Tomo

If we both play our second team's i can see us pipping them 2-1, a good KDB performance will give Jose a bit of food for thought.

wow, wow, wow, wow. Vital win, absolutely vital, being the home team the draw would always be the better result for City. Torres please, please, please atleast keep this form up, im still going to be cautious after previous false dawns but hopefully he can at the very least play well enough to mean we don't need to get a new forward in January, deserves credit for not hiding after his awful miss like he has in the past, and the winner in a big match too. Cahill i can't fault his effort, but i think Aguero was too clever for him, he's a dependable squad player tho, Ramires wow, Oscar tireless as ever. The big test now for us is the run of games we have coming up, last time we beat City at home we followed it up with a draw at Wigan, we have to build on this momentum now by getting as much points as possible in the run we have before Arsenal in December.

He had great players at Barca, but the Barca he inherited were just that, a team of talented individuals turned into the team everyone (apart from Chelsea ) feared more than any other. It annoys me when i hear the line "anyone can be good in that Barca team", it's totally ignorant to the work Pep done, he was just as important to their success under him as Messi, if not more.

Just goes to show how great Pep did with them, the fact he still has doubters is laughable.

No chance, United could have retired number 7 when George Best retired but then Erik Cantona. David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo would have wore different numbers. Like TX said a while back, football club's are eternal.

Carlo seems to be a one extreme or the other manager (if his time with us is anything to go by), it's either very good or very bad. We got to see both of those extreme's in his two season's.

The awkward moment when Real Madrid fans realize just how good Jose was for them.

By far? if anything a little bit, but by far? we finished 3 points behind them last season, the Ethiad game was the difference between the two teams, and that was with a paper thin squad and Benitez, we now have a strong squad and Mourinho. Whether they may be better is debatable, but if they are better than us, it's no way by the considerable distance you're making out. City are a very good team and will be up there, but that good we should be frightened off playing them at home? no chance.

Why are a fair few of you saying we will take a draw? We are the home team, they aren't as physical under Pellegrini and despite our overall record against City of late being shite, we have actually won 2 of our last 3 games against them at Stamford Bridge. If we were at The Ethiad it would be a different story, but unless it's the 2nd leg of a tie when we won away or a match that secures us the title, i can never be happy with a draw at home.

I think from day one Fergie and Mourinho knew they were a match for each-other, if that makes sense.

Bushman and Hazardous's action's have got this page into 5 pages, and i looked down at the other articles in this section where there is a couple of 3 page responses but mainly it's 2 pages or 1 page. Wasn't their this member outwithAbramovich who managed to bait 7 pages of response with the mere headline "Mourinho will ruin Chelsea"? his sole reason for signing up was to troll us and got 7 pages worth of response while a decent article below at the time was left commentless The tragic thing is, if today there's two threads created, one in depth analysis on how we have played this season while the other a one liner saying Mourinho's a crap manager who will get us relegated, the latter will get more responses. How the fuck is that even possible?

So basically what @Hazardous Oscar, is doing, is bringing up myth's and when those myth's get disproved by facts, he just ignored it and repeats the same myth with a few added insults, rinse and repeat. He did exactly the same in the Mourinho thread with the HD fella, looks like we have another Bushman on our hands, which means one thing, straight on my ignore list.

Ofcourse neutral fans are going to say that and what even define's good football? it seems to me to be known as a 'good footballing side' you need to play short passes, triangles and get physically battered away to Stoke. I don't see it as anti football, we have looked good in the last few games. Tottenham, Liverpool and United have been a lot more "anti football" or whatever it's called this season. I loved our side between 05-10 that could mix it about and force the opposition into submission, ill take that over short passes in the middle 3rd anyday.

Controlling games last season? Many times we were outplayed by even mediocre teams, apart from 8-0 against Villa, i cannot think of one match we controlled for any real length of time.

This isn't an attack on you, but it seems we can't like one player without supposedly not liking another. its like that with Schurrle and De Bruyne now it's the same with Mata and Oscar, it's getting ridiculous.

You do realize football is a squad game these days, right?

Hopefully we will get at them, City defensively aren't all that even with Kompany playing, and while Fernandinho and Toure can be devastating going forward, they aren't the best combination defensively. Pellegrini doesn't strike me as the kind of manager that will play cautious and settle for a point, which could play right into our hands tactically. It's going to be an awfully tough game, but this is as confident i have been regarding our chances against City since Mark Hughes was the manager at Eastlands. Got a feeling this might be the game the trademark 1-0 to Mourinho returns, with Oscar getting the winner in the second half. Even at this stage of the season, beating City will be massive.

The problem with Torres is he scores and plays well in spades, that's good for a squad player (as he has been this season) but as numero uno up front we can't afford to have a player who blows hot and cold, as we found out last season. Im happy he is on good form because it helps Chelsea football club but is Schalke and Tottenham games going to convince me he has finally made a spectacular turn around after the two and a half years he has served us? sorry buy it takes more to sway me and if he didn't cost £50m there would be a lot more people with the same view. Kalou hit top form under Ancelotti at the end of the double season too and helped us win the league, didn't change the fact he was an erratic squad player at best. I hope he can atleast keep up the good form he has done in recent weeks, but it going to take a lot more than that to sway my opinion.

Hey? most think he is a good member to have around the squad but won't get further than the squad role, which is no shame, every squad needs a Ryan Bertrand in it.

As i said to BM i probably worded it wrong when i said single handedly, but you can't say he didn't stand out like a star in that stagnant squad.

As good as he was tonight, it's still Luiz against City for me. Although it was a friendly, what happened against Madrid will happen again here (and in every big game, unless we defend with a low block) if Luiz does not play.

It's the 9th game so the question should be. Which two of our players are getting sent off this time?

What's the score with Kalas? could this be the game he makes his CFC debut?

Ok you win, he's back, he's going to be the best player in the PL this season, he makes Aguero looks shit.

@, is spot on, i don't think he was that great, but he scored 2 goals and i have always believed that if a forward scores i can forgive any other parts of his performance, so for tonight atleast, life is good.