Tomo

Conte so far West Ham - not as good a display as I thought at the time in hindsight given how bad WHU have been since but I did like the pressing and attacking patterns at times. Watford - awful display but Conte still won it for us with his subs. Bristol Rover's - didn't see it Burnley - dominant from start to finish. Swansea - dominant display ruined by two minutes of madness. Liverpool - Rubbish, Conte got it all wrong and lost us game. Leicester - awful first half, fantastic second And ET. Considering what he inherited that isn't too bad a rapsheet so far, I said I'll even give him a pass for not finishing top four if he gives me enough encouraging signs for the coming year(s) and so far he has.

Not even on the bench tonight. Unless hes got an injury that I haven't heard about it looks like Conte has done to him what AVB did to Kalou.

Here's a fun stat: first time we've won from two goals down since 2002

As bad as our back four is against most teams, they work against Arsenal, would rather stick to that and bleed Alonso in vs Hull and beyond. Cesc I agree should be starting Saturday

Hull and you have a deal, for Alonso that is.

Yesssssss

Starting from Hull I agree, but Arse are the one team our defense are suited too.

He was the one youngster that needed a loan the most, quite ironic.

If Jose was top half I would have given him the same pass i m prepared to give Antonio, but last season his performance was wretched, don't wanna go into detail while the game is on, but if you want mention me after the game and I will. Certainly agree about some of the players mind, I think some will redeem themselves but others are done here.

Oh my God!!!!!

Upto the last two games we have been getting that. Burnley and Swansea (despite drawing the latter) is the best we played in 18 months, not saying much but still.....

Will be interesting to see which players redeem themselves under the course of the season. Some of Tottenham's lazy players under Sherwood redeemed themselves underPoch (Lamela, Vertonghen) while others didn't reacted which sealed their faye fate (Adebayor, Capoue, Townsend).

Poch needed a season to sort out the mess he inherited at Spurs. If we are showing good signs ofprogression and that he will eventually get the right system and players (which we have in some games) I will be prepared to give him a pass, even if we miss out on top 4.

Probably experimenting, (this competition is the best chance for it). This squad is so flawed he needs to find a system that makes us better than the sum of our parts.

Is Eden, Kante and Diego all on the bench? If so we should bring them on at HT. Can't see Leicester risking Vardy, Mahrezs and co with CL coming up, we ain't got CL so why not. Pedro and Moses as wingers is pitfull.

Hold on, were playing "natural' full back, why aren't we creating a chance minute from these swashbuckling crosses?

I have always believed Roman wants stability on the dugout like the fans do, were he differs from the average supporter however is he will only have it with the right man, whereas the average fan (not only Chelsea football in general) seem to be stuck in the mindset that we could give anyone right down to Ian Dowie time and they would turn into Fergie.

Depends how we fail if we do. If we fail showing encouraging signs that things will only get better the more Antonio has his signings, then he should stay even if we finish 8th. If on the other hand we labour to 6th/7th with performances like Friday night for the majority of games for the rest of the season, then I think he will be sacked and I doubt anyone other than people desperate for managerial stability will be that bothered.

Haha very true, but it also shows we didnt let go such an infallible keeper like some suggest every time Tibo messes up and in all likelihood if we choose Cech this thread would be hitting Kevin De Bruyne levels of regret by now.

Some myths against Roman are getting silly but the he picks the team one tops the lot of them. Thinking outside the box a bit, if he was picking the team wouldn't quite a few youth players be in by now considering the investment he has put into the academy? In fact I'm sure Josh and Gael would have got more game time in Carlos second season if Roman had a say in it.

The board and Roman may have had a meeting and may be annoyed with Friday's tactics but the talk of the sack at this stage is laughable, we are talking about the same owner that kept Jose mark 2 and AVB much longer than both deserved. If we perform like we did vs Liverpool for next 4 months, then yes he could be potentially close to the sack, and rightly so, but I don't think it will come to that, I think he will sort this out and we will get at least 4 points at our second home and the KC stadium.

Thats funny I'm in a similar boat, I got a strong group of Chelsea fans as friends and im considered the negative one of the group and not even they are particularly positive, yet on here I'm often called out for being too optimistic. Although I think that has a lot to do with the fact I often refrain for posting a lot of the negative thoughts on here, mainly because everything I think negative is covered and further exaggerated x100. However if in 12 months this place does a 180 and is full of TYs instead of Claude's, you would quickly find me looking like the new Lionsden.

That Burnley game has been typical Liverpool under Klopp tho infact it's been typical Pool since Rafa's reign, geuinenly wouldnt surprise me if they dropped points or failing that made a serious drama out of beating Hull this weekend. They remind me of our team few years leading up to Roman's takeover, I remember us Ranieris first full season beat United 3-0, Liverpool 4-0 the result sandwiched in between? A 1-0 loss at home to Charlton. Liverpool on a good day can win well anywhere, even the Camp Nou, but in a 38 game league slogg I question whether they have enough. They could be like what our pre Roman team was, a great cup team (so for that reason I hope they miss out of top 4, hearing about Istanbul even to this day is beyond irritating), but I'd be amazed to see them win or challenge the title.

I have three close Arsenal supporting mates, all of which think Cech is well past it and should be dropped for Ospina, just saying!!

Quite the contrary with Baba, i saw people massively over exaggerating his displays due to the desperation for Ivan to be dropped. Some games he was beyond hopeless and i went to his thread to witness a wankfest, not even Torres had such hopeless displays sugarcoated that much. That was one of the reason's a few people (me included) pointed out that he is actually rather average. Infact the only thing that would have really changed swapping Ivan for Baba is which flank the opposite manager would have targeted. Regarding Alonso however, i do hope we start bleeding him into the team in the PL starting at Hull and hopefully he is 10 times an improvement on Baba.