Tomo

After the pro Rafa brigade at the beginning of last season, nothing can surprise me anymore.

You haven't seen anything yet.Let's hope Costa gets back on form soon else the bring back Lukaku brigade will be back.

That's the grass is always greener side for you. Almost every time we dropped point's in the first 6 month's of Mous return all we heard was "well Rafa........" If a Chelsea player feels under appreciated by supporter's all they have to do is leave, then suddenly they were always rated.

Robben, Cech

Two in one of the best league's in the world, like I said one of those two a solo run which made half our team look silly.

Jermaine Beckford scored 3 in 4 against us not long ago, including a solo run from his own half before slotting home. Im not saying you are right or wrong, but I can name many Tom, Dick and Harrys that have a decent scoring record vs us.

He was given Capital cup starts, now that's not much, but to break into a Jose Mourinho side you need to take those little chances, Azpilicueta had the same problem last season at the beginning that Salah did this, Cesar however made the most of his opportunities and is now one of Mous trusted player's. Ultimately if you toss up chances against lower league sides, you won't be making the league lineup, especially for the league leaders.

What we can all agree on is it's quite nice to watch this race from afar instead of being in the thick of it ourselves. The title race is nice pressure compared to that.

So it's rubbish, so if we play Everton and tell our winger not to work back, who protects our full back against Baines running forward and overlapping his winger?

3 matches left until the ban goes up to 15 yellows so hopefully he holds out.

Why the same breath? Oscar is miles ahead in the defensive/off the ball department. Coutinho is worse than Mata in that regard.

I can only look in amazement at how he has kept Tibo and Cech both happy enough and performing to their maximum. Could you imagine AVB, Rafa or Scolari or any other manager pulling this off? Neither are probably thrilled when they don't play but there hasn't been any murmurings of discontent and both give it their all when selected. I thought the Cech and Cudicini combo was as good as it was ever going to get but I was wrong. I knew Mou was an excellent man manager but this takes the piss.

These are the type of games which aid a title race, so much more so than Swansea 5-0. Going to Big Sams manor is never never easy, and we fort. I remember someone at the start of the season saying we could do the 'tika taka' if needed but can also roll our sleeves up and play the Wimbledon way, that will set us up in good stead for years, especially when alot of our rivals have purists who are a slave to 'philosophy'.

Come on, West Ham haven't rolled over for many. We have such a big advantage thanks to WHU and QPR taking points off City. Yes two clubs that hate us and allegedly roll over for our rivals.

West Ham will do what Allardyce teams at home to the big boys always do, get in our faces and try to unsettle oreven bully us. Look at how his Bolton side always downed Arsenal or even WHU beating us under Rafa.

Id rather have Cech in midfield than play the Rami, Cesc pivot. It's hard not too think that when that combo have shipped 4 in half an hours playing time.

Turnbull yes, but like I said to Didier, im not atall convinced the Schwarzer off last season was better than what Hilario gave us circa 2006-2011.

I didn't say he was a failure, however I thought he wasn't anywhere near as good as made out (maybe our standard's went down after suffering with Turnbull for so long).In his prime a brilliant keeper but last season im not sure he offered anything more than Hilario circa 06-11 did (who was a lot better than given credit for) in terms of decent to fill in but struggle with a run of games, and let's be honest, if Hilario performed like Mark did against Sunderland and Leti at home (the two games that derailed our season) he would have got no end of abuse.

The funny thing is Terry being bad on highline stuff was created during the AVB days, but lets be honest that was more the management, out off our defenders David Luiz and Ivanovic were the only one's that weren't a complete mess under Andres management. We have played high at times this season and even last and he has been absolutely fine, some people to this day still underestimate just how much of a clever footballer and defender this guy is.

To add an extra body to the squad possibly, but to fill JTs boots? not even close.

You mean the timing off our return fixtures? I knew that what I meant was that last time we played West Ham, City played West Brom when this time they have Leicester. They have mixed up the fixtures a bit from Boxing Day and December 10th-11th, Spurs, Leicester, Villa, Swansea, Man. City and West Brom are playing there return fixtures from that weekend while the rest are replaying there boxing day fixtures, then soon (when we go to Hull) we swap. Can only recall that being done once before and that was in 04/05 our Arsenal game at home got moved around because of it.

No it's not only his fault of course not, but he deserves his fair portion of the blame for that season, some of his decisions were ridiculous. Watching games that season were painful, we played terrible football, ten times worse than anything else we have ever played, we were horrendous.Im still scarred by that game against Liverpool for Fernandos debut, who the fuking hell gets tactically done a kipper by Kenny Dalglish To his credit some of our performances in the double season were incredible, in terms of from minute 1-90 Stoke at home is the best I've ever seen us play, but if I had to pick the ten worst displays ever from a Chelsea team, 10-11 would dominate that list, with Sunderland and Liverpool at home leading the way. Also we were never winning that league, even if we won in Manchester we would have had to win at Goodison by a higher score United beat Blackpool at home, even that it was an embarrassment how we handed United the easiest title decider possible.

And we have done just that in many big games since Mous return. Arsenal at home twice, Liverpool at home (anyone other than us scores a goal like Hazards equalise and that would have been used by all insundry as the way footballsshould be played), City at home last season (extra forward brought on), United away this season before the last twenty. United home. Fergie adopted this type of approach in his last decade in football management, many big games he "parked the bus" every bit as much as Jose did, including against Barcelona in 2008 with arguably his best United team. There will be big games were we defend really deep, but there will be many like the Liverpool game last season when we pressed them high, went all at them and they simply couldn't cope.

Is it tho? I can only recall it happening once before and that was 04/05, when did it happen other than that?

The evidence so far suggests not, he let AC Milan stagnate before his eyes and they still haven't recovered, we only did because Munich helped speed it up.His second season was woeful, the second place finish was because 3 teams bottled it worse (71 points doesn't get top 4 most season's), we had that fast start on the title rebound but after that we were woeful, the football was stagnant and sterile and Carlo was doing absolutely nothing to change it, his idea of pragmatism was starting one of Anelka and Kalou and swapping them round after an hour. Let's not forget naming lineups in the presser, lets just say when he announced Bruma was facing Villa, if Houllier wasn't planning on playing Heskey then that quickly changed. When the going's good under Carlo thing's are good, but in adversity is when he tends to get found wanting.