Tomo

I am fond of Mata, i just think his overall influence with us during his time here was greatly exaggerated.

Honestly? I don't miss Matic one little bit. And given how bad his replacement has been and that we have had some horrific results against some shit teams, that's saying something.

I'd say it's more revisionist claiming he was brilliant right up until the moment he was sold when in reality was he was under par for the best part of a year before we let him go to Man U, and he has got even worse since then. He was very good in 11/12 (although just how good was being exaggerated due to how bad Kaloudanelka and Torres were) and was brilliant for the first half of 12/13 but after that season hit the new year his form fell off a cliff and it was Hazard, not him, delivering the goods to get us Europa and top four. Judging by the comments on his thread in Redcafe then he hasn't got any better atall, in fact (ironically) most of them are talking about him in the same vein we did Oscar at the very end. He was a decent player for us and his arrival (and creativity) came at a time it was so desperately needed but to get £37m out of him when we did was incredible business, the big mistake that window was the other AM that slipped through the net!!!

When we drew 0-0 to Arsenal that season the phrase going round was "0-0 and Drogba got both"

There can be ways round the lack of height tactically. As far as set pieces go Courtois is so good at coming out to collect there's not an urgent need for lots of height, and if we stick to 3atb then the tallest defender can drift into midfield when we are anticipating an ariel duel in the centre. As much as you have a point with CHO and Ampadu, at 17 there isn't any rush or need to send them out on loan or give them serious minutes, i'd happily see progress on their apps this season (about 10-15 each) while they carry on enjoying themselves smashing all before them in the youth cups (which will help further develop a winning mentality). The season after next is when big decisions will need to be made with those two.

The youth/loanee should be at the front of the que (in my opinion) is Mason Mount, he is basically another chance at KDB. CHO and Amps are still kids so i'm happy to bide my time with them, but Mount will be turning 20 next season and he is already proven in the Europa so we should play him in that and the league cup, then (if he performs) start giving him league appearances.

As average to poor as we have been this season, we are still passing the ball to a relitevely acceptable level and creating a respectable amount of chances, under Jose in 15/16 we couldn't string two passes together and our only way to create a chance was a Willian set piece or oppo cock up. You can maybe make a comparison between this season and the Hiddink half of 15/16, but even our lowest ebb this campaign is like paradise compared to the Jose half, that period was a complete and utter horror story from top to bottom.

This thread is quiet. Excellent save from Stevens at the end, with the speed and trajectory of the header to not only save it but catch it aswell was phenomenal, if he goes we will miss him that i am sure!!!!

We won all but two of our games in the last three months.

United wouldn't sell to us. Best hope of getting Martial would be if he went to a 3rd tier club and we pounce a year on.

No, he needs to ply his trade elsewhere first. As good as he has done with the youth set up, managing Chelsea youth teams is the equivalent of managing Celtic!!

This is mainly the reason i want our next manager to be a youth friendly coach even before a trophy laden track record. The previous generation of Boga, Charly, RLC all had flaws that were fatal when it came to first team chances at Chelsea, the likes of CHO, Mount, Sterling, Ampadu ill go as far as saying are near dead certs to make it under the right manager.

Seems April fools day is turning into April fools month. If Kenedy goes PSG or Bayern it would be up there with Gravesen's transfer to Real Madrid on the bizarre scale.

I know fans often like to romanticize the past and compare it favourably to the present, but they are really taking the piss doing that with the 15/16 season, jeez.

He's worse than Jose 15/16 in everything but results (and he's slowly catching up in that regard aswell). The one thing you can't take away from Mou is he was committed to trying to turn things around, yes he went about it the wrong way and got almost everything spectacularly and laughably wrong in those fateful few months but he was still committed to job until the moment he was fired, Conte on the other mentally checked out months ago and is stealing a living at this point. I've read that potential suitors have noted his behavior this season and have become wary of appointing him themselves, can't say i feel any sympathy.

City are pissing the supposed most competitive league in the world and likely to break the majority of records in the process, i would say they are at the very least in the debate. Moses is a case in point, last season when Conte seemed to actually be intent on earning his money Moses despite serious limitations was a keyish cog in a title winning side, Alonso i think is one of the players who has actually improved this season but that's for another argument. Fabregas might not be great but i would 100% choose him over Henderson and Milner and Giroud is our back up, if we compare him to the back ups at Liverpool (Solanke/Ings) or Spurs (Llorente) it's night and day. Also out of the Spurs players i imagine the likes of Aurier, Lloris (if Courtois is getting criticism then Lloris would be hated here) Trippier, Ben Davies, Dier, Winks and even Son (he's quite limited but playing in a system that suits his strengths and hides serious weaknesses) wouldn't be well received had we had them.

There's many players at both Liverpool and Spurs that are on that level or worse on paper. Look at the Liverpool team that smashed arguably the best team in Europe that night, would you honestly put Karius, Alexander Arnold, Lovren, Henderson, Milner, Solanke above those players you mentioned (Baka aside)? I certainly wouldn't.

We will probably win comfortably but meh....... How much has changed since we last played this fixture??!!!

Bertrand did okay when we sent him to Brendan. Maybe we should try loaning him players that are actually good enough.

It's hard to tell how Roman will react if we go down the purist route and it needs time because most seasons under his leadership where we were failing to match expectations we were really horrifically failing at the point of AVB, Jose, Scolari etcs sackings instead of going down in a blaze of glory so to speak. There's only so far been one season in the Roman era were we have won nothing but at the same time seen some quite evident progress in the right direction which was Jose's first year back and he got the time he needed.

Not really, his main strength is creating. Plus his goal record is very good anyway.

He created 6, next best was David Silva with 5.

A team above us in the table who have just smashed us at Stamford Bridge run a transfer policy that makes ours look like PSG. Yes you can make some allowances on the manager because of what you said but it's not like he's being given Sunderland's squad is it?

As it turns out, he created more clear chances than anyone else in the PL this weekend. Despite him being far from his best and the team being off. Even when he's supposedly playing shite like on Sunday he's still in or around the top off most of the positive attacking stats, so this notion about him being inconsistent doesn't really add up.

He scored at The Emirates again a few weeks later. He's been good in lots of big games this season. Leti twice, Roma, United, Liverpool and he only scored in one of those games. Hazard doesn't have to score or assist to have god like games.