Tomo

Signing Gallas really screwed JT over.

Swap RLC for Kakuta and that will be what was said in the Neymar thread 4 years ago.

Yes but Poyet last season picked up four point's off City which could have been off huge benefit to us if we didn't mess up against Palace and Norwich. Sometimes a top team just turns it on and there's nothing they can do, it ain't rolling over, I mean we are top thanks to QPR and West Ham drawing and winning vs City respectively, which is ironic because I have seen those teams be accused of rolling over for our rivals in the past.

Does it? I wouldn't say AncelottI was better than Mou or Fergie despite more CLs.

He's been on his last legs since 2010 apparently.

There was a season, I think 06/07 or 07/08 where SAF basically stuck with the same team all season, Arsenals "invincibles" barely rotated neither did Peps Barca, our double winning side also was the same team for most iff the season. Also Rafa would have won the title in 2009 if he didn't piss about with the team leading to constant home draws to mid table teams.

I don't really get that, before 2014 we won 17 off our previous 18 games against Sunderland in the prem including 9 in a row at The Stadium of Light before the 0-0 last November.Funnily enough if we beat Burnley with minimum fuss at Stamford Bridge next month, City fans will probably say that Burnley only show up against them.

Far far too much is made of this supposed lack of rotation, a lot of teams have been successful by picking a best Xl and sticking to it. Infact I would say rotation does a lot more harm than supposed tiredness can ever do. Infact look at the way we played vs WBA, Schalke and West Ham, would we have put such high level displays if we constantly rotated the team? Not a chance.

Swansea are the most over rated team in this league, must win.

It's a different rule these days, I think Rodwell got one last season despitw only playing just over 100 minutes.

Yeah but there is only so much the club can do if the player's don't have the commitment long term, this isn't just a problem with Chelsea but football in general. I mean it's not like we haven't tried to integrate youth, we released experience to make way for youth in 2010, then it was pretty obvious quite early those player's weren't good enough so we had to burn out already ageing first teamers. Breaking into a top squad isn't easy, you have to go through lots of hurdles to get there and even then it might not be enough. Do I want a academy player(s) to make it here? Of course, however giving them vital squad places that they haven't proven they can cope with? Sorry we tried that once, and it messed us up to the point we were in transition for 4 years (if it weren't for the miracle of Munich god knows how long it would have took).

Tibo and even Sturridge to an extent show that great loans will be rewarded.

Fair enough Harry Kane was a bit of a bad example, however if our player's impress on loan they will keep getting higher loans until they are impossible to ignore, like with Tibo, rightly or wrongly they will need to hit that level out on loan to be a first teamer. Where I think we could do better is use the decent products as squad player's like say Jack Cork, in fact he should have been one of the one's we promoted in 2010. However I don't believe Jose is this youth hating maniac he is portrayed to be, the fact he has given a number of player's debuts shows he has an interest, I know on the outside it seems easy to give Solanke 20 minutes when were 5-0 up, but for the immediate interest it would have been easier to bring Salah on to build his fitness. Also in his last spell he had clear intentions to promote Hutch but the unfortunate injuries prevented that, and he started giving gsmes to Scott Sinclair (even threw him on against Arsenal when we needed another goal to stay in the title race) until he broke his metertarsal and by the time he recovered Jose was gone.

Harry Kane had many loans including having to drop down to the Championship after flopping at Norwich now look at him. He could have given up and thought fuck this when Spurs signed Adebayor then Soldado instead of promoting him but he kept going and is now reaping the rewards. Chalobah, McEachran, Kakuta etc got lost in the loan system because they didn't perform, these managers will only play them if they deserve to play.

DP

Exactly and people also don't realise that for one Pogba there's a Drogba or even Grafite (who wasn't even a professional aged 23).

Take Terry out of OUR side and you will see what leaking goals like a seive means.

Quite gutted by this as he's an ideal number 3, what's interesting is what will his position be at Leicester. Im assuming Schmeichel will remain number one when fit, so is he jumping above Hamer in the pecking order? Would make no sense to swap being Chelsea number 3 for Leicester number 3, with all due respect to the Foxes.

If Hazard's on the pitch it should always be him unless there's mitigating circumstances, that's the beggining, the middle and the end of it. Jose should tell the squad that under no uncertain terms aswell, cause Eden seems like he would give the penalty up if he is pressured enough, he's already done it with Didier.

I read somewhere if it was a loan City would have had to re register meaning he couldn't have played vs Sunderland. But because it was a contract he could just extend like that and carry on as normal.

Good question actually. There was that miss vs Charlton in 2006 and then the FA Cup final vs Pompey, if there wasn't one in between then yeah. Then again Didier was almost flawless from the spot for us, apart from WHL (which ironically he took instead of Frank) I can't recall him missing one.

You can only imagine the comments if Jose extended the contract of a 31 and 28 year old CBs while freezing out the best young defender in the world. "short sighted Jose" "typical Jose only ever thinks about the here and now, that's why he will never succeed long term anywhere" But because it's Ancelotti, not an eyelid will be batted.

Tbf, judging by Mata's penalty record for us, was that a bad thing?

Time to start PL games me thinks.

Our revenge for Lampard!!!!!