Blue Armour

My opinion is that he's the best of our sorry bunch. I'm just saying that Hazard should be the last person on the squad to be scrutinized.

Honestly hope we can nick one player from United next season....payback if nothing else. Either Martial or Luke Shaw

Our top scorer he is.

And what is the bigger picture? Replacing him with 3 Drinkwaters or 3 Barkleys? (The irony is that after all the recent results, its Drinkwater that's hankering for a move. Wouldn't mind that actually. Probably means Loftus-Cheek can come back and take his spot) Hazard is the closest we've had to a Zola, Drogba or Lampard. Its pretty much guaranteed that we won't get even one, let alone 3 players of that quality.

Young was a poor choice of words. I meant someone who still doesn't have much experience of leading the line as first choice striker. Plus, at 25 there is still every chance of improvement. You can't say he's at his peak.

Think he's still working back to the player he was. Especially before the winter break...was very deadly when he first started playing for us. As a young player, I think he still deserves more than a second chance. Just need to see how confident he was playing in the first game against Utd: Heck even Bakayoko was playing so well back then.

Eden Hazard: Chelsea must come together to 'achieve something' http://www.espn.com/soccer/chelsea/story/3449934/eden-hazard-chelsea-must-come-together-to-achieve-something

Yeah good full-backs are a must. Luke Shaw would be a good pick considering our options (or lack of options due to the CL spots). Not sure if Mourinho/Utd would be kind enough to return the favor we did with Matic,

To me the 3 at the back formation is the best thing and the worst thing that Conte brought to the club... Best because of the obvious reasons.. Bad because we've stockpiled on players suited to this formation., and also because we seem stuck with it, unable to revert to any traditional 4 at the back formations to yield any success. To me, this is the biggest cause of concern at the moment. It might have been a better situation if we had smart, skilled wingbacks on both sides but that's not the case. We are suspect defensively and playing with a handicap in terms of attacking options.

On the topic of long term vs short term... I guess the clues were there from the beginning of this season, when they didn't opt to extend Conte's contract length. Clearly learning from the Mourinho debacle. Looks like the club was always fearing for the worst.

True that. Cech b/w 2008-2009 was in horrible form. Thankfully we never gave up on him, and we reaped the benefits because of that. Lousy defense in front usually results in lousy goalkeeping. Just look at Cech at Arsenal. Courtois is having a terrible season, and people can pick plenty of games and fish plenty of newspaper quotes to bash him. I will admit that the Barcelona game was terrible for a keeper of any standard. But his record with us in seasons prior, has been decent overall. IMO, goalkeeper is one of the last positions on the starting eleven I would want to dive into the next transfer market for. Plenty of other squad roles that need filling before that.

Legendary Didier Drogba charges Chelsea ahead of London derby http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/legendary-didier-drogba-charges-chelsea-ahead-of-london/5rh4z6lxy7zy1n1km3bp494o6

Time to find out if he really hates Tottenham

Exactly my thoughts...there's also that stupid ballboy incident that the opposition fans (and occasionally the media) like to bring up just to paint a nasty picture.

There should be no doubt regarding that...the players we've gone for are mainly to strengthen our '5 at the back' formations. He might have got his 2nd or 3rd choice picks for the positions, but they are definitely his picks.

Well he can't ignore a question when asked right? There is a thing such as media relations..I think its just his polite way of saying that its not the right time to discuss. After all, its a two-way street...the contract renewal is not up to Hazard alone.

Sounds like a precaution more than anything... Even the NT won't take chances with the WC being so close.

Yeah, I think Conte himself won't have an excuse for that... Going by his 'more money = more results' theory, its fair for the 2 Manchester clubs to be ahead....not Liverpool, or Tottenham however..

I said the same for Morata, but Baka's confidence is completely shot. Its even worse than Morata I would reckon.

Not saying these are the reasons for his poor play....but Baka is younger, hasn't gone through career threatening injury and is very new to the premier league. I would definitely give him a chance over the 3 you mentioned. But whether he get's that second chance with us, is the question.

Yep, Eden is the single most important player in this squad right now. You can always spend millions on 'potential' but you can never guarantee that you'll get quality like the stuff he produces for the team. People are always quick to blame everything on the first thing that comes to mind. The fact that Messi scored a couple of goals on counters is enough to mask all of Eden's contributions over the two legs.

Yeah, the CL is the biggest stage of them all. His lack of performance in these kind of games is no doubt due to mentality. To some players, like Willian and Alonso, they're able to naturally raise their own games to perform at their best. I think in the case of Hazard the spotlight has got to him a bit. Personally, I feel he is suffering from the lack of a guiding figure like Drogba/Eto'O/Lampard in the squad to ease his nerves. Basically players that have already won the lot. He's now one of the longest serving players right now, and has all the responsibility of carrying /inspiring the his team to the next stage. I feel if he was paired with another quality player, (who is also an experienced winner), he could do much more in these types of games.

Well regardless of his quality,... I'm sure you'll admit that its better for us if he doesn't have a desire to leave.

Lets look at it this way. Regardless of whether you think Hazard is WC or not, he is the least of our problems in this squad. We have plenty of other positions that need strengthening, and we need to strengthen it to support him, cause he's our best regardless of where he stands next to the elite. If someone argues that we can sell him for millions and re-invest in good prospects to improve the squad...well you only need to look at our track record and see what will happen. The likelihood is that you'll end up with a Liverpool/Tottenham squad that hovers around the top 4 spots, but is shite at just about everything else. And then we won't get a sniff of a player close to Eden's quality and will have to pray to the football gods for a Lampard or JT to come along through the youth ranks.

As much as I support Conte...it is the manager's job to turn players head and bring them back to the fold. Imagine if Scolari had ended up removing Drogba for not getting along with him...you don't give up players like that on a whim. The same (albeit to a lesser extent) to Matic as well. We gave him up without being sure if his replacement was up to the task. The Barcelona game and our entire season is an symptom of us shooting ourselves in the foot.