El P.

It takes balls and knowledge to take out Morata who wasn't good. Conte took a risk and it worked! Bravo Antonio! It's nice to see all supporters still signing ANTONIO ANTONIO, even in moments like those.

If it's not best possible, it's almost the best possible. Or you think one Christensen would make a difference? Conte makes mistakes too, of course. But nothing compared to our players.

I personally think we played our best XI possible. Morata was nervous and wasn't really threatening whole game. Bats is not such a good player, but he is fresh and you never know. If it's EVERYBODY; maybe EVERYBODY ACTUALLY ARE AVERAGE OR SHIT, bar 2-3 players. This last year's title damaged us real bad.

I miss Nemanja Matić.

I think we were a little better than in last games. Morata needs to toughen up but he actually linked us up really good... and Fabregas, what the hell were you doing?

Well Conte, others are playing every three days too. What you really wanted to say is this: "When you play every three days it's impossible to work on the tactical aspect and physical aspect WITH THIS BUNCH OF PLAYERS. MAYBE WITH SOME BETTER TEAM YES."

Alonso - Drinkwater - Bakayoko - Kante - Moses Stoke City sees this midfield and thinks - YEAH CHELSEA, THAT'S MY BOY! Awful.

Damn you Leif. Don't die, I'll miss your posts here. And you seemed like you knew shits like this could happen, with the team quality we have. It shouldn't really be unexpected to you, hence - why all that stress?

I'm not fearing that he will get sack in mid-season. Hell, we waited to sack Mou until it was REALLY late, we were at the bottom of table. I'm afraid we will do "an Ancelotti" again, sack him at the end of season, because he didn't get expected result with TITLE WINNING TEAM. Yo dawg, you have a TITLE WINNING TEAM, how come you cannot win us some more of those trophy stuffs? Seriously, and this time it will be a lot harder to just bring another manager and win something - competition in league is tough this days. This time we might actually need to build great squad to win something.

I meant, REALLY OUT of top 4, for long term, and being in the danger of finishing the league out of top 4.

We are in need for ANY decent striker who could be our backup. Some Defoe, in-form Remy or I don't know. Just not Michy. It sounds like not thinking long term, but man, we have no choice, we could fall out of the top 4 if Morata gets injured again.

During the summer, I was predicting that things like this disaster against Palace could happen, and being average in league, but wasn't sure, cause in football everything is possible. But, most of the time - team with better players win. And there is no "passion", "team spirit", "winning mentality" that could mask that, mask so many deficiencies that we've been carrying around for all those years. We are 9 points off top, with United and Liverpool still to play against. Hate being right in this kind of situations. We've won two league titles, but this squad is not good enough to be the best, regardless of the titles. By the best I mean - team you know can win against really great opposition. And I'm not even thinking there about Real Madrid, PSG, in form Bayern or I don't know. Just any top team. Our board is bunch of guys with very very shallow football understanding. Ok, maybe they wanted some better players to be brought in, as they tried to bring A.Sandro, but no way in hell they were aware that we are in need of SO MUCH quality to be brought. Wins doesn't always represent correctly quality of one team. Most of our fans think in the same way too, unfortunately, and it's funny actually watching some of guys wondering what the hell happened and what went wrong with THAT last year great champions team. Delusions all around.

If Costa and Kante were injured last season in one game, there is no "passion" and "winning mentality" that could save us. I for once remember about 5 games where we played like shit last season, and Costa scored out of nothing to get us out. You think Michy could've done that back then? Also, I remember 5 games when we were shit in attack and all around, but Kante played masterclass in midfield and didn't allow opposition to score, so we could win 1-0 somehow. You think Matić could've done that back then? Let's stop overrating that last season's team and play, for Chirst sake. Things like that GETS US in this kind of situation. I am sure board is thinking like some of you too.

I just hope there aren't people who still think that we can win the league. Seriously, let's fight for that 3rd spot, develop this squad, play some good UCL games and try to win a domestic cup. And hope next summer our board doesn't let us down, and Conte stays as manager.

This team is EXACTLY like that team of last season, with two key players injured.

Agree, if you mentioned Fabregas as a super-sub, not starter.

Sad reality, exactly the thing @Leif and myself were pointing out. We are always one injury away from being average, and two injuries away from being disaster, as in this game against Palace. We should of course thank God for last season, that won't happen ever again - not with that (this) team.

Eden Hazard will get us 3 points, I believe. He should be enough.

Thank you! Thinking that Ramos is a good defender is REALLY shallow understanding of football.

Reason is obvious - Morata and Bakayoko are replacements for Costa and Matić, not really an improvements in our squad (maybe they will be some day, but not now). Walker and Mendy ARE clear improvements, they had Sagna, Clichy, Kolarov etc. I know what I'm talking about. @Jason I am not doing that after this loss, I have done it since last season actually. I repeat, I think we've done really good last season. But not great. City or United could play and do better than we did last season, if any of them continue to play like they are now. They don't even need to win 90+ points to prove that, they have tougher opponents compared to what we had last season and are playing Europe.

If others weren't that poor, that winning streak wouldn't have happened. City was really poor in that 3:1 game, missing an open net to seal the game and conceding 3 from 3 shots, United in that 4:0 too, they were all over the place. Those would never happen again. That second half of a season showed different picture - United and Spurs dominated us and won the games. Others were poor, no shame in admitting that, our biggest opponent was Tottenham and that says a lot. They played better than us in our encounters too. I love that season, don't get me wrong, and think we did great. Also, consider we had massive luck with no injuries and there was no European games. Lot of things went our way in that period. You can't win league if you don't dominate in at least half of those "big games". We didn't really dominate but we somehow won those games last season, yes, because others weren't good enough.

Saying that we can't win the league is not knee jerking. United and City have better players than we do (actually, City has A LOT better players, and this is Mou's second season, no need to say more about that), Spurs are on the same level as us, Arsenal and Liverpool somewhat behind. It was the case last season - City had no defense, United couldn't score goal to save their lives. But now? City got themselves decent GK, also Walker and Mendy. It's not easy to break them down. United got Lukaku, they are scoring for fun, and got some other good players in their team. So don't tell me "yada yada, we were in same situation last year after this many games". NO, we weren't. Yes - points wise maybe. We had good chance to get ourselves to top last season because others were just not good enough. It's not the case this season, and don't be deluded saying City played great at the start of last season too. They got Walker and Mendy, we got Zappacosta and Drinkwater, they won't back down. And we? We played one great game this season, against ultra-defensive Atletico, and some good ones. That's it. Couldn't outplay Arsenal, Spurs, City and even some weaker sides. It's not being pessimistic, neither not supporting your team. It's reality. We have great situation for developing squad and making all the right moves next summer, with no Costa disaster etc. I personally will enjoy this season despite of maybe not winning trophies, I'll enjoy in development of the squad, watching the players grow, winning some in UCL and going for domestic cup.

3rd place in EPL, quarterfinals of UCL, preparing squad for next season with no crazy departures (Costa and Matic), with bringing creative , offensively good fresh blood, developing what we already have. Winning a domestic cup maybe. That is what we should be aiming this season, if we are being realistic. Won't expect more, won't expect less. Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk

Don't want to be pessimist, but to hell. Hope Morata can be back soon and that we can keep draw. Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk

This win blows out of the water every CL win that we had in Mourinho's second era. Magnificent.