The question everyone's asking has finally been answered...

Good morning Terrace Talkers, Aaron here! It's been a while since I last rocked you with my hastily cobbled notes; well in this time I have been doing extensive research across the globe (well, the internet) to finally find the answer to the question people have been asking for months. Thanks to the kind of detective skills that would put Batman to shame; I have successfully worked out the answer to the most important question in football history...

Does Fernando Torres need a hug?

The answer is: Yes, yes he does.

Absolutely he does

That's all from me Terrace Talkers, tune in next week when I tackle another important question: Is Aaron actually Batman?

Hint: Absolutely I am.

Hmmm, I've just been informed by the rest of the Terrace Talk team that 2 paragraphs is not enough for an article. I should probably kill some time by going through my lengthy* investigation process.

Exhibit A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbdgjukybpI

There, straight from the horses mouth; Fernando Torres needs a hug. Well, I only watched the first 4 seconds where he spoke about the last few days being "very hard" but what else could he possibly have spoken about? He couldn't talk about all the goals he was looking forward to scoring, because he isn't scoring! He couldn't have started talking about how sad he was to leave Liverpool because he fucking loved leaving Liverpool! From his form over the last few months and the first few seconds of video, I can only conclude that at some point in the interview, he talks about his desperate need for a hug. Perhaps he mentions it shortly after the part where he reveals that the Chelsea kit is woven together with orphan tears (Again, probably. I should really watch the video.)

Ok, maybe I'm not Batman, but I'm at least Monk

Exhibit B

Not satisfied with the damning evidence I already had, I decided to interview someone in the know: A Chelsea fan I work with, this interview is 100% real, and 120% mind blowing!

Me:  Do you reckon Fernando Torres needs a hug?

Chelsea Fan: Probably, he's on now and we're winning 3-1 [Against Birmingham]

Me: Thank you

Exhibit Conclusion:

There you have it! Irrefutable evidence that Fernando Torres needs a hug more than anything in the world. So, faithful readers, if you see him out and about, or even sat at a restaurant with his family...you know what to do. Meanwhile this is the Worlds Greatest Detective  er, one of the better detectives...a relatively subpar detective signing off.

From Batman to Scooby Doo in the space of one article...being a detective sucks

*Investigation process was absolutely NOT lengthy

The week in hastily cobbled together notes.

As someone who has only been truly following football for the last 6 years (for those of you struggling to comprehend that amount of time, it's approximately the same amount of time Shaun Wright-Phillips has been getting paid to do nothing at all.) I didn't feel comfortable listing the best XI players from my life time. I'd sooner listen to Mark Lawrenson than join the long list of tabloid hacks, lazily pasting together a series of superlatives to describe modern greats like Lionel Messi.

Good player, but I think that giant ball sums it up better than I can.

Instead, I thought I'd rather discuss the week itself, as if the title of this piece didn't give you a clue, I haven't exactly sat down and composed my thoughts. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a newspaper to hand to remind me of some of the lesser events our great sport has thrown up this week, let's proceed anyway...

True Moron

That little subtitle had a bit of thought put into it. For anyone working for the News of the World or any such tabloid, I just wanted to show how easy it is to not replace the word "true" with "troo" when writing yet another story on Wayne Rooney. Seriously, those puns are grating on my nerves.

You can probably guess exactly what I'm about to talk about; Rooney's foul mouthed rant at...well, no one in particular, shortly after single handedly disposing of West Ham. People often refer to Rooney as someone who truly loves the game, a man who would stop his car and join in if he saw a few kids having a game in the park. I don't get that vibe from a man who scores a match winning hat-trick, and refuses to break into a smile. The Terrace Talk team watched the game together, a game that was quite enjoyable as a spectacle until Rooney decided to turn it into a public call out to his doubters. It's hard to enjoy football when one of it's biggest draws takes his aggression out on the viewing public because he hit his peak sometime last year.  Then again, I certainly wouldn't enjoy being a striker if my supply line came in the form of Darron Gibson.

"No that's fine Darron, you had every right to shoot from 40 yards. It was silly of me to think you wouldn't take the shot on, at least this one remained in the stadium..."

Home comforts?

On another note, a great record came to an end on saturday, as managerial master Jose Mourinho finally witnessed a home defeat for the first time in 9 years. The last time it happened was February 23rd 2002 when the Portuguese genius was still in charge of Porto! It's almost a shame that the team who broke the record were not a team of the calibre of Barcelona, but rather Sporting Gijon. With no disrespect to Sporting, I think most people would've expected a truly great team to end what has been an astonishing record, a record that will probably never be beaten. Speaking of Madrid...

A trip to the Bernabeu is one thing...

...but it's nothing compared to the importance of a saturday afternoon trip to the DW Stadium. Tottenham, like so many teams before them, seem to be placing greater emphasis on their glamour tie with Los Blancos then they are with trying to get back to the promised land of Champions League football next season. While it's impossible to say Spurs haven't been a breath of fresh air this year, to say they're unlikely to win the biggest club honour is a massive understatement, needing to beat the the big two Spanish teams (providing of course, Barcelona get past a difficult Shakhtar team) before likely facing up against Chelsea or United in the final makes this years Champions League no more than an (almost) impossible dream. In the way of a non-league team going to Old Trafford in the F.A.Cup, Spurs' priorities should be to enjoy the occasion and give a good account of themselves, anything else is a bonus.

Their number one priority this season is to finish in the top 4 for a second consecutive season, doing so would mean they're once again able to invest in playing talent, and possibly even mount a serious challenge for the title providing Harry can find the right players. Everton will tell you that staying in the Champions League is much harder than getting there in the first place, and if cash-rich City beat them to the spot this year, it's likely they'll never wrestle it back.

Those are the main points I've drawn from this weekend of football. If anyone has any other great/interesting moments from this week, or if you just want to tell me I'm full of shit (I'm referring to you Darron Gibson), we have a comments section for that very reason.

Aaron's choice: The good, the bad, and the unthinkable

As we’ve been asked to chime in with our own personal predictions for the drop, I thought now was as good a time as any to show my hand. With eight games left this season the league table is as tight as ever (it wouldn’t surprise me to see West Ham make a late push for the title!) So it’s rather hard to pick three teams, I’ll probably end up wrong, in fact, I pray I’m wrong with one of my choices (no particular order by the way)

Blackpool

There’s a slight bit of bias in this one I must admit; as a Villa fan I still can’t quite get over Mr. Holloways comments that we are a “half-arsed club who used to be famous” (the irony that he later spoke highly of Liverpool was not lost on me). All I have to say is, if you’re gonna put yourself on a pedestal, make it a damn sight more stable than Bloomfield Road; even Holloway's fragile frame could collapse the shaky foundations of that “half-arsed stadium”.

Ian Holloway in a rare moment of not talking complete shit.

Of course, I wouldn’t base my opinion that they’re due for the chop solely on comments by Monsieur Holloway, their brand of attacking football, which started as a revelation, has quickly lead to less and less points on the board. The result against Tottenham was impressive, until you realize that Tottenham had enough chances in those ninety minutes to win 38 games. There’s more than a whiff of Hull about the seasiders, and with the lack of that all-important home form then I can see them going one better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) than the Tigers’ debut season and sliding straight out of the “best league in the world” ©Every pretentious bastard who works for the Premier League.

Wigan

Ah, Wigan. The Lactics. The physical embodiment of mediocrity. Support that would make Bolton fans feel smug,  and a narcissistic owner who probably cries into one of his overpriced football shirts every time he remembers the day he turned down Manchester United. In Wigan’s defence, they have a bright young manager in Martinez, and a good pool of players picked up by the current regime, as well as the ones left over from Steve Bruce’s time in charge. Unfortunately Wigan’s main problem would be their consistency, or lack of it to be accurate. It’s all well and good to get a draw against one of the big teams, but if you can’t follow it up with a win against your fellow strugglers then it can only end one way. That last point brings me nicely to my final pick for relegation.

Aston Villa

Yep, Villa. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, 2-2 draws with Manchester United and 3-3 draws against Chelsea are all well and good, but when you have teams like Sunderland doing the double over you, and a home loss against a home sick Wolves side, then there isn’t much in this league for you. Everything about our position defies belief, looking at the players we have, it’s hard to see why exactly we’re in this position.

Oh, that's why.

A team of England players (admittedly fringe players) that has been added to with goalscoring machine Darren Bent and the silky skills of Jean II Makoun should only be looking up, but this has not happened. I’m not going to get caught up in the current “Houllier out” campaign that a lot of Villa supporters are rooting of at the minute, with eight games left it’s far too late to risk such a change (Newcastle’s brief fling with Alan Shearer as manager springs to mind) and I truly believe, based on the signings we made in January, that Houllier, given a proper pre-season, will see us back to those glory days of 6^th place and the odd Wembley appearance.  The worrying thing about Villa is that we had one of the easiest run-ins of all the teams at the bottom, on paper we’d have been expected to beat Bolton and Wolves, as well as Blackburn, but it’s not happening. No matter how long we wait, Villa cannot gather any momentum, even West Ham have shown themselves capable of winning three or four games in a row, whereas we struggle to win two. I really hope I’m wrong, and I’ve picked Villa today in the hope that I’ve somehow jinxed it and some higher power will keep them up just so I’m wrong. But as it stands, with us unable to win the easiest games, and with our final two games being Liverpool, and a match with Arsenal that could potentially decide whether or not they end their wait for a Premier League trophy, it’s hard to see any other way but down for my beloved club.

I really hope I’m wrong; I’m not looking forward to having to sift through the football league show for Villa highlights. At least it’ll force me to broaden my admittedly poor knowledge of the Championship.

Not pictured: Dignity

-Aaron

Real bunch of A-Coles

Picture the scene: Chelsea’s Cobham training ground, 24 hours after the Premier League Champions relinquished their two year reign as F.A. Cup holders by crashing out to Everton. You’d love to be a fly on the wall wouldn’t you?

Prima Nocta is a term that is defined as “an alleged legal right allowing the lord of an estate to take the virginity of his serfs' maiden daughters.” Replace “lord of the estate” with “Chelsea Captain” and “Serf’s maiden daughters” with “team mates wives” and you could probably believe I were describing the ritual that is undergone whenever Chelsea lose a match. When you think of a club as “unique” (for a lack of a more professional term) as Chelsea then it’s hard not to let your mind wander in regards to what really goes on at Cobham.

Whilst “King Terry” has his fill of the WAG’s (providing he’s not conducting £10,000-a-head tours of Stamford Bridge for “charity” that is) Lampard is likely sat in a corner comfort eating, whereas John Obi Mikel is sure to be walking around asking if anyone knows exactly what John Obi Mikel brings to the team.

"Seriously guys, what do I do?"

However, amidst the chaos, one man stands head and shoulders above the rest. This shining example of a player, in a rare lapse, was primarily responsible for Chelsea’s agonising shoot-out defeat at the hands of Everton; missing the decisive kick to gift the Toffees passage into the next round. Desperate to make amends, this player spends the entire day doing shooting practice.

Well, something along those lines anyway.

You see, when our good friend Mr. Cole isn’t shooting himself in the foot with his constant mistreatment of a woman who is considered so beautiful, that most men would volunteer to buy a Stoke season ticket if there were the chance of small talk with the Geordie Princess, it turns out he likes to literally shoot other people in the side.

Once a Gunner, always a gunner I suppose.

You couldn’t make it up could you? Whilst a team like United would spend the aftermath of a cup defeat working on correcting mistakes made and preparing for the next game, the aristocrats of London decide they’d rather use their work experience kids as clay pigeons. Possibly the most humorous element of this story was the club’s insistence that the air rifle did not belong to Cole, which is such an irrelevant and ridiculous defence it’s almost depressing. Could you imagine someone making that excuse in court? “Well yeah I shot the guy but it’s not like I own the gun or anything.” Yeah, depressing was definitely the correct term to use for a supposedly elite football club that has the PR skills of a particularly naive 10 year old. Despite their ever loosening grip on the Barclays Premier League title, I suppose there are a couple of accolades left in this Chelsea team, although if things don't change, the only awards synonymous with Chelsea will be the Darwin Awards.

-Aaron