LDN Blue

Premature. He definitely won't be going anywhere until July at least - No way we sell in January. I also don't believe Zidane will be taking over in long-term capacity by any means, he's only been coaching for 2-years and with the pressure and expectations of Real he'd be smart to reject anything beyond 6 months. Rumour suggest Mourinho will be contacted soon enough too.

To be fair, Gary Cahill has also always been a great last-ditch tackler. The problem with Cahill was that many of those last-ditch tackles he was forced to make came about because of his own mistakes in trying to play the ball out. Zouma is capable of being a ball playing centre back - at his age it's not a fallacy to think it. But if he is going to try then he can't become like Cahill and allow his personal mistakes to result in such situations. So perhaps it's better to leave him to his already established qualities. Height, speed and strength. Signing a ball-playing CB therefore is more important for us - Is that Stones?

His progress is incredible! My friend's Dad is from Milton Keynes so we went to a couple of Dons games and Alli really stood out then but so did a lot of that team, we didn't think much of him at the time for that reason. Then he got signed by Tottenham and were still unsure, knew he'd been doing things for England U21s at that time too so it wasn't out the blue he was scouted. We never quite thought it would be so soon he was breaking down the door of established first team members at Tottenham. Ryan Mason was meant to be their 'guy' and now it's Alli At the time I said "i'm disappointed Chelsea never signed him", but I'm glad. He'd have never got that exposure for us here, the RLC comparison has already been alluded to. If that means we one day end up paying £40-60m for him because of that, so be it. Even if it is Spurs, it's just a refreshing to witness.

Good thing is, he seems patient right now. He's got time on his side, he's not around 23-25 bracket where playing every game is a big priority. He's 19 and I'm sure even training with the first team, with people like Terry and soon Drogba looking over his progress. So he wouldn't actively be seeking a loan away just yet. But I'm sure if he continues to be messed around by 35s substitutions then he won't be quite the happy chappy he is now. Hiddink seems to be good at the whole man-management thing so I'm sure he's verbally communicating with RLC on a weekly basis about how he wants him to train along with Eddie Newton (Who I believe has been placed especially to work with the u21s).

Great game in Valencia! Real down to 10, went 2-1 via Bale and Valencia just equalised. 5mins + stoppage left to play!

But I think that fact alone is quite alarming wouldn't you say? At the peak of Matic's time in 2013-14 he was a rock in the midfield and the fact he was settled there doing an adequate job was vital. You want your defensive midfield settled. We had a time where Makelele made that his own position and then Essien did the same. Since Essien we've been juggling with Mikel, Romeu, Van Ginkle and now Matic. You can see how that's working to our detriment. The best two team in the world Bayern & Barca have these positions filled with settled players and you can see them reaping the rewards.

Fuck this shit. Hope Courtois smashes his record at Chelsea.. Oh Big Pete, why?!

Aaron Cresswell could be a good shout for that sort of role - Riccardo Rodriguez is still sitting in Wolfsburg too. The former signed a new 5-year deal last summer, but we know contracts mean f*ck all in football now. Unfortunately he'd also be a stop-gap and I don't think it's worth ruining his bright-looking future.

Or perhaps it's Oscar dos Santos Emenalo Júnior

This looks fun to play with

#DareToObi

Heard a lot of promising things about dude, people compare him to Martial. Unbelievable that he's compared to a 19-year old

Ehh.. Slight hyperbole here? Yeah it was a fantastic game today and Hiddink deserves credit with the way the team was set up, the inclusion of Mikel seemed justified too. But we've had these moments in the season and what's the real test for Hiddink is being consistent in this approach to games. We had an advantage in the fact Palace were rubbish & missing a lot of key players, we deserve credit for actually exploiting that. Anyway, I hope we continue to play and kill of games like this. But I'm curbing my own enthusiasm here until it's consistent

Scenes if RLC doesn't play

More like it from Guus, definitely built on the dire performance in Manchester a few days ago. Ballsy to drop Matic in favour of Mikel - That hasn't been done in years.

Got to build on this, we've had a lot of these stop-starts this season - Need to string together a few wins in a row! Forward we go..

Keeps that up and he might be my first Chelsea player in my FPL in a long, long, time..

Don't let it get to you - It wouldn't be TC if those calls weren't there! Enjoy the moment bro

My g, if that happens I'll fly over and smoke a whole load of bud with you

I mean, myself included, we did ask for changes - Well here's one . Can't have our cakes and eat it too, seems to look justified too so..

A familiar feeling is it?

Give up my friend, give up

Fair enough! Thanks for the lowdown!

Indeed ? - He's now in that Mikel category of 'second wind', though in the case of the former it's more like his tenth or eleventh ?

I know others will speculate after, but how did it look to you? Genuine injury or couldn't be bothered?