LDN Blue

I'm really hoping Abramovic will trust Mourinho now, more than ever.

I hope that's the end of that. Shame it all happened tbh, an unfortunate consequence of this season.

Shevchenko believes in us

Yeah true. But either way, I think he deserves a bit of patience and maybe we have that off season.. All giants have had it at some point. The universal 'sack him' calls are out of order.

I just find it entirely pointless to sack Mourinho. For who? For someone who's likely to come in for anywhere between 6-18months, just to be shown the damn door again? I find it hilarious people talk about Ancelotti when he did the same thing here, won the double and sacked the season after. While Mourinho's got his own demons to battle this season in terms of his own tactics, this squad evidently needs another overhaul. I still believe in the guy lol, don't think there's anyone else better for us

In their defence, in the last 5 years Mourinho has won; Serie A, La Liga, EPL, FA Cup, Coppa Italia, Copa Del Rey and the Champions League. Please, a little respect for the man. One bad season and he's suddenly a mediocre fraud

I mean.. It was his subs that saved this game

Hopefully, albeit wishful thinking, this "scout" mission is to find Azpilicueta's understudy at RB.

Yup. In fact Wenger can be credited a lot with bridging the gap between science and football, ahead of his time so to speak. Problem is, once everyone then took that model, he had no plan b

Anyone got match highlights?

Hell, play this team on Saturday too. This is the Chelsea team I believe in, the one without Ivanovic.

Preciesly. A common retort for that is "no-one wants to sit on the bench", but all the big clubs around the world know how to rotate effectively enough so that players don't get frustrated. I hope this isn't some sort of dumbass cycle we're going to get stuck in. Spend big 1 summer, then peanuts the following summer & repeat.

If only we had some squad depth to cover those positions

Horrible for the kid, he's only 20-years old and he's facing this. Hope he recovers because he's got too much potential.

See, this is why his subtitutions were slightly bizzare. Taking of his more consistent performers in Azpilicueta & Matic when we're only a goal down? Okay he's admitted he wishes he had taken (what we can assume to be) Ivanovic off, had he another sub left. On one hand, I can't fault him for bringing on Loftus-Cheek (the more minutes that boy gets, the better!!). But Fabregas & Hazard needed a telling message today. the former to be honest. But what else can I be? Lol. It's simply tragic to watch this start, shades of Borussia Dortmund of last season.. A team full of superstars playing like a relegation surviving team. I'm inclined more to believe we can fix this rather than crumble.

Ah then my memory betrays me. But I stand by the points after that, I still believe it's far too early to be making any assumptions about the title race. Yes, we've severly handicapped ourselves with this abysmal start but it's not over. City still have to play their share of troubling clubs and will definitely drop points along the way.. We just have to hope we can begin a winning mentality & reality.

Ah I misread the table entirely lol, I stand corrected :tophat:

But mate, how many times have we seen in such recent times alone how much the 'head start' doesn't matter. Teams with less quality than us have chased bigger point margains.. United have done it, hell we've done it a few times. It's still far too premature to begin to get carried away with all this "worst start" crisis talk.

Yeah but didn't most of those teams go on to win the title in that same season? Roughly looking at it, I can see United, Arsenal and Chelsea have won titles in the seasons they started poorly in.

Thing is @Jason, 4-2-3-1 just often becomes 4-3-3 anyway. I mean think about it with our personnel in the first place; Matic Fabregas (/Ramires) - Willian(/Oscar) Pedro - Costa - Hazard It's just very easy for whoever is playing ahead of Matic to drop back into the middle, since our tactics are pretty much passive.

Tbh, I'm just positive that he came on in a time where it was important.. Any minutes will help, the performance wasn't much to talk about.

I remember Garay at Benfica, Man United were constantly linked with him.. He was meant to be like the next Thiago Silva wasn't he? At 28, I'm baffled as to how he's an apt replacement for chasing a 21yo Stones.

Lool, I don't think he cares to be honest. He was happy to let Rondon go to West Brom after all.

Indeed. I'm sure towards the end of the season/just before pre-season activtiies Mourinho specifically stated he wished to bring in a striker, midfield and defender?

Yeah man, there's nothing to be overly read into here. Mourinho,and Chelsea for that matter, love to make these proclaimations and then go back on it lmao.. Let's see what actually happens on/by Tuesday 11pm (BST)