not about PL you pillock.
It's about teams like Leyton Orient and Tranmere.
You know, teams that actually rely on people attending to stay afloat?

>>57
Those games won't get televised anyway

>>57
Times have changed

People only used to go to the football every Saturday because there was literally fuck all else to do

>>56
I use that on stream here, it's pretty goat
We have the same sort of thing for Champion's League on BT Sport

>>57
why would a prem fan attend a lower league game anyway?

>>57
I know, but my point is they could easily lift the PL blackout

>>58
Are you thick?
Do i really need to explain?

>>63
Are you literally retarded?

You have 20 seconds to name the last time Suderland scored 3 goals in a league game

>>61
>>62

a prem fan

people who are fans of smaller clubs will just stop going to watch the likes of Fleetwood, Blackpool etc, cause they can watch premier league football while saving money/ and or sitting in a pub.
It's now more relevan than ever if anything

>>66
people watch Shitsborough Rovers v Wankbury Wanderers on TV?

I'm not convinced this thing that happened in multiple leagues after they introduced tv coverage will happen

3pm fucking killed anything below serie a in italy

>>65
we're past that point

But in before SAFC 3-0 NUFC

I think Fat sam will be able to out-meme them.

>>72
FUCK THAT CHEATING CUNT!

>>75
you're a disgrace to all football fans mate.

Fucking hell when are sunderland going to try and fucking score?

Is this going to be the warmest winter in years lads ?

Warm as fuck this past week

Chelsea getting relegated
Chelsea winning the CL
Leicester winning the PL

Would be a dream come true season.

>>78
It's fucking ridiculous. I was out in the car today and it was 16 Celsius.

>>80
it was unironically 42 C where I live today

We need to fix global warming lads, 11 degrees week before xmas is decidedly uncomfy

what even in the premier league this season the whole thing is a mess of memes

I hope Chelsea go down for getting the manager sacked.