Blue Armour

Before the pre-season began this year Fabregas himself had admitted that he was not the best defensively, but could do a good job if he had a couple of midfield partners who could do the leg-work. We get Kante to play alongside Matic, and lo, Oscar takes his starting 11 spot... Hopefully the result from this game means that he will reclaim his spot in the starting 11.

Its a shame that we don't have the right players to start with a 4-4-2 every week. IMO, for a 4-4-2 to work in this league, you need 2 conventional wingers who are always willing to track back and 2 CMs who are prepared to run like hell. Of course, if Cesc can adjust his game to try and control it from deep, without having to go forward as much during the game...him and Kante sitting back could make it work. But then we become overly reliant on the creativity of our wingers and forwards.

Terry, Drogba, Lampard, Cole....all of them want to eventually come back after their playing careers are over and work at Chelsea. Truly a special bond they have with the club and its fans.

Ridiculous...its been long overdue since we've had to reset this statistic.

Something like this? Probably should encourage Eden to shoot more often [media]

Cesc Fabregas keen to stay at Chelsea - Sky sources By Sky Sports News HQ Last Updated: 16/08/16 6:33pm http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11668/10538962/cesc-fabregas-keen-to-stay-at-chelsea-sky-sources

Not with Lukaku, sorry...Batshuayi offers more in terms of link up to me...Uses his physicality way better than Lukaku can and should

Have a feeling...no, actually, am pretty sure that working alongside Kante is making it easier for him. Now he can rush into tackles and interceptions, knowing he has Kante behind him to clean up in case he fails. Him and Kante together is like having a CB partnership in front of our actual CBs

He did the same in pre-season as well to set up Pedro, from a Fabregas pass IMO, he's the closest we have to Drogba in terms of playing style. Which is why I hope we don't get Lukaku, who I think will simply push Michy to the bench just because of his price tag

Kind of 'meh'...like the rest of the City attack in general. Sterling was the only one who seemed to be doing something up front for them. De Bruyne tried some shots from distance but did not hit them as well he normally does.

Yeah..the crowd's reaction,.(or more so, the lack of it) after Sunderland had equalized was as if they were losing their third game in a row or something. Their play was not that special today...Sterling tried something different, Stones kept misplacing passes...and now they have that weird goalkeeping issue with Hart being dropped. But tbf, its probably going to take at least a few more games, or maybe even this entire season before Guardiola can leave his footprint on the club. And he did say that their first few game might be something like this

Tbf, what he was implying back then was that everyone was trying to buy the title, and not just him.

Tomo, our resident mythbuster.

Cuadrado and Willian on the right wing may not be a bad idea,..considering that Ivan and Aina are the only alternatives

Well we're not exactly averse to leaving last year's POTY on the bench now, are we

Now that its nailed on that we will be starting with our dreaded back 4, its completely up to our midfield to deliver. Last season, we did not keep the ball well enough, did not guard against attacks through the middle.. and our back 4 were exposed time and again for the poor defensive line that they are. I hope that at least this time, we hang onto the ball much better and expose the back 4 to as little of the ball as possible. This should work until we play one of the bigger sides.

Its tough for him that both the captain and the vice captain happen to be part of the same dreaded back four, where we really need replacements. Even if he does sign someone, ousting the existing players there is going to be tough.

Love how chested the pass from Fabregas onto Pedro's path, reminded me of certain no.11 and no, I don't mean Oscar. And fans forced him to delete his twitter a/c? Are we sure they weren't actually trolls? I can't imagine why anyone would care about chances missed in pre-season. EDIT: It looks to be still up though.

FB and CB I hope. At least that's what it looks like until Ivanovic starts against West Ham.

Haha, my bad.

Hope he can secure a decent full-back soon. Aina is not quite there, and is making mistakes that put the team under pressure, and Ivanovic doesn't seem to have moved on from his horror show of last season.

Speaking of Kante, his replacement at Leicester, Ahmed Musa scored a brilliant brace against Barca earlier today. If they Leicester had the two of them together this season, it wouldn't have been unrealistic for them to successfully defend their title.