BlueJewel

I think Feruz' progress to the first team should be fast tracked, the boy is immensely talented, despite his height, he fantastic in the air and is no push-over, his two goals for Scotland gave a good summary of his abilities. He should be on the sub bench at least in the COC, FA cup and at the club world cup. Next season he should go on loan to a Championship club and come back ready to fight for a place in the first team. He along with Mceachran, Chalobah, Piazon and Kane are in my opinion the club's 5 most promising youth products.

Paying another 50 million for any player that is not Ronaldo or Messi is a huge gamble. I don't think Falcao is exactly what Chelsea needs, Neymar in my opinion would be a better fit to the style of play we've adopted. He is excellent on the ball, and has an eye for goal on top of that he's very young and could play for 12 or so more years at the highest level, if I was going to gamble another 50 million, I'd stick my bet with the Brazilian. Imagine a front four of Hazard, Oscar, Mata and Neymar!!!!!!!

I was very disappointed with Di Matteo last night, Shaktar run their lungs out during the first half and looked visibly tired in the second half, the logical thing to have done was to have brought on Moses and Sturridge a lot earlier to inject some pace into the game. Sturridge and Moses have both outscored Torres in the last 5 or so matches, surely, they deserve more playing time!

I think we'd win this comfortably, the boys would have more days to rest since the match is on a Sunday. I only have one request for Di Matteo, please take off Torres when he's looking useless, don't wait till the 90th minute to bring Sturridge on, pleeasss......

Why did Di Matteo wait till the 80th minute to make his first sub when the team was clearly not playing well? Moses barely had a touch before his goal,but boy, did he take it well. I think he deserves more minutes, Mata looked tired and should have come off for Moses earlier in the game. I hope he gets more significant minutes against Liverpool, he's earned it.

I rather we give Chalobah and Mceachran a chance than waste money on an attacking midfielder and play him as a make-shift CM. I was watching the football league show, yesterday and Mceachran was awesome, he was intercepting balls and laying perfect through passes, give Josh a year and he'll be starting for Chelsea. Chalobah is another wonderkid who despite his age is currently among the top CM's in the Championship and is getting favourable reviews from manager and fans alike. Chalobah and Mceachran over Alcantara any day!

I don't think Pep is the right manager for Chelsea, as good as he is he's unproven outside Barcelona, Rijkaard was great at Barcelona winning league titles and the Champions league but he's failed as a manager since he left the club. Robbie has an emotional attachment to the club, and has so far proven to be a fantastic manager, in fact his record as Chelsea manager is better than Pep's record with Barcelona within the same time frame, given another four years he could match Guardiola's record of three league titles and a Champions League. I hope Di Matteo remains the manager of Chelsea for a long time and Lampard or Terry takes over when he leaves the club.

Point of correction here, Atletico Madrid are traditionally not referred to as "Madrid" they're known simply as "Atletico" (Sorry for being a prick ). Anyway, Torres was quoted somewhere to have said that he was not ready to go back to Atletico. Even if he wished to go back, I doubt they'd be able to afford his wages, the best deal we could get for Falcao would be something like £40 million + Courtois + Torres on a years loan (Chelsea paying a huge portion of his wages)

I honestly think buying Falcao isn't the greatest idea, he's going to be as expensive as our own Torres and the media pressure on him might break him down. I think it would be better to find a cheaper alternative like Seydou Doumbia or Jackson Martinez (who already has scored 11 goals in his first 12 matches more than Radamel Falcao, Lisandro López and Hulk did in similar matches). I think we dodged a bullet with the Hulk transfer, if the management were not willing to pay crazy fees for him, I doubt they would for Falcao, with that said I'd be more than glad to back him if he signs for Chelsea.

He'll come good, he just needs more playing time, I thought he did quite well against Swansea. Romeu'll be more than adequate replacement for Mikel when he's out on International duty. The first choice central midfield partnership though is likely to be Lamps and Ramires. Chalobah would have returned from his loan deal with Watford and the two would be back-up for the first choice central midfield pairing.

I thought Di Matteo should have subbed out Torres in the second half, afterall he's going to start him on Wednesday. Torres had an OKish first half where he worked hard but didn't really threaten the goal. Moses up until that point was playing very well, the ideal situation would have been to keep Moses on and sub in Sturridge for Torres. I hope for the sake of the club that he puts on a better show against Shaktar but Di Matteo should have the guts to sub him out early when he's flopping, if he can't do it in 60 minutes why risk giving him another 30?

I think you're stretching it a bit, if I remember correctly Terry was in the team when we lost 5-3 to Arsenal at the Bridge, that was one of the worst defensive displays I've seen by Chelsea at home. With that said, I do believe the defense is much better with Terry than without him, Luiz looked like a proper defender when he partnered Terry but in the last few games he's made several mistakes which has cost the team goals.

I thought Sturridge had a difficult 90 minutes but he was excellent in the 30 minutes of extra time. People tend to be overly critical of him but I feel his situation is understandable. He just wants to prove to manager that he’s good enough to be starting on a regular basis, which sometimes gets him shooting from impossible angles. With that said he already has 2 goals to his name despite starting just one match (to put that into perspective England starter Welbeck has just a goal in 11 appearances) and could have had two assists in his last three appearances had Hazard and Moses finished off the sublime passes he gave to them. Daniel has all the assets to be a fantastic Chelsea striker, all he needs is some talking to and confidence from the manager, I can bet he’ll score at least 20 goals this season if he gets any reasonable playing time.

Am I the only one who thought the referee was very terrible? He failed to book Buttner for the foul on Moses which resulted in the first penalty, Wooton should have had at least three yellow cards in that match a straight red card for M. Keane when he brought down Sturridge when he was clean on goal, again Chelsea should have had a penalty when one of United's centre backs handled Mata's pass. Ramires was booked for a clean tackle, Hazard was pushed and fouled several times but no freekick was given. How United ended the match with 11 men is more incredible than the score line.

I thought Luiz did okay on the night, he wasn't really at fault for any of the goals conceeded including the own goal. He could have done better but I think he did okay. I was however disappointed with Cahill and how he allowed Van Persie to turn him inside out, the only logical thing he should have done there and then was to have "professionally" fouled Van Persie and taken a yellow card for the team, that yellow could have saved us two red cards, and possibly three valuable points against a potential title rival.

I'd start Sturridge against United, he's fresher and hungrier than Fernando. Torres has looked poorer since his return from Spain, he's no longer chasing balls or hurrying defenders. He needs rest but I doubt Di Mateo would take that risk but he should at least take Torres off a lot earlier if he is flopping.

I doubt Sturridge would be going anywhere, anytime soon. He's yet to be given a full match and in all his cameos so far this season, he's been very impressive. He's (or could be) an English international, so such stories are expected when he's not playing for whatever reasons, be it injuries or loss of form. Sturridge is an ambitious kid and wouldn't want to be playing in Europa or worst still battling for premier league survival with Liverpool. He'd rather play out his 1 and half years remaining on his contract and leave for a better club than Liverpool.

I have my doubts he'd be Chelsea quality material though. He's been called up for the Ghana NT, AFCON qualifier against Malawi, I'd probably take a better look at him if he manages to get some minutes.

How add users to my ignore list, my IQ dropped just by reading some of the posts above me.

Chelsea is the most supported foreign club in Ghana largely because of Michael Essien and the other African imports circa 2005. There're a lot of passionate fans down here who don't miss a single Chelsea match, which is always available on pay TV. This is my ranking of the most supported foreign clubs in Ghana. 1. Chelsea 2. Manchester United 3. Arsenal 4. Barcelona 5. Liverpool 6. Real Madrid 7. AC Milan

I think both Terry and Lampard will start this match after being rested on Saturday. Cesar and Moses will both make their full debuts, Turnball will start as he's the official second goalkeeper. Oscar and Hazard would both be rested after starting two matches in less than a week. Turnball Cesar - Cahill - Terry - Bertrand Romeu - Lampard Moses - Mata - Marin Sturridge(Piazon) Subs: Hilario, Ferreira, Luiz, Ramires, Oscar, Piazon,Torres

Di Matteo confirmed in his presser a few minutes ago that Abramovich was at the training ground, RDM said it was a fairly regular occurrence but he did not deny that Abramovich scolded the team.

Roberto Di Mateo set his team to avoid defeat rather than to go for the win. He was scared of losing after the drubbing at Monaco. He's forgetting though that the best form of defence is attack, you don't play a defender and a midfielder out of position on the wings and expect to create chance after chance. I guess this was the blow to some of us who had high hopes for this season, at this rate we would be in a struggle at the end of the season to qualify for the Champions League. I hate to criticize Di Mateo but it seems the only tactic he knows is Percentage football, even Allardyce tries to play good football these days....

Interesting interview of Sturridge when he went on loan to Bolton, he talked about the signing of Torres, Liverpool and life after Drogba and Anelka.

That's what you get when the manager is not in charge of transfers, when Di Mateo was quizzed about potential exits from the squad at the end of yesterday's match, he gave a frank answer that he had no clue who would be leaving before the transfer deadline.