MrExcalibur100

I'll rather have Dahoud or Goretzka

How mediocre is Sanchez these days? Wow he's seriously fallen off.

Even against 8 men these jokers aren't coming back

These clowns will be in the Europa league again next season.

He's really devastating in this central role. 8 goals in 12 starts. 6 assists already despite breaking his ankle and some mesmerizing performances straight out from the gate. Some forget Atletico away for example was only his 2nd full start after that injury. No preseason no problem for the Belgian magician.

Nice to have this bloke back. Never know what you don't have till you don't have it any longer. Clearly superior to Zappacosta

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonín_Panenka Seems like Eden's pen might not have been a coincidence. Check the birthday

Hazard had 9 shots in today's game. Wow am I dreaming?!

Simply the best

Bosz has marginalized from the team for some odd reason why he's insistent on playing an underperforming Castro. Bosz really has done an awful job and will probably be sacked soon. I'm not the biggest fan of Whoscored but as you can see Bosz has a short leash with Dahoud despite some good displays: https://www.whoscored.com/Players/135092/Show/Mahmoud-Dahoud While he's continues to play Castro despite being in poor form : https://www.whoscored.com/Players/13423/Fixtures/Gonzalo-Castro I have little doubt that if Tuchel was still the manager Dahoud will be shining bright right now. From what I saw of him in 2016/17 and 2015/2016, he's Chelsea quality and will contribute from the gate if we could get him. He's already a complete player and a star in the making. Another German we should be looking at is Goretzka. A bit older and experienced than Dahoud. A different player more like Ballack.

Peter Bosz isn't giving him any chances at Dortmund. What about a cheeky bid in January? Different type of Regista but he could potentially be Cesc's successor. I rate Dahoud highly I think he's an awesome player.

England and Belgium have to be the happiest with that especially considering their potential Group H opponents. The two i'm rooting for for obvious reason. GG

We have easily the worst set of wingbacks/fullbacks of the top 6. Alonso and Zappacosta. Yikes!

Just tuned in. That looked nasty on Alonso

He's had some good games here and there I'm not going to go full knee-jerk mode. Let's wait at least till New Year. The problem I had with his signing is that we clearly tend to favour certain types of players over others, not just under Conte but in the Abramovich Era. We'll go for Bakayoko but rarely will we sign a Weigl, Seri, Dahoud or Torrerria. Fabregas is like the only midfield regista we've had in maybe the last decade. Basically every top team in Europe is awash with these types of players and this is what allows them to be so competent and much more technically advanced than us. When sides like Liverpool and Spurs are bossing our midfield there's a problem.

I'm not sure what you mean by productive. Last season Hazard had more keypasses from open play than any other player in Europe's top 5 leagues but yet had only 5 assists which says a lot about his teammates. Sterling has never come close to that. https://www.whoscored.com/Articles/pIE68Mj2lU6L-wBGAJVziw/Show/European-Team-of-the-Season-ST-Eden-Hazard-(Chelsea) It's easy to be productive as a forward when you play for a team that has scored 42 goals in 13 games, totally dominates the ball (averaging 63% possession) and creates chances for fun. Sterling can afford to score a lot of tap-ins this season thanks to that brand of football. Hazard at this stage last season had 9 goals in the league. Let's see if Sterling can continue to score. Even in this insanely stacked City side its very likely he regresses to the mean.

There are several things on this forum I find annoying for example getting on the backs of some of our best players on the odd occassion they don't play well. (see Morata's forum). Doesn't mean I go there and mention that. If you don't like the comments, ignore them. Simple!

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jul/18/antonio-conte-chelsea-new-contract https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/antonio-conte/profil/trainer/3517

We'll see what happens. The good thing about Conte's job safety is he already has a ready made excuse if he wins nothng this season.

His contract ends in 2019 mate. The new contract he signed strangely enough didn't extend his current one. Like @manpe I can definitely envision a scenario where we lose Conte and Hazard next season with Courtois to follow. It's telling how silent talks of a new contract has become. All of them sense it. That the club is now totally lacking in ambition. I documented it in Conte's thread how our net spend in the last few years has been below Arsenal's, Liverpool's and miles behind the Manchester clubs. The reason is the big games make that fact become glaringly obvious. In the big games certain CFC players are exposed as not being of the required standard to consistently win league titles and especially to compete for CL honors. And after years of repeating the same thing every summer, our board has done nothing.

http://www.espn.co.uk/football/blog/the-match/60/post/3282691/willian-saves-chelsea-as-mohamed-salah-stars-again-for-liverpool Mark Ogden for ESPN. I'm glad not only the fans of the club see this. Hazard too good for his teammates Such has been Manchester City's dominance of the Premier League so far this season, it would be a challenge to find an outfield player from any of the other 19 top-flight clubs capable of breaking into the team of the year as the campaign approaches its halfway stage. But Eden Hazard would have as good a claim as anyone, with the Chelsea midfielder showing his outstanding quality once again. Chelsea's last two title triumphs have been inspired by their Belgian No. 10 and, at times against Liverpool at Anfield, he was almost unplayable. In the first half, Hazard dominated the game after being allowed to roam freely by the home side. Last season, Jose Mourinho deployed Ander Herrera to man-mark Hazard out of the game in Chelsea's 2-0 defeat at Manchester United, but Klopp took the opposite approach, and it nearly cost Liverpool dearly. Hazard was able to find time and space, and he stung the fingers of Liverpool keeper Mignolet after creating an early opportunity. He also unlocked the door for teammates such as Danny Drinkwater and Alvaro Morata to score, but neither were able to take advantage. Liverpool eventually grew wise to Hazard's threat, with Joel Matip and Joe Gomez shadowing him much more closely in the second half. But every time Hazard had the ball, he was a danger. The only problem for Chelsea was that not enough of his teammates were on the same wavelength.

From Chelsea twitter: "Conte said our tactical plan today stopped Liverpool creating many chances, especially in the first half, and after the break we began to take control." And this is the stuff that gets to me. It's not Man City away. Why can't we exert our game on them? It's Liverpool. It's not like they are a better team than us. They clearly have inferior players in many positions. In fact excluding wingbacks I can argue we have better players in almost every other position. When City came to The Bridge, they didn't stop us from creating chances. They don't do that. They just deny you the ball and press in packs immediately they lose it. I long for the day we can play in a similar fashion. Anyway, I'm done for today. Very frustrating stuff all round.

This is the scariest part and further proves how utterly insane our board is. As I stated above, if I was him I'm out of the door at the end of the season. Club's ambition clearly doesn't match his at this point.

I'm not so sure about that. I think being able to coach the brand of football Guardiola plays is a talent. Of couse if he had a wad of cash to spend he would build a stronger team but how will his team play? Will we be able to match City? I have my doubts. I don't really see much in his coaching strengths that suggest he can build a team to play football against Guardiola. Or even Klopp and Pochettino for that matter.

Technically you're correct but this draw did "end" any hopes we had. Now City can afford an 11 point cushion which I believe no one has ever come back from. 9 points was manageable as they'll still drop points. 11 points is just silly.