The Chels

That's what City thought!

City without Silva looked remarkably similar to us in the games where we've just not been good enough offensively like Villa and West Brom. He's such an important player for them and constantly bails them out: best AM in the league by a long way in my opinion.

Completely agree but I have a feeling that Jose disagrees. Remember the whole "My four defenders, phenomenal performance, as always" after the Crystal Palace match? Doesn't look like he will ever drop Ivanovic for his offensive/defensive mistakes like did with Cole; also many of our attacks start with Cech booting the ball up to Ivanovic to head onto for one of the AMs, which I suspect is a Jose tactic because I don't remember seeing that so frequently before. So it seems Jose does value Ivanovic and sadly I think it's very likely that he will remain first-choice RB next season. United are going all out in the summer window it seems: they're said to be offering £260k-per-week(!) to Kroos as one of their many expensive transfers including William Carvalho and Shaw. So if we're competing with a heavily spending United and City for an English player (always overpriced) then the price will understandably inflate massively.

The £50m deal rumours assume that we won't come to any agreement with Atletico and that we will instead have to pay Costa the £32m + tax so he can activate the buyout clause. Though the good relations between the clubs and them wanting Courtois could well mean that we do agree a deal with them.

But what if Jose wants Azpi to be Cole's permanent successor? Seems very probable to me and in that case you can see why he'd not be willing to spend so much on what would essentially be a back-up. Mourinho's quite regularly praising the defence and is showing no signs of wanting to alter it in any form next year even though we could be much better off offensively if he did.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2605028/Meet-Andreas-Christensen-18-year-old-Chelsea-defender-20-000-week-never-played-team-wont-time-soon.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

An 'exclusive' from one of the most unreliable UK tabloids... i.e. complete fabrication. Never happening. Also it's written by Martin Lipton - need I say anymore!

Several newspapers are running the Shaw to United story because of the promise of first-team football. I will be really disappointed if Mourinho turns Shaw down in favour of keeping Ivanovic at RB and Azpi at LB since I reckon we'd still be having the same problems next year breaking teams down with the current full back pairing because of the lack of width/offensive threat they provide. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/10768925/Manchester-United-confident-of-securing-Southampton-left-back-Luke-Shaw-for-30m.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2605515/Manchester-United-close-30million-deal-Southampton-star-Luke-Shaw-Sporting-Lisbon-midfielder-William-Carvalho-David-Moyes-summer-shopping-list.html 9:37 PM would have been towards the end of the game so I assume the tweet was in response to Ba's goal and/or full time.

People in the media seem convinced that we're selling Lukaku (e.g. on the Sunday Supplement). Not sure if they're actually reliably informed or just making crap up though. Probably the latter but I guess we'll see.

Azpi really should stop trying to curl the ball into the top right corner from quite a distance after cutting in onto his right foot; I must've seen him do this at least 3 times in recent weeks! Would much prefer to see him at RB next season, not least because it would mean Ivanovic isn't playing

We have to be careful not to concede early on in the Liverpool game because whilst they always start really quickly, we always start really slowly. Because of their intensity and good movement (things we lack) they pretty much blew Tottenham, Everton, Arsenal, United and City (first half) away. Although they do seem to tire in the second half of games (presumably because they go all-out in the first half) I don't think this will be much to our advantage given that we will also be tired due to the midweek CL game. We'll need to stay compact and try not to concede within the first half because if we're forced to go looking for a goal, I fear we will be blown away by their pace. Our defenders are exceptionally slow and you saw the way Dyer practically ran through our defence when his shot hit Terry's shoulder in the Swansea game just gone. As good as he is Matic also seems to get done by pacy players quite a lot (v. Villa and Palace). And since Liverpool's play practically revolves around a high intensity, fast game I'm not very hopeful. Hope to be proven wrong though.

The cross towards the end that bounced awkwardly in front of Cech and really could have gone anywhere... Why did Ivanovic once again refuse to close down the player crossing? He gives wingers and full backs so much time to pick their cross it's ridiculous.

Probably because Monk was accusingly pointing at Mourinho whilst moaning to the fourth official after Chico Flores got sent off, presumably saying Mourinho influenced their decision. Not exactly the best way to treat someone you want to get managing tips off http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/swansea-city-boss-garry-monk-6943124

Expected to be fit for their game against Elche on Friday http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27013957

I thought Willian was decent today, contrary to what I'm mostly reading elsewhere. He was sometimes overly hesistant and sloppy (especially from corners although nobody seems capable of taking a decent corner in our team!) but I thought he created quite a few chances that could well have led to a goal if we were more clinical and/or had someone in the right position - e.g. the cross from the right wing to the back post in the second half where someone should have made a run to.

60m euros?! That's about £50m - way too much in terms of financial cost and everyone's expectations of the player. I thought his release clause was £32m!

Pretty strong words from Demba Ba here: (http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/chelsea-transfers-demba-ba-confirms-3406434#ixzz2yiM9juiZ) One thing that surprises me given Mourinho's man-management skills is how he often doesn't give players any reason as to why they've been dropped/are not playing (Mata, De Bruyne and Ba have all said this), which seems surprising because surely they'd appreciate being told how to improve and what he's looking for. Though this isn't always the case - e.g. telling Schurrle he needs to bulk up, and telling Salah that next season will be his breakthrough year because he needs to adapt. It seems that if Mourinho doesn't envisiage the player in his plans for the future he just ignores them. Rather harsh!

Haha well it was more of a tongue in cheek comment but I'm more than willing to eat my words if Ramires actually performs well. Chelsea TV said he's on 9 yellows though - 1:35 ish on http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1nqbab_cobham-report-11th-april_sport

Just realised that if he picks up a yellow card against Swansea tomorrow, which is pretty damn likely given his wrecklessness, then he will have accumulated 10 yellow cards and hence have ANOTHER (LOL) suspension - two matches this time. As another poster recently showed, our statistics without Ramires are unsurprisngly far more impressive so here's hoping he gets booked!

I reckon that's because Pep is rather ruthless - e.g. getting rid of Deco/Eto'o/Ronaldinho and using Messi up front rather than Ibra. Eto'o and Ibra obviously didn't appreciate this ruthlessness but I doubt Guardiola gives a shit given that his Barcelona side was one of the best teams ever. I'm sure Jose and Pep both have their fair share of haters and admirers among their former/current players.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

I think whether we get a top class CM in or not largely depends on how much Mourinho values Ramires. Sadly I reckon he thinks Ramires' athleticism outweighs his complete lack of footballing ability (http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/1481721/jose-mourinho-tried-sign-real-madrid-inter?cc=5739) and that a Ramires-Matic pivot is the way forward. In that case he'd probably be reluctant to spend heavily on a back up. Yes but my point is that if a fan of another team can pinpoint exactly where our problems lie and where we need improvements, then the club itself should definitely be able to as well - but of that I'm not so sure.

This is what a United fan thinks we should do, and I have to say I agree completely with his suggestions. Here's hoping the board do too!

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/chelsea-ditch-summer-tour-to-avoid-post-world-cup-burnout-as-rivals-head-to-the-usa-9189625.html This says we're just going to play some one-off games in Europe as opposed to travelling to the US and Asia, which we normally do (and what other rivals are still going to be doing).

Atletico would be far from ideal because they're too similar in style and if they park the bus we have no chance of breaking them down: if Barca can't do it, what chance do we have? I think Real Madrid would be extremely motivated to knock out Mourinho and given that they have so many players capable of producing a moment of individual brilliance, I'd rather we faced Bayern whose possession-based football suits our counter-attacking philosophy the best.