King Kante

Not really. However, due to my visceral hatred of the Dipper's I live in hope that some how they muck it up.

Be interesting what line up City put out for this one. I reckon it will depend on how the Dipper's do tonight. If they lose to Palace, City I reckon will probably take this one seriously as it can allow them to put some heat on the Dippers as they have them straight after. If the Dipper's win or draw, I can see them going lightly on us as the league will then be 100% gone, they have bigger fish to fry and by doing so they can f*ck Utd over a bit. That said, with the current CB and GK situation I am not entirely sure a reserve City side is going to be easy for us as we are bound to give them two gift wrapped chances anyway. As for James v Dave. Dave has to start this one. I love James but he cannot really defend that well and he look super rusty against Villa. For me, James should only be playing from the start against the teams we will have 60%+ of tbe ball against as we need Dave's defensive skill and experience in games like these.

I do have an agenda against Kepa but it is due to him being dire and nothing else. If you feel that his handling of the header was of sufficient quality then I seriously hope you're not scouting our next GK that we are going to have to get to replace him with.

Who is comparing Mount to KDB? I haven't said he is better than KDB or even a similar type player. What I said is that he has been the most consistent performer of the youth products and he is one of the youngest of the youth products.

This is why I had Mount as MotM. He was everywhere and also played the key role in creating the assist for Giroud's goal.

AC definitely tries to play then offside as he takes a step up. This may have been him doing this on his own but he looks as if he is thinking that is what is happening. Mount I am not going to blame as he really shouldn't even be in there. Dave loses track of the ball and god knows what Rudi is doing, he just looks lost at sea and tries to redeem himself with a goal line clearance. However, as bad as those errors are, I am still not seeing how people aren't lying any blame at Kepa's door here. That header should have been catch able, or at the very worst he should've been able to push it away with much greater force and, you know, not pushed it straight into the single most dangerous area. Seriously, my granny could've done a better job of palming that out if put in the same position. All in all it was calamitous from about four players - Dave, AC, Kepa and Rudi.

RE: Mount. I haven't understood some of the comments I have seen from people on here about Mount. Even during his dip in form he was still working his arse off and wasn't exactly a passenger. For me, Mount has been our most consistent and reliable youth product this season. Further, the kid is what 20/21? Which also makes him the second second youngest first team youtth product to James doesn't it? A lot of our chances come off him either directly or through his work rate. Needs to get a few more goals but I do not know what more people are expecting from him.

Just out of interest, who out of them and Gladbach are seen as the bigger bottlers? Getting CL(2nd place)/cup finals are not too bad. Spurs normally bottle things in the semis/last day.

I agree. It is why I said that I am ok if it is a virtual wash with Zouma going out. The only thing I think he has over Zouma is age as he still has time to iron out some of the problems you would have hoped Zouma would have done by now.

Honestly, I do not know where you have seen evidence of RLC being similar to Yaya Toure. Yes, he can shield the ball well but he doesn't bulldoze his way through like he did. Maybe he has done it once or twice but there is no consistency to it to say it is a fundamental part of his game. Further, Yaya was very good at incepting the ball, which RLC isn't and he did move off the ball. Honestly, what me and Grevesie are saying has also been said by every manager that has had him fit and available. Close to zero work rate off the ball and wants it played to feet. Conparing this to Hazard is also wrong on two counts as a) Eden did make runs to draw defenders and b ) Eden's ability to dribble against packed defences is at a much higher level. I am really not trying to be condescending here but next time you watch Chelsea with RLC in the team, please try and following him as best you can when he is without the ball as it is very clear what I and Grevesie are talking about. Further, to avoid any confusion, I have absolutely no desire to do RLC down for no reason and would be ecstatic if he was able to adapt his off the ball work so that he could become similar to Yaya (who is in my top 3 favourite non-Chelsea PL players.) However, this belief that he does this is not reality (and I say this as someone that thought the same when I saw him in youth football, only to be disappointed when I actually watched him play live.)

I see rotation for this game in midfield. Personally after the sh*t show the CB's put in on Sunday you would hope one of them may be dropped until you remember what Zouma is like on the ball under pressure and how he can get pulled out of position very easily. My team would be: Kepa Dave. Rudi. AC/Tomori. Alonso Gilmour/Jorgi Kante. Kova/Mount Willian. Tammy. Puli

Very good post. There is no questioning RLC's qualities on the ball, however off the ball he is very very poor. I, like you, would like nothing better than to see RLC fulfill his potential (I also saw him in youth games on CTV so was really looking forward to him in the first team, then started to witness his work rate - seems you spotted this earlier than I did.) However, people that say he was our second best player last season have short memories. He only really broke into the side in Feb/March and did do well, however he was still lacking work rate. The injury was obviously a killer as his finish had given a good platform to build off but he clearly wasn't our 2nd best player, expect for maybe between April-May.

Think we are going to have to hope that the Saudi's buy Newcastle imo. Could see them thinking that Barkley and Batsh*t may be good ideas.

£72.5m for Arthur? Juve must've borrowed Barca's crack pipe for a couple of tugs.

Personally, against City I see Gilmour/Jorgi (if still not banned) or Kova playing in the No.4 position. SFL hinted that Kante and RLC started as he wanted a little more physicality against Villa.

Love it when people say this man knows what is going on. Just 2-3 days ago he said he wasn't going to agree 😂😂

Fair play to Willian and Pedro, they could've really f*cked us in the arse on this one. Very good news for us as both are much more reliable than CHO and when it comes to important games they do not really drop their levels.

Yeah, but aren't Galdbach a bit like Spurs in that they are known as bottling big games? Maybe one of the German posters could help support as I have read this once but do not follow German football enough.

My only worry about Upamecano is that he is pretty rash and he gets caught over playing at times. However, if he is available for a decent fee which we could recoup most of by selling Zouma, I would be ok with it.

Lets face it, even the 'more realiable itk' jornos for Chelsea have absolutely no idea what is going on until everyone else. I mean how many of them called Ziyech or Werner before everyone else knew? Because one of these jokers may have said in March that Chelsea were interested in one player doesn't mean they know sh*t. All they did was take a guess, I mean even I thought to myself since last year Harvetz may be a good player for us, so it was hardly a rocket science call.

With our defence the way it is and the lack of CB's that are of the right level and available, I really think someone like Vertonghen might be a good shout. Left footed, not known for brain farts, knows the league, good it the air, tactically disciplined. Sure he isn't the greatest CB out there but he would be cheap and do the job better than what we have got.

This is where I am at. Obviously the club have extra money for sales but operating income is going to be seriously down. Therefore, the 'extra' transfer income will go towards operating costs.

I reckon £100m net, which gives us approximately £15m left over atm with Ziyech and Werner. In my opinion, most of our buys going forward will have to be funded by sales.

CB is a very difficult position. However, there are some options out there. For instance, I would be more than happy to take a Vertonghen for two years on a free as I think he would be an improvement on either Zouma and AC. So there are options out there to improve, even if they are not necessarily world class.

Problem is we haven't seen any real improvement in any of them. Tomori, I am happy to keep and give time to, Rudiger is also good enough for CB3 but he isn't really showing enough to be a top CB at elite level. As for Zouma and AC, I think we have seen enough to say they aren't good enough. AC for me is the most frustrating as he has very good positional sense and can read the game well, however he is so weak it is starting to become seriously frustrating. As for Zouma I say it is time to cash in 100% as we can still get a decent fee for him atm but he hasn't shown any real improvement since he first broke in during 2015/16 so it doesn't look like he will now. For me, if you keep Zouma now we will quickly find ourselves in a Batsh*t situation where you think to yourself 'could've had £35/£40m for this bloke 1-2 years ago, now we will be lucky to get £15m'.