The Chels

The stats back up what we've seen though: his decision making (for whatever reason) is really poor.

How about 'he's not a deep thinker'? If he couldn't get decent stats in Ukranian and Russian leagues (tracking back or not) then I doubt he'll get them here.

Rooney, like many footballers, is the same. In interviews you can tell he's not the sharpest tool in the shed but he does have a 'footballing brain' so I'd say general intelligence and footballing intelligence are very different. I don't know if Willian lacks the footballing brain or if he's just not confident enough to take the riskier option (be it a through ball, shot, etc.). His statistics have been poor throughout his career though.

Ramsey in pivot and Fabregas AM probably.

Good idea... until their clubs do the same to our away fans.

Well Stamford Bridge is in Fulham.

You're in denial.

It's a shame we couldn't move to Battersea. Those stadium plans looked so iconic.

There was a hell of a lot of attention on Atletico last season and Costa was their main man. Either way I don't think Costa will suddenly learn to control his emotions. I just hope Mourinho speaks to him about it instead of blaming the referee/FA when he is inevitably banned.

Very poetic but it was probably the money that swayed him.

I suspect Simeone will have been telling him the same thing but that didn't do too much good.

Arsenal are flat-track bullies. They will easily beat all the small teams and if they just played more tactically away from home against the big teams, who knows how they'll fare.

From the start of the season: 5 yellow cards before the new year = 1 match ban10 yellow cards before/on the second Sunday in April = 2 match ban

For a high-press system Cavani is perfect. His work rate is immense, although Costa's isn't bad either.

Matic, Hazard and Costa are probably the only nailed-on starters.

Pathetic really.

I wonder where we'd have come if he didn't disallow the Matic goal or send Wilian off against Villa. That was such a turning point (although we do have ourselves to blame too).

Costa got away with a lot in La Liga though. Could and should have had a lot more red cards/retrospective punishments.

Or

He might not get a red card but he will probably get retrospective punishment for something (which makes the decision not to sign an adequate back-up even more puzzling).

True but then again did you see how much United struggled when they were pressed yesterday? I don't think they're defensively secure at all.

A very optimistic inference

The only way I see us getting a new striker is if Costa gets injured before the transfer window closes. After all the striker complaints from fans and manager last year it's unbelievable to think we're one injury/spell of bad form away from the same thing. Meanwhile City have 4 strikers, all of which are better than our 2nd and 3rd choice.

Their depth in the fullback and striker area, in particular, is ridiculously good. Pretty much all those players are in their prime as well whilst we have a lot of important players who haven't hit theirs yet like Hazard, Costa, Oscar and Courtois. It'll be an amazing feat if we manage to beat that squad to the league.

http://www.turkish-football.com/news_read.php?id=6254 Those are the timings in Turkey so in BST it is 19:30 against Fenerbahce and 20:30 against Besiktas.