EskWeston

Are you saying that Clarke has no choice but to work under Scolari? Clearly he wasn't happy working with Grant, and who can blame him, but he certainly seems happy enough working with Scolari and i think that came across very well when he was on Chelsea TV phone in a while ago.

We have still got 2 players for every position, which leaves us cover all over the park - and quality cover too. Has Anelka had a poor start to the season? I certainly wouldn't say so, he has missed some chances to score, OK but i think he has still done well so far. Also we have Di Santo for striker cover. It was certainly time for Maka to move on, i don't think there was any doubt of that, and we have enough midfielders to cover. We are sitting top of the league at the moment, and we have lost 1 player to a long term injury. I don't think it is time to start worrying yet. Our squad is top class, it is certainly smaller than last season thats for sure but if you ask me thats a good thing.

I may be stating the obvious, but why would Steve want to leave being number 2 at Chelsea behind Scolari to being number 2 at West Ham under Zola. If Steve leaves it will be to be a number 1 somewhere surely?

Missing one player long term isn't going to kill us. It was said all along and it was the right thing to do to trim the squad right down. Scolari wanted Deco and Robinho - he got Deco missed out on Robinho but was clearly happy to carry on without him if it didn't happen. One of the reasons for the smaller squad is so that Scolari can have space to bring through some young players, he is a man who has done this in the past and looks set to do it again which is one of the clubs long term policies. If problems become so desperate then the young players are going to have to step which is what we want to see. I don't see a major problem just because Essien is out for a long time. We can cope, it will become difficult if more injuries get picked up but how can you ever predict that.

Michael Essien suffered a knee injury playing for Ghana on Friday. He has ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament and will undergo an operation as soon as the majority of the swelling has subsided. We expect this to happen in a week's time. In the meantime Michael has started rehab in the aqua therapy centre at Cobham which will improve the condition of the knee prior to surgery. A return to full fitness is not expected for several months Source: Chelsea FC

I am sure they are, it is not exactly the most straight forward appointment by West Ham for many reasons. Just hope it doesn't go badl wrong for him if he does go there..

Having Mikel back is a massive boost...... Not sure what the injury situation is like with Ballack but having Mikel back is excellant news. We have quite a few games comming up now for the rest of September and we need as many fit players as possible to get through them all without any serious problems...

With Ballack and Mikel also injury concerns it does also leave us very thin, lets just hope that Frank and Deco stay fit!!!

The press seem to think the job is Zola's, that would make things very tough for us Chelsea fans thats for sure......

That would be a massive blow to us thats for sure, to lose Essien for that length of time would no doubt cause us serious problems. Lets just hope it isn't that long...

I would love to see us start using ex-players in our academy set-up, like a lot of other clubs do. I would have been great to have Franco guiding our youth to becomming the next stars. I wouldn't like to see him go there at all, he is far too good for them. But it will be good to see him get a bigger job on his way to being Chelsea boss one day.

The difference is with us it was the media saying we would buy this player or that. But with City, this guy is openly stating in interviews that he wants to sign these players. The Ronaldo one being the most obvious. I don't complain that they have the money at all, i think the competition at the top needs new blood. But i still want to see us stuff them, they will want to beat us a statement of intent.

Lol.. The thing i am going to find interesting is how long it will take until the press jump on City and start claiming they are bad for football. At the moment they are loving it, by saying that someone has come in who has a bigger bank balance than us. We went on a major spree to start with thats for sure, and we have slowed down the last couple of season. But these new City owners are really shooting their mouths off. They are playing their own version of fantasy football, and are going to make a bid for every top players their is and see what happens: Ronaldo Messi Van Nistelrooy Gerrard Torres Essien Will they get any of them? Who knows, Robinho went (which was different circumstances) Man you already saying they would have to consider £130m for Ronaldo, would Ronaldo go for the massive wages? he might just do you know..... As far as this game is concerned, they didn't improve drastically this summer, SWP and Robinho will feel they have points to prove.

It would be nice to put one over them and stick a few past them, bring them right back down to earth where they belong. Such big talking from them at the moment and the only improvement they have made is Robinho, which for them is amazing but one man can't have THAT much impact on a team, they are still the same side that struggled to get through their UEFA cup match....

Our lack of numbers in the squad may prove difficult for us this season. We are going to need some younger players to step up this season, and we need Scolari to put some faith into them. We can't be playing people out of position all the time. Hopefully Mikel will be back for City otherwise we only have Lampard and Deco for midfield, Joe could drop in there but i think it would mean either Belletti taking up the holding role again or playing 4-4-2

For me Mikel is an outstanding player. For his age he is at an incredible level. And considering how his career has been extremely stop-start for one reason or another it even more of an achievment. Mikel was class against Portsmouth and we have missed him for the last 2 games. Scolari seemingly doesn't want to play Essien in the holding role, which is good because it is not his main ability. When Mikle is fit, he will play if you ask me which will be great for him. I think we will see him come on even more this season and become an integral part of our team. The holding role isn't Mikel's natural game, not at all, but he seems to have embraced it and will now take it on as his persoanl role.

Joe had a good season last year. A bit up and down with the consistancy but overall i think he had a pretty good season. Faded a bit towards the end though, which may be understandable considering he played more games than anyone else. He has had a poor start to this season though (other than in an England shirt) but this could be because he is the sort of player who builds gradually into a season. He is still a fantastic player but i think he needs to pick it up a little this season. Saying all that he is still the best winger we have!

Not to mention Barton getting 6 games for kicking the s**t out of someone....

It is 12 games ban with 6 of those game suspended, which means that if he commits another offence he does the other 6 games too, if he is a good boy he will only miss 6 games.

6 game ban. Considering one of young players on loan got 12 months ban for spitting at a ref that is ridiculously lenient

Hardly terrible, we had more than enough chances to win that game confortably, just one of those games. Was frustrating but we played good enough to win that game. Spurs defended well to fair to them but we still could have burried them had we taken the excellant chances we had. When you look at our squad at the moment we have some excellant players in all positions, who will come in when called upon and do a great job. Injuries may be a concern for us this season should we suffer from many of them again. Di Santo and Kalou can play excellantly as centre forward should Scolari continue to want to play the 4 central midfielders.

Anelka can play effectively on his own, but with him it is all about the service, he likes to be running onto balls. Would be very interesting to see Didier and Anelka together. But i agree we are light upfront.

Would just be typical for one of SWP or Robinho to put one past us! I am sure Ashley Cole will be able to cope with SWP, just give him a bit of space and wait for him to run into him City's team isn't that strong still, and with Robinho in the team are not that much of a different prospect. We will have a MUCH stronger midfield than them and we should be able to keep their defence nice and busy to make sure Robinho doesn't see much of the ball.

Keegan would be a hero up there even if he got them relegated! He hasn't done anything great with them, lost more games than won! Can't help but keep laughing at the fan on SSN having a pop at Mike Ashley because he drinks non alcoholic lagar at the Emirates!!!

Really? I am glad to get SWP out of our squad. The time was right, he has had long enough and enough chances to prove he an cut it as the top level. It would have been perfect to get Robinho but now we havn't i am glad it will give hopefully Sinclair a chance to get more games.