LDN Blue

It's one my most vivid memories of this forum, the amount of pure hate he received after Ancelotti was sacked

Luis pled his case to Mourinho last night. Does Mourinho have enough adaptiveness to cast aside his stubbornness and drop Ivanovic for Azpilicueta? ..I don't think so.

The FA simply couldn't wait, could they? Smh. As I said before, we've won without Costa before and we have to then we'll do the same on Saturday. While this is a big game, we still hold the cards should we lose this game.

Gudjohnsen, de Bruyne, Sturridge, Greaves

This signing strikes me as a stop-gap. One of those signings that'll be in off in about 2 years... Like those other two guys he's reportedly replacing

- The weak lawyer's argument.

A growing rivalry between Costa and Skrtel will be interesting to watch going forward. I think they grew mutual respect for each other, neither backed down.

Its mind games at the end of the day. Baiting the opponent gives a lift to the fans and Costa seems to find his goal drive through his emotions. It's up to defenders how they deal with him but world-class strikers like Zlatan and Suarez even do it. It's just a different way to play the game - as long as it doesn't cross lines. Stamping on players crosses a line and I can only hope Mourinho tells him to cut it out and it's isolated. But incidents like the Gerrard one, I don't mind one bit.

Lmao, I kind of cringed. Don't City do that with their 'blue moon' bs?

I wouldn't say it's every game. Sure, he riles up opposition every game but I just see that as part of the game.. It's a sport for aggression. But when it crosses the line of yesterday it's unpleasant. If it was Suarez last season we'd be up in arms lmao.

Agreed. We've got enough cover and we are capable of winning without Costa and Cesc.

Good of the club to be smart about this. If Schurrle isn't moving on then we use him and wait until summer. I think this transfer is more about Schurrle and Salah wanting to leave rather than us wanting to replace them in January.

Happy about the goal, he's quite good at coming up with the goods in a knockout situation vs Liverpool isn't he? Reading through the last few posts, I think it's very harsh to call criticism of Ivanovic as 'hate'. It's far from that. I think every Chelsea fan knows Ivanovic is a legend, he's been there through our highs and lows and he does have good character.. But like all fairy tales, they have to end. He's been a weakness and a source of exposure in our backline for sometime now and I think the only reason it persists is because Mourinho feels he needs Azpilicueta on the right to account for Hazard. Not to criticise Hazard's defending either, but more to say Azpilicueta is better on the ball so he can help Hazard. I hope that Mourinho is looking at either a right-back to replace Brana in June or he's looking for another left-back to provide competition for Filipe Luis. I'm not sure why Mourinho hasn't properly experimented with 'Azpilicueta - Zouma/Cahill - Terry - Luis' yet, maybe he doesn't trust Luis yet. I think for José he needs time with certain players to trust them.. If everyone recalls properly, last season even Azpilicueta didn't feature that much. Some believed Mourinho even had a vendetta against Spanish players

Indeed and a worthy winner to send us to the final. Let's hope he's saving one for Wembley instead

Stamps were crossing a line, an unfortunate part of Costa's game. I think he was absorbed by the atmosphere, so I can't blame him too much but I hope it won't happen regularly. Anyway, it's not like Liverpool fans can be mad about a striker being dirty.

I was concerned at why he had to make those saves as opposed to how.

If he could finish when he's through on goal, I swear he'd be our answer for the right-wing problem lmao.

Very proud of Kurt today, handled himself very well and had great support in Terry and Matic. I hope Mourinho's seen this and now eases the boy into our first team ahead of Cahill.. One thing that he needs to work on though, which he can because he's still very young, his ability on the ball. He's a bit of a Sakho-type player with his footwork and he's too keen to get rid of the ball. Plenty of time to work on it though.

It was a massive injustice that he didn't score after that wonderful show of dribbling to get past those 3-4 Liverpool players.

http://www.ronaldo7.net/video/manchester-live/manchester-live-stream.html

It's simply incredible, isn't it? We've seen teams like this, who start very well in the league but eventually squander off. Their best players get taken, they fail to cope with the pressures of consistency and even struggle away from home. Southampaton had a great season under Pochettino. Then they lost him, Lallana, Shaw and Rodriguez to a long term injury.. As the saying goes, they have no right to be challenging how they are. Smart recruitment and tactical astuteness from Koeman has seen them go on this incredible run and they deserve to finish 3rd. I hope they're able to continue this challenge in the 2015-16 season.

Apparently they gave his father a job at Real Madrid too. So it's not the stupidest move a 16-year old could make lmao.. He has plenty of time to prove his worth.

Yeah..... The old "I live in London and therefore don't need it" excuse has run dry now

I thought he was a centre back? Am I wrong?

I should really get mine out the way come to think of it....