OhForAGreavsie

No I think it has more to do with Jose trying to sound like he's not desperate to offload Cuadrado and not pretty keen to move Moses too. Unfortunately for the boss I think everyone is going to file that attempt under, "Yeah right. Nice try Jose."

That can't be right because, as I pointed out, he looked good on YouTube.

Fairish. I say that because, for me, if Oscar fails to deliver this season it will be because he isn't good enough, not because he's bottled it. I've long held a different view to yours. For me it is no more than an excuse to blame Oscar's woes on too much football, too little rest and truncated preseasons. While the lad is undoubtedly the best number 10 we have he is, in my opinion, simply not good enough to hold down that role for team hoping to be be competitive at the very top of the game. By the way I have never accepted the widely held view that Oscar is consistent before Christmas and inconsistent after it. I see him as inconsistent all the time, it's just that by Christamas coaches tire of waiting for things to improve. In fact this whole consistent/inconsistent argument is one of the great myths of football. All players are inconsistent, all the time. It is just that with some players, players like Oscar I suggest, their contribution is only good enough when they are at the very top of their game. David Silva has good games and bad games but, even when he's bad, it's clear that he's a top quality number 10. That is barely true of Oscar even when he's at the top of his performance range.

OK, we disagree on this then.

No I certainly don't think that. If it were true then it would be an absolute disaster for our club. If Emenalo, Bobby Campbell and even Roman himself couldn't see what was so totally, blindingly, obvious to all of us, then Chelsea are in deep trouble. Truth is that of course those people can see what we can see.

I meant in style and, in terms of style, I imagine Thierry Henry crosses the mind of many people when they watch Martial play. In terms of quality though, perhaps you're right. Maybe Studge is the better comparison.

Thierry Henry is exactly what I was thinking while watching Martial. One thing you didn't talk about was his decision making in looking for the pass when it was on. I don't remember a single occasion when I felt he made the wrong choice. I liked what I saw from Martial last night.

I don't think CB is a high enough priority to make our need for Stones such as to justify the kind of fee Everton will want. Next summer it will be without a doubt but, if need be, I think we can navigate through this season with what we have. That's all the more true now that the Baba move has happened. If left to me, I'd still be working on two more deals, a CM and another AM. In that order. If those can be afforded along with a mega CB signing, then fine but if not then, for me, CB can wait.

Obviously they must first do something that suggests they may be good enough. If, and only if, they are good enough then I think the best way for us to provide the right environment for youngsters to shine when given opportunities is to significantly strengthen the squad with senior players. I guess a lot of you will be ahead of me on this but just in case that statement sounds odd, let me say some more about what I mean. For a club with our resources our squad is, and has been for a long time, woefully shallow in numbers and, particularly, in quality. As a result, our squad team is often a shambles. Youngsters thrown into that situation have no chance. Give a kid a good side to come into and he has a better platform to show what he can do. A stronger squad serves our purposes not only in pursuit of points, but in facilitating regular rotation to avoid player fatigue and in nursing youngsters through.

If we reach that stage then we better play the top team. I'd be fuiming, not laughing, if we don't. It's a great characteristic of our club that if we're in it, then we aim to win it. We are not Arsenal.

Lionsden, forgive me, you've probably explained this many times and I may even have read it somewhere along the way but, as I type, I can't remember why this issue is so important to you. You, me and pretty much everyone else here would like to see Cobham graduates regularly starting for the first team, and we all know it is an avowed aim of the club and its manager to see this happen but it can only be a subsidiary aim surely. The key goal must remain to produce a Chelsea team which plays the way we'd like and which dominates on the pitch. If that dream comes to be then, even though I take more interest in the development squads than most, I'll be counting the trophies, not the number of Cobhamites involved. Jose needs no excuses. Only if the kids show themselves to be good enough, will they get game time. That's the only route for them. I think the challenge for people who take your point of view is that, so far, not one Cobham product has gone on to show that level of ability elsewhere. In fact, so far, they've all gone on to prove the exact opposite.

He did look good and did brilliantly for the goal.

A sort of a Frank Lampard goal, following a delivery into the box hoping for a rebound and getting it.

How do we know that Jose bought any of the players you have in mind?

No he didn't call Eva anything. He vented frustration using a well known expression. It was not aimed at anyone in particular. The pair of medics were, rightly or wrongly, the immediate cause of that frustration but it just exploded out. It had no specific target. It's an odds on bet that Jose said the same thing the last time he stubbed his toe. Glad your acid levels were driven up by the manager's press conference. You deserve it. And why are you going to wait until tomorrow to expound further? Hoping we'll loose perhaps? I hope that's not the case. I hope you can honestly say that you are not wanting to see Chelsea beaten, and that, at worst, you are simply fearing/anticipating that it might happen. I have my doubts however about just exactly what it is you do wish. Doubts which are entirely reasonable given the line you take so persistently.

When I said in January that, based on you tube, he looked technically superior to Cuadrado, someone laughed at me. At the time, I didn't mind too much. I accepted that youtube is youtube, and that the other poster must have seen more of the two players than I had. From what you say however, this perhaps turns out to have been another missed opportunity for the club. Let's just hope it does not proove to be of Agureo sized proportions. The club can't dwell in the past. It simply has to keep looking until it finds what we need. If that happens within the next fortnight then great, if not there will be other windows.

When I first saw Patrick play for the junior sides, before he moved into the loans phase of his development, I thought, and said, that he did not look a Chelsea player. To be fair to the lad he has since done better than I expected he might. I do not believe however that he has done as well during his loan spells as his growing reputation might lead us to believe. If Patrick emerges as a starter here then it will mean that Chelsea have not become as good a side as we'd all like. Our aim should be to find players at the Suarez/Aguero end of the scale and to keep trying until we do. Patrick is not at that level. If we had not bought him as a teenager then in my opinion, based on his performances to date, we would not even consider signing him now.

Sadly have to agree with you. Hasn't looked a Chelsea level player.

Watched the first 2 minutes then stopped. Too depressing for me, too embarrassing for City. With that collection of players they should be ashamed of themselves that they didn't walk away with the last five Premier League titles. Meanwhile, we all know that there are players in this world like David Silva yet we have to listen to people telling us that ourCAMs are world class. We have much better squad cohesion and will to win; if we also had Aguero and Silva where would we be? Oh well.

I know you didn't mean me.

What is belieber? It would not be reasonable for either of us to ask others to stop quoting our posts. When we post, we make an opinion available to the TC audience. Others may want that same audience to see a counter, or sometimes supporting, argument. Quotes are just as much a way of addressing the point(s) being made as they are a way of addressing the poster. I do not know if Jose would have reacted in the same way had we had better results in this or preceding games. I can only say that I hope not since, to repeat, it seems to me that he has behaved badly. What I hope most though is that whenever he sees a problem, he will attempt to address it and that is what he seems to be doing. As to whether his judgement is correct or not, it's his decision to make so if he says there's a problem, then there is a problem.

Grown ups do however attempt to isolate the input from the outcome in order to consider what helped you win and what didn't. I'm not saying anything you don't know when I observe that, win, loose, or draw, in commerce, sport, or whatever, it is necessary to assess individual contributions and judge whether that person/machine/system contributed positively or otherwise; whether or not future chances of success will be enhanced by similar performance levels. Read your own posts and you'll see that this is exactly how you judge Chelsea's displays and you are sensible to do so. Making such judgements is a continual process. If managers are as sensible as you, they won't allow winning or losing to distract them from it. If something needs fixing then you fix it. Indeed we've all heard Jose being strongly critical of his teams in victory, and we've also heard of him doing so during half time even when they are leading. It's not about hissy fits. Any person in a management role is not only entitled to critically assess the of members of her/his team, it's her/his responsibility to do so. Having said all of that however... I do not agree with Jose this time. It seems to me that he has behaved badly but I don't see that it is wise for me to attempt to substitute my judgement for his. Especially since my own ideas are almost certainly based on incomplete information. Trusting someone is being prepared to back their judgement even when it differs from yours. I trust Jose.

I think most of us who post here have a certain degree of confidence in our own judgement when it comes to top level football. Circumstance however means that few, if any, of us have ever had, or ever will have, the chance to put that judgement to the test. Jose of course has had the chance and it must be fair to say that he's done OK. I don't therefore think it's reasonable for any of us to characterise Jose as stubborn on those occasions when he chooses to back his own judgement. Whatever right any of us has to believe in our own opinions about football, Jose surely has that same right, multiplied a few times over.

You could be right of course Billy but I hope you're not. I've neither read nor heard anything Petr has said that upsets me in the slightest. It seems to me that people who are bothered by anything which has been said or done since Petr moved to Arsenal, are sensitive beyond all reason.

Your view point on this has its supporters as is clear from other comments, and the likes you sometimes receive. I must say however that it baffles me why you, or anyone, should think like this. If you chant anything of the kind toward Petr at The Bridge I confidently expect that that you'll be drowned out by people singing his name and mine will be one of those voices.