Tomo

Why do so many people act like two games are the same? We won this tournament the same season McLeish and Pardew won at The Bridge ffs.

While it was far from a vintage performance dreadful is a wild exaggeration.

Even though it will knock us out of the top 4 I feel a West Ham win is better. Need Leicester to be dragged in just incase the unthinkable Liverpool/Arsenal European double happens or Liverpool suddenly recapture title form and drift off into the distance.

If anything he's even more a first choice under Tuchel. Apart from Wolves the only games he hasn't started under the German is because he's been rested for rotational purposes or suspended, Lampard benched him a lot more often than is believed, especially in big games.

Isn't that just a by-product of inconsistentcy? The team that finishes 17th probably spend 2/3rds of the season "getting lucky".

Despite his unbelievable personal stats Dortmund as a team have got worse as a team since he's joined. Not nesseserily saying we should pass on him due to that but it's also not something that we should ignore, especially with how good Kai looks as a false 9 (and more importantly how fluid him playing there is making us look) not just for us but at Levekusen aswell.

City this season and Liverpool of the last few years show if you put an appropriate player at F9 it can be devastating..

About that....

There's been signs for a few weeks that our forwards were slowly starting to play their way into form and it appears to be truly happening at the perfect time. If we have Pulisic on the restart form with Havertz and Ziyech following suit we have a very strong chance at achieving our aims.

If we somehow manage to bugger up the Porto tie they'll likely be many reasons for it but I'm pretty confident in saying that people discussing the possibility of winning it won't be one of them. It's an unavoidable by-product at this stage, part of the fun of this competition is the dreaming side of it.

Where?

3rd choice will sound even better.

We have won six games in a row against Palace. If we're going to peddle this "they play like their lives depend on it vs us and roll over for our rivals" narrative/early excuse can we atleast save it for a team that actually have an alright record for us?

Maybe I've officially gone mad but I really don't think he's playing that badly. Inexcusable goal drought for sure but he's still been contributing and making key assists (case in point last round Vs Leti).

Remember when he was inferior to Loftus Cheek and was going to get dropped under a "proper manager"? Good times!

Well every big game win under Tuchel so far Werner has started. So his inclusion is clearly working in these type of games.

Hopefully Real see the tie out meaning if they do the chance of getting 4th and still losing our CL place will be over.

Speaking of the market that's my one worry with TT, his record isn't that great in that respect. Luckily I think we only need a couple of players instead of a total overhaul (I actually believe most of our signings will come good) but still the links to Jonas Hoffmann are making me a little tense.

And Steve Bruce done the double over Ancelotti. As good as they can be for banter head to head records mean shit in the grand scheme of it.

If Arsenal win the Europa it should seriously raise the question on whether the winners of that tournament should get Europa going forward. If that mess end up playing CL football it would be wrong on so many levels.

Nothing sums up our dominance over Arsenal in the last close to two decades than them still losing ground to us on a weekend we get stuffed at home to West Brom!

It's actually mental that Arteta is still in a job, that club are finished.

May aswell get a laugh out of this!

Usually I absolutely hate the international but this time I was almost glad for it. Not for the international games but for the breather from everything Chelsea related, it's been absolutely relentless since the restart in June and it was good to get a bit of time to refresh and get set for what could end up being another relentless marathon of do or die games every few days.