Pizy

The powers that be will have a word with the ref to go easy. They'll want Spuds at their best for the marquee matchup on Wednesday. I never wish injury on players but....yeah...I kinda hope for a couple for Spuds. Hate the dirty bastards.

And to think at half time 90% of you were slaughtering Willian! Delighted with the 3 points, disgusted by the shambolic defending on both Stoke goals. What were our players doing!? They just stood off and stood off and looked like school boys who didn't know how to defend. Embarrassing. Cesc was superb. Costa brilliant. Willian found his shooting boots and was great in the second half. Azpi was nearly perfect. Hazard didn't really do much today which would've made things more comfortable.

That was vintage Tony Pulis Stoke there. Pack the box so there's no way through on the ground and lump it up to a giant striker. Need to get Hazard on to the ball more in space. Way too many long balls for my liking even though some were very effective.

Yikes if Luiz gets his 5th yellow today. Who would even come in for him against Spurs? That'll be a nightmare fixture without him. Especially if we drop points here.

Huge confidence boost for Cesc. If he gets space and time in midfield with all of Hazard, Pedro, Willian, and Costa up there he should destroy Stoke.

They'll probably play with like 5 midfielders in order to press and harass Matic and Kante the whole time. I think this'll be another annoying match like the West Brom and Sunderland matches rather than a comfortable one like Bournemouth. They'll probably do all they can to frustrate and negate us rather than actually trying to play football. Guess we have to get used to seeing that this season, though.

He's definitely a "win now" sort of signing rather than a long term one. I still wouldn't mind, though.

Like Verratti, Vidal would be an unbelievable signing. Also like Verratti, he's already at a big, super rich club who have no reason to sell and are in no need of money.

He's wanted by many of the biggest clubs in the world so I suppose he's super talented. Honestly, as long as he is strictly a Conte target and not a board target I don't care who we sign. We all scratched our heads at Alonso but he's been very good. He was obviously a Conte signing.

LOL! Right...

Also going to AFCoN this coming month so if we did sign him we wouldn't be able to use him any time soon. We'd have to wait about a month for the tournament to be over and then even longer than that for him to get up to speed with the squad.

Just comparing him on YouTube with Bakayoko who we were linked with last week and I think Bakayoko looks easily superior.

So if Conte doesn't think Bats is ready (meaning we have ONE striker in the squad) then surley another goal scoring attacking player should be brought in in January? What happens if Diego gets a long term injury?

Beginning to wonder if Batshuayi was even a Conte signing now. For the huge price we paid for him he's not even good/ready enough to start against Bournemouth at home? Conte trusts someone who isn't even a striker over an actual one? I trust Conte of course, but damn do I feel bad for Bats.

Just didn't improve at all in his time here. Wasn't great at any one aspect of football and was just decent at several. Also never helped that he didn't have a natural position.

Hopefully we don't pocket the money until the summer and we actually invest it to help us win the league this season.

Coming from Mourinho slappy #1 here during his time at Chelsea, the more he speaks now the more I dislike him. I now know how opposition supporters felt all those years. He really is a spiteful, jealous asshole. Like Styles said, he's trying to plant those seeds in everyone's minds that "yeah, Chelsea are efficient but they play boring, defensive football." This coming from the grandmaster of efficient, defensive football. He truly, honestly believes the shite he says about the table not being true. That even though United are miles behind they play this lovely, beautiful football and they should be in the top 2-3. It surely burns him inside to see his former club at the top whilst he's struggling. I'm going to pray each night that they finish outside of the top 4 again. See how much he whines and moans if he's got another season of Europa League football to deal with.

If the €70m figure is true I don't know why that would be a problem. A player like James for €10m net after the Oscar sale is good business. Huge upgrade on Oscar in every way.

Would be super annoying if he wants to come here, we don't want him, and he goes to a rival Pl club instead. This is the type of star quality opportunity that very rarely comes around. Like Sanchez, Özil, and Fabregas, James might be a fantastic player that falls right into our laps without us even needing to try too hard. What would make it even dumber not to buy him is the fact that we'd barely be spending anything on him due to the Oscar money. We'd be getting a world class talent for peanuts.

People always use Özil as a reason not to sign Real "rejects." We can make fun of him going missing in big games but he's the ultimate flat track bully in the PL. The small sides can't handle him. I'd gladly take James if he can do that. We have plenty of big game players to help him if he struggles.

Diego will be dethroned as most handsome Chelsea player? I don't think so, mate.

This is the thread of polar opposites. Hilarious. Half of the posters think he's world class whilst the other half think he's a midtable level player. Now I actually do hope we sign him to see the reactions if he kills it here.

Just hope that if he doesn't move to us he also doesn't go to one of our rivals. Here or PSG/Italy, please.

I'm gonna guess that this is yet another lazy media story. Remember when Pogba was spotted in London and was therefore surely signing for Chelsea? Or when Hulk was in a random private plane and everyone said "HE'S ON ABRAMOVICH'S PLANE!!!!1" A Colombian player goes home to Colombia. Shocker.

Think his age would rule him out for us. That and like James, he doesn't exactly fit into the 3-4-3, does he?