Pizy

Simeone

Hopefully since he's so young he'll be able to regain 100% of his pace and athleticism. Those are obviously his biggest assets and it would be a tremendous shame if this derails his career for too long.

The season from hell claims another one. Christ.

It's gotta be because the club think he would somehow undermine the new manager by being such a huge influence over the dressing room. I think it may be a clue that Simeone indeed won't be our next coach, unfortunately. JT is the kind of warrior and leader that Simeone would probably love to keep around. If Roman wants more attacking, free-flowing football and has already been in contact with the new man maybe they've told him that JT simply doesn't fit their philosophy.

Simeone + a top quality creative force behind him and our attack would be absurd. A player in the #10 position who is actually prolific statistically would change us completely. Oscar is just way too inconsistent. Think about how dangerous Costa would look with an Özil type behind him. Fabregas has played well there recently but I still feel he's better further back. We need someone who defenders need to account for at all times and can free up Diego.

When Diego Costa is focused entirely on his football like he has been under Guus he's a monster and a huge annoyance to the opposition. His movement and clever runs are brilliant. Looks like last season's Diego prior to the injuries. When Hazard is reintroduced to the starting XI and with Cesc rounding into form we can hopefully unleash Costa even more. We'd be absolutely mad to even consider selling him back to Atleti. Can you imagine him with a top class #10 in behind him or a mobile second striker like Griezmann? My word!

Slaughtered from wide areas over and over and over again. Inevitable.

Hazard for Oscar would be my switch. Matić and Mikel grew into the game and we could use the protection.

Bossed for the opening 25-30, bossed it from then on. "Oh, look! We can play football too!" they said.

This is quite possibly as poor as I've seen us. Embarrassing football. Getting shit on by the worst United team in the PL era.

Jesus Christ, this is pathetic, man. We can't even pass the fucking ball. They have players like Fellaini out there stroking it around and we can't retain possession for longer than a touch or two. Infuriating.

Being penned in already and struggling ourselves to string together a couple of passes along the ground. Standard Chelsea start.

They have an inexperienced kid at fullback and a midfielder at CB. Having Hazard, Willian, or even Pedro interchanging across the attacking areas could have seen us really causing them problems. Instead, we have almost no width and two limited DM's.

This XI struggled against a promoted team yet we put it out again. How does it make sense? Hazard was instantly our most dangerous player after coming on and has admitted that he fully fit. How on earth isn't he starting?

Are you fucking kidding me with this lineup!? No Hazard AGAIN!? Do we want to win games?

Özil and Arse destroying a small team. Same old, same old.

I feel pretty confident as well. On the other hand, I remember how Martial destroyed Ivanovic repeatedly last time. It would never happen obviously, but playing Azpi on the right and Baba on the left would make a whole lot of sense here so Martial can be handled better. Iva is undroppable of course so I can forget about that.

Depends on our next manager. I'd have him back in a heartbeat if we appoint a more attacking manager or one who loves having loads of possession. If it's Simeone then I'd say no. Still love the little guy. Still good enough to play for a top PL club and too good to go back to Valencia. Just being used completely wrong at United.

Really hope that since we're home here we won't allow them to completely dominate the ball like they did last time we played them. If Hazard doesn't start I may break something.

What he said there is common sense, though. You win the title and should build upon the team to elevate yourself even further. You don't rest upon your laurels and feel content. Anyone and their mother could see that as the season went on we became weaker and weaker. When you don't bring in new, top class players the current lot didn't feel threatened or any pressure. They turned up fat and out of shape and comfortable knowing that their places weren't under threat. Most probably felt like our board did; that "oh, we won the title at a canter last season, we'll do the same this year." As City found out after their last title win, you can't buy a handful of average squaddies and no top quality first XI addictions and replicate the success when everyone around you improves. Of course Mourinho deserves plenty of blame for the fighting, the outburts, and the sometimes stupid tactics, but I can't help but feel that he would 100% still be Chelsea manager today if we had had a brilliant summer like we did in 2014.

As predicted, the (justifiable) digs at our board have already started. Also, as if we didn't know, he CLEARLY had targets he wanted that the board utterly failed to secure and thought that the same squad was good enough to repeat.

I know they have a great shot at the title and play some decent stuff, but I just can't bring myself to appreciate Spuds at all. They're such a boring (in terms of their players) average side. They have about 2-3 good players surrounded by okay players. They'd be the lamest PL champions ever in my opinion. Benefitting so much from ourselves and United being down. I think with us appointing a great manager and Mou going to United they'll go right back to where they belong in the 5-7th range.

My order of the 4 mentioned would be: 1) Simeone 2) Conte 3) Allegri 4) Sampaoli Simeone in my opinion would be the only sure thing. He's still a risk as any manager would be, but I feel like we have the kind of squad that would serve as a great base with which to build around. He brings in a few of his type of players and we'll compete for the title next season.

Odds Roman will be on the phone with Claudio to return?

I don't think so. I just think they have brainless CB's and Yaya has been checked out since the start of the season. He's useless when he isn't up for it.