Viper22

What time is team news due? I'm leaving the house at 6.30 and off to watch Spurs vs Forest with my mate who's a Forest fan. Is it likely i'll get Chelsea's team news before I go? The anticipation of Baker/Boga/Zouma getting some minutes is killing me .

---------------Cech----------------- -Azpi---Zouma----Cahill--Luis- --------Mikel--------Baker-------- Boga-------Oscar------Schurrle ---------------Remy---------------- Subs - Mark, Ake, Christensen, Ramires, Salah, Willian, Drogba. That'd be perfect for me. Salah and Boga switching I wouldn't mind either.

Doubt very much there will be an upset, Forest look unstoppable ATM and I just can't see them losing in an upset to the useless shits in white.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/22/ugandan-footballer-dies-manchester-city-chelsea Great, on top of it all now Lamps has killed someone. I think we all knew it was a matter of time, what a judas eh? Also, I blame him for Putin's warmongering, Nick Clegg's ineptitude and both world wars. Now I feel like I fit in with most of the people on this forum.

You can't go into every game demanding a win, that's spoiled in the extreme. It was the hardest game of the year for us, away to the champions. We lost there and won there last year once each. We have to afford them some respect. If we'd attacked them believing we could win we may well have won. But more likely we'd have been beaten, maybe badly, and then the whole complexion of the league would change, they'd only be 3 points back and we wouldn't be in as strong a position as we are now. We didn't HAVE to win the game, we just had to not lose the game to keep as ahead of them as we are. We obviously wanted all 3 points or we wouldn't have attacked to score the goal we did and come within a metric Lampard of winning the damn game. But demanding that we go in with the same attitude away to city as we did at home to Swansea (especially when we're leaking goals) is just plain stupid. Seems like you'd only be happy if we kept our 100% record the whole damn season and maybe for the next 10-15 years. A point at the Etihad is a decent result, and means we're still well on top in the title race at such an early stage.

Jose went into the game wanting a point. We nearly came out of it with 3 thanks to Zabaleta being a moron, but 1 point we did get. He did what was needed, and got under Pellegrino's skin into the bargain too ;P. At the bridge we'll be far more adventurous, and even away against everyone else but possibly Arsenal we won't play like this again til the latter stages of the CL possibly. My only 2 problems with Jose after that performance was 1) Why keep Willian on so long when he was so obviously struggling and 2) Why bring Drogba on not Remy?

Calling us a small club and saying we play like a small club like Stoke (you know, the team that beat them at home).

Pellegrini talking smack about us again. Jose making him his bitch is becoming a habit here....

Courtois - 6 - Didn't have much to do all game and got beaten at the near post for the goal (although a hard shot) but did well to collect dangerous balls in all game. Azpilicueta - 7 - Thought he had a decent game tbh, looked solid at the back and made a few key tackles. Cahill - 6 - Solid, uneventful game for Gaz. JT - 6 - Same as Cahill. Ivanovic - 6 - Solid game, went forwards well sometimes, but a lot of the attacks came down his flank, including the one for the goal.... Matic - 7 - Made a fair few decent challenges and hounded the City midfield a lot of the time well. Not as good as Feb though. Ramires - 6 - Good energy but made his customary stupid fouls and lost the ball a bit too often. Fabregas - 6 - For anyone else a good performance, for someone of his quality and average one. Some decent balls, some decent tackles, didn't find much space thanks to Fernandinho. Hazard - 7 - Our best player but still not at his best, good runs to put the city defence under the only pressure they suffered all game and great ball for the goal. Willian - 3 - Awful performance before being (thankfully) hauled off. Some good ideas is the only saving grace but execution was non-existent today, misplaced so many easy passes. Costa - 7 - Only had scraps to feed on, and unlucky not to score when he hit the post. Did well winding up their defence resulting in Zaba being sent off. Don't know why he was booked. Mikel (sub) - 5 - Didn't give us any stability like I hoped he would and lost the ball too much when he had it too easily. Schurrle (sub) - 5 - Great run and finish for the goal but once again didn't track back and lost Milner for the assist to the goal. Poor from Andre. Drogba (sub) - N/A - Not giving him a rating for 4/5mins of hardly touching the ball. Why wasn't Remy brought on? Not his fault though I guess..

Everyone is going to freak out but to me, and the travelling Chelsea fans at least, Lamps is still a legend, 1 goal does not cancel out the 250 odd he scored for us. On the match - a draw is good enough, would have taken it before the game and will take it now. So will most others when they calm down.

Milner MOTM easily. Might not be popular but he's been really good today.

Drogba winner would be hilarious right about now.

Knew that'd happen

Fuck, that would have rounded off this game perfectly....

Fact of the matter is lads, as proved live on TV, that if you frustrate a team and get under their skin they will eventually do something stupid. They were so afraid of Costa that they were hacking him down at every opportunity, and Dean knew it. You don't need 10s of shots on target to be playing well, we were solid, and frustrating them. City were a ticking time bomb and Zaba was the martyr in this case. Then when they're down to 10 men we have more space, which should result in a goal on the counter. Exactly what happened tbh, now just to close the game out Jose styleeeee.

Any of the pessimists left about?

Tbh other than Willian I think we're looking good. They're frustrated, knackered and our defence has looked extremely solid.

Get the fuck off of the pitch Willian. You're playing like a Man Utd player. Get Andre on, no need to wait for HT, now.

Yaya Toure's lack of energy, Aguero's constant injuries, no Negredo and Jovetic, half fit Dzeko and finally and most importantly... Demichelis.

Cheers for moving this to the pub forum . Queueing seriously comes so naturally to me. It's odd I grant you. It's so damn infuriating when you have people from cultures where queueing isn't religiously followed like ours and people just walk up beside you and push in in front of you. Although then another British thing is timidness and passivity so we'll never say anything. Just moan about it later instead. Yeah any kind of dessert is called pudding here. Haha yeah Americans have utility room type things, and have them in there. And that neighbour sounds cool .

We are indeed. Have you ever been to England and seen one of the fascinating things that apparently confuses the fuck out of non-British people? Like: 1) Spontaneous queueing without any signs or physical objects in an extremely orderly fashion. Queues get started EVERYWHERE. 2) We call dessert 'pudding'. 3) Tea. We love our tea. 4) Washing machines in the kitchen. 5) Crackers and paper crowns at xmas. 6) Bollocks means bad. Dog's bollocks means great. 7) Saying "You alright?" as a greeting and a reply of just "You alright?" is accepted as a response and ends the conversation. I love this country, the rest of Britain are even weirder.

It's a parody of the British phrase "He couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo". It's like "Couldn't hit a barn door if you were sitting on the handle" or "Couldn't hit water if you fell out of a boat". It means you've got terrible aim. It's Irish in origin I think, and it used to be shovel rather than banjo, but changed due to a banjo being a type of shovel in Ireland. Phrases often levelled at Torres during his time at Chelsea and more so at King Heskey. So it's obviously a play on that... Poor guy .