Tomo

He was already slowing down a bit at the back end of last season while playing RCB. I think his form this season is a decline more than anything, the excessive amount of games down the years has caught up with him.

I think he's having similar problems to what we are. He (like Sarri) is trying to completely change the style of play within the whole club and it's caught up with them a bit. In many ways them falling out of promotion contention is a blessing in disquise because that group are not ready for PL football.

He has to take Giroud's place next season in the squad, he's earned that on merit. In normal circumstances i think that's what would have happened but with the transfer ban likely following after this summer i can see playing it safe and going all out for two established strikers, one of which will be Higuain on a perm/two year deal (Juve want him out that badly they will lower the asking price).

I disagree, they are both category B (ie the tier behind the old guard, Zola etc). Criticise Azpi all you want for his decline this season this season or his actions at Wembley, but lets not rewrite history, he's been a fantastic servent and from a defensive and consistentcy POV one of the best we've ever had, possibly the best bar JT.

From what i have read on Grand Old Team the opinions on him are very much mixed.

Never quite got the love in with Zouma myself, even before his unfortunate injury i thought he was average.

The fact that a bunch of core players that have won two titles alongside getting to four other cup finals winning two (if we really push it we can put the Europa for this era aswell) are have their mentality questioned if anything proves my point about how high the winning culture is in the club. Any other club in England would consider their players god like if the delivered that type of return in a half decade period (even with all the bullshit inbetween) where as a lot of Chelsea fans are indifferent towards this bunch, shows how high the bar is here. I do believe with us the most important thing these days is appointing builder managers who can build a squad to get us competing because once we are the squad have the will and mentality to make that final push as they keep proving.

Lets be fair, Spurs could have Fergie and would still win fuck all, the mentality around the entire club is pants re winning stuff. If Pochettino came in and got us to a similar level he did Spurs the winning mentality that filters through the club and know how of the squad to win the trophy's will do the rest.

I'm actually on the opposite view with AVB, he basically said fuck it and abandoned his style for Valencia/City and reverted to default type. It worked for those two games but ultimately cost him because after those games he couldn't get his message across again and we played like a team trying to do both default style and AVB style and ended up with a disjointed mess that couldn't string two passes together.

Things will go one of two ways now i feel. We will either build on this, take advantage of the kind fixtures between now and the seasons end (bar two games) and consolidate top 4 or these few days are a brief stay of execution and things go downhill again ala AVB post Valencia/City.

People laugh when managers say they factor in defensive play when picking wingers, but that move from Pedro is a big reason why.

Alonso's been all right tonight in fairness, he tends to perform his best after returning from a lay off, Liverpool at home last season was his best display after coming back from a ban.

I would bring on CHO and RLC mainly because it will gee the crowd up and hopefully give us momentum to seriously push for a winner.

First season inconsistencies of learning a new system.

So much for Willian being an untouchable starter

He probably doesn't think it for real, how many times has a manager said their player is better than they clearly are? For example Warnock once said Speroni was the best keeper in England while Jose told Lampard (before his elevation to world class status) that he was the worlds best player in a period Henry and Ronaldinho were in their prime. These type of soundbites are part of man management.

In modern football the punishment depends on how expendable players are. Keeping to us for two examples, Ashley Cole got away with shooting a college student while Mutu was binned for dabbling in cocaine. Kepa is indespensible due to not only his price tag but the fact he's vastly superior to any alternative behind him, a fine of wages and public apology is about the best that can be done realistically speaking.

The core of this group have pissed two league titles along with the Cup, there's many things they can be questioned for but one thing they can do is bring trophy's home.

Still wouldn't ruin their careers though, AVB and Jose fucked up, were fired and the following summer walked into teams that finished above us the following summer. Could you imagine Jose getting the City, Liverpool or Spurs job in the summer? In terms of career damage the media stigma about it all being the players fault when things go wrong make the Chelsea job arguably the most risk free big job in football.

Firmly disagree, that kind of mindset was why the England national side took the best part of a century to finally win one. If it was a lottery most takers and keepers records would be roughly equal. Caballero averages just short of a save every two kicks he faces, that's not luck.

Why would it ruin their careers?

Overall he's average but his penalty record is insane, he saves every other kick he faces on average.

Couldn't disagree more and thinking it is about luck is one of the reasons England kept losing shootouts. Hours of studying goes into working out patterns of penalty takers and keepers, and the decisions made by players and keepers are often based on their research, for example, Cech in Munich.

Just seen it again, it appears he was having a go at Caballero because as he was punching the chair and walking towards the tunnel Willy was walking back down with his arms out as in to say "what have I done?".

To play devils advocate, 24 year old playing his first major final, adrenaline pumping. I don't condone it but I'm more interested in his reaction to this, if he accepts he did wrong then clean slate, if he maintains he did the right thing then we have problems.