The Skipper

Pep is literally walking into another trophy laden job. I'd like to see him take up a bit of a challenge for once. It's why I rate Mourinho above him as a manager.

I wouldn't build my team around a holding midfield player. What you do need though is to provide pillars for players you want to build your team around (in our case Mata, Hazard and Oscar) and in my opinion Mikel can be that. Whenever we play Mikel with the three aforementioned all three seem to have a bit more freedom in their play simply because they know they've got a good holding midfield player behind them as a platform.

How so? Barely anyone on here rate him anyway.

I've said this from the beginning of the season, our best CB partnership (by far IMO) is Luiz and Terry - they compliment each other well. IMO we would've had a far sturdier defence had both been fit for the majority of the season and paired for the majority of the season. Only defenders that can come out and say they've had a decent and quite consistent season this year IMO are Luiz and Azpilicueta (and maybe A. Cole to a certain extent) which is a big reason as to why we've been bad defensively this season. I can't really blame them though, I think individually we have one of the best defensive set in the PL but the team's defensive cohesion this season hasn't been good enough (that's from attack to midfield to defence). Whoever's our coach next season will have a serious look into that hopefully.

Likewise, just saying. Never said you did. I was talking about the general consensus.

Which is fair enough. He's definitely good enough to be a squad player for us - Shaw and Bertrand in a couple of years after Ashley retires sounds good to me. What I don't like though is how people call him useless - he's not. I think defensively this year CFC have been poor - that's not due to our individual talent but more due to the fact that we have never had a consistent back four this season. Bertrand has also only played a handful of games at full back this season - I feel most people are writing him off based on his performances out wide, which I think is unfair.

Yeah he had a poor game today, but if you read the comments here it's like the loss is his fault. The whole team was subpar today, that's fact. I'm not really looking into this performance as an indicator to anyone's overall ability simply because it's a one off game where we played a second string side (who aren't good enough overall to begin with). I think there's a general overreaction concerning today's result - it's like people expected us to comprehensively beat Southampton with the team we put out - I already knew it was going to be very difficult to do that when the XI was read out. IMO people are just using this game to bash players and fuel previous agenda's they had on them. If we started Hazard, Mata, Ramires, Luiz & Ba today it would've been a completely different game and everyone knows that. It's the gulf of quality between our first team and second team that needs fixing, and you can't really blame our squad players for that I think.

He had a poor game again today but he's not helped by the fact that we never keep a consistent back four. It's like building a wall and then destroying it over and over again. I feel that at any top club you need to have a consistent defence, especially a CB partnership. Benitez hasn't done that at all this season and that's one of the main reasons why our defence has looked so clueless at times this season; there is no chemistry anymore.

@.

Stop over exaggerating Henrique.

Those who think that Jose will make the likes of Lampard, Terry, Cole etc. untouchables again just because of his previous tenure here look no further than Ricardo Carvalho's current situation at Real Madrid. Jose isn't stupid.

Sorry, that is not a valid reason to write anyone off. Especially when that person is 17. He's come leaps and bound this year and has clearly been one of our standout players if not the standout player this season in the NextGen Series. Also how you think because Boga and RLC are technically better (which again is very arguable, Baker is excellent technically, especially his passing and shooting) that they stand a better chance of making it is quite laughable IMO. You only have to look at our own Kakuta to see that football isn't all about how good your technical skills are. Baker seems to have the mentality, leadership traits, more than decent technical attributes and physical attributes to make it as a top player if he keeps progressing the way he is at this very moment. Captain of his team & 14 goals in 29 games is no joke, especially from midfield. He's the one that drives the team when they're down, he's done that time and time again in the NextGen tournament.

Hoping to see the likes of Ake & Blackman coming back on monday and hopefully Nditi's ankle will be okay for monday too, hopefully see him back at left back. We can win this. It'll be difficult to swallow if we lost considering we beat Arsenal, Juventus and Barcelona on the way. Villa's got decent talents but they aren't on par with the aforementioned.

I really want Baker to come through soon. Surely his season shouldn't go unnoticed by our hierarchy. Out of our current bunch at the club at the moment (the ones not on loan) he excites me the most. Not Feruz. Not Boga. Baker. Followed closely by Ruben Loftus-Cheek. I honestly think we have the best U19 centre mid partnership in the country.

We really should've seen this game out. Embarrassed by DD.

Was just thinking about this. I really hope all three come through to the first team, they have the talent.

Boga off for John Swift.

Baker always gets this team going. Get more excited every time I see him play.

Josh nor Nathaniel play in the same position that Eriksen does... Eriksen would be competing with our attacking midfielders. I don't see any place for him in our squad to be honest as he needs constant playing time to develop.

Ronaldo when he gets it right has an immense free kick on him. He's very wasteful though: Still one of the best free kicks ever IMO.

He's just bitter.

Horrible. Cue massive media onslaught.

Mourinho - "The Skipper is the best member on the Talk Chelsea forums." - via Twitter.

And also Santon at Inter. Jose isn't too shabby with youth.

Expecting a few Mourinho chants against Southampton.