Chelsea thread

Essien out for "several months" with ruptured ACL.  Bugger. 

Zola has been engaged, regardless of the fact that he has no experience of managing a club side at any level and doesn't even have the necessary licence.
Has it come to the stage where British managers are considered so useless that a foreigner, any foreigner, has to be better?
There have been at least as many foreign failures as successes in the Premiership. In fact Wenger and Mourinho stand out as the only true successes, I certainly can't see that Benitez has achieved more than he should have, taking into account all the resources he has had. If you compare the situation Benitez inherited at Liverpool, with what 'arry took over at Portsmouth, it makes one wonder if Chelsea and Man U. would have had such an easy ride if 'arry had been managing Liverpool.
I've now lost all interest in West Ham. They no longer bear any resemblance to the club I've followed for forty years.
How can foreign owners and a foreign manager possibly relate to someone from the East End?
They can't and I doubt that they'd even want to. All they want is our money and unfortunately there are too many mugs prepared to give it to them.
I'm looking forward to the day when all Premier League clubs are owned and managed by foreigners with a fully foreign playing staff, none of whom, like Berbatov, owes any allegiance to the club they serve.
They can then play the 39th game abroad, together with the other 38 for all I care.
I know that most of you will think that I'm a traitor and will continue to follow West Ham regardless of who owns them, who manages them or who plays for them, even if the players can't understand a word of what you're chanting.
Trigger from Only Fools And Horses claims that he's had his road sweeper's broom for 20 years. "It's had 17 new heads and 14 new handles" but it's still the same broom. At least his broom looks the same, "your" team regularly changes its strip so that you have to spend more money to keep up to date.