Blue Armour

Honestly don't care about these Madrid rumors/speculation. Rather focus on the now. Hazard is happy and both him and Chelsea are performing. And for anyone getting nervous..remember,.. in the past two decades we've been through the Zola era, the Lampard era, the Drogba era . Right now we're in the Hazard era.

'We can challenge against Liverpool and Manchester City': Eden Hazard confident Chelsea CAN push for the Premier League this season after draw https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-6222655/Eden-Hazard-confident-Chelsea-push-Premier-League-season-Liverpool-draw.html

No offence to the Hungarian club, but I almost did a double take when I first saw this fixture on Google. 'Videoton' looked more like a placeholder name than anything.

FA at work I guess. They want to make every one of our fixtures as dramatic as possible.

Agreed.. I was hoping we could just keep him on for the full 90 mins today I think Sarri wanted to give Ross a fair chance, but I'd wish he'd pass on that for this big game. Would have even preferred Fabregas who would have allowed us to keep the ball and turn the pressure on Liverpool.

Not really an interesting topic for me, but I could argue that City have something going on atm. I would have fully agreed with you a couple of seasons ago. Aguero, Silva and Kompany have been around a long time now, and have been consistent performers when selected and have forged some connection with the club. But if you were to talk about personalities? Then I'd agree,. Barring Kompany, none of them would compare with the True Blues. Especially that Aguero. Disliked him ever since his revenge tackle on Luiz. I can see where you're coming from though. Our core group of big characters were responsible for the trophies we won in 2012, despite our obvious weaknesses. Not many teams can pull that off.

Meh. Annoyed at how it ended but not too concerned about this result. Remember, we are still a work in progress. Sarri said it will be until end of October by the time we reach full power. Onwards and upwards.

Jamie Carragher also giving an honest assessment.

I've said this before..and I'll say it again. One thing I've always liked is how Hazard has this connection with the previous generation of Chelsea greats... JT, Lamps, DD and Joey Cole. Played with all of them and all of them are big fans of his. Now he has one more admirer in Zola.

Chelsea legends John Terry & Didier Drogba react to Eden Hazard goal against Liverpool Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/27/chelsea-legends-john-terry-didier-drogba-react-to-eden-hazard-goal-against-liverpool-7983416/?ito=cbshare ttps://metro.co.uk/2018/09/27/chelsea-legends-john-terry-didier-drogba-react-to-eden-hazard-goal-against-liverpool-7983416/

The 'unselfish' play is just Hazard being Hazard. I don'think we'll ever see him change that aspect of his game, and I don't think he should. But if I have to criticize, and I'm sure Hazard would also wonder the same, is why he never switched flanks earlier on instead of staying on the left and occasionally drifting to the center. He was being double man marked by both Zabaleta and their CM (can't remember the name), and Pellegrini admitted afterwards that that was their plan from the beginning. Nullify the Chelsea's left hand side attack, rendering the Alonso-Hazard combo ineffective, since that is our strength. This isn't the first time Hazard has been man marked. He's experienced it several times since Herrera did that to him. His best bet to get out of this trap, is to drag his man markers out of position, and that's what would have helped when he was getting double teamed upon on the left hand side. All our best attacks in the 2nd half happened when him and Willian swapped positions around the time Morata came on. Hazard I'm sure would have realized this. Whether he didn't do so earlier because of the manager's instruction, I don't know, but i hope he can rectify this in other games moving forward. He knows the solution, but for some reason didn't click in this game. I guess you could put it down to this being one of the first games of the season.

I think it's wishful thinking to expect a completely different XI. I would be delighted to even see CHO on the bench. But I doubt it, based on recent evidence

I really hope so. But I really doubt it Expect to see a near full strength lineup, similar to the Europa league one. From what I've seen, Sarri is very pragmatic. I doubt he'll change much considering he wants the team to bounce back asap, and that too against a strong side. He certainly won't trust a 17 yr old to do it. The best we can hope is that he makes the bench. But I doubt that either

Be interesting to see the kind of lineup he picks for this one.

I guess these kinds of games can happen. The players like Jorginho and Hazard were too rushed trying to do something in the 2nd half. Led to sloppy passes and giveaways. And Rudiger injury ruined things. I bet Sarri wanted to bring on Fabregas for Kante who was not influencing this game. Cesc could have really helped in the latter stages of this game

Well....that's how it used to be when we had the original big 4, and Alex Ferguson in the league

Lol...he does strike me as the Spanish superman with the blue kit. In looks at least

Yeah..my only gripe so far. Moses on the bench instead of Odoi. I think we can expect to see lineups like this until we have more or less secured the group stage. So another 2-3 more matches like this.

Those are Cardiff fans right? As I was watching this, I wondered whether he mistook them for Chelsea fans because of the blue colors. He isn't the type to troll opposition fans...not unless they gave him stick. In which case he would rip them open on the pitch, like he did against West Brom away last year, I think. Kind of like Drogba used to.

Drogba: 'The Prince of the Bridge'

Gianfranco Zola seen bowing down to Eden Hazard after Chelsea masterclass https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/15/gianfranco-zola-seen-bowing-down-to-eden-hazard-after-chelsea-masterclass-7947687/

Use the blue one. And give it a yellow trim. Leave the tongue red.

Good idea, and I think that's what they had in mind (kits that you could wear outside) for this 3'rd one, judging form the ads for it. It just happened to be in THAT shade of blue. I miss some of the 'original's that Adidas had started to come out with, during their last few years with us. Some of their jackets/sweatshirts were neat. I have yet to see something like that from Nike.