Blue Armour

MISSING! Last seen: Someone please return him!

While I would prefer Courtois over Begovic, I don't like the fact that Begovic has been completely shut out of every one of our games... If you can start Traore up front, what's the harm in having Begovic keeping for one game? No competition provided for Tibo...

There's banter, and then there's crap like "Falcao is still omitted from the squad"... But yeah, our record at home is definitely wanting..

Fact is we can have Begovic in front of goal instead, and I can almost guarantee that we will still not have a clean sheet

Hit the nail on the head. Just take a look at the number and quality of chances Diouf had in front of goal today. Its easy to look at the one goal we conceded and point the finger at Courtois, when in reality the Belgian prevented them from going further than that. No question our defense has been making life difficult for our keepers...Even Begovic would put in solid peformances for us only to concede because of the barrage of shots coming in from the opposition.

Absolutely refuse to blame Courtois for this one. If at all he helped restrict them to 1 goal Stoke were continually getting behind our back four all game. If Diouf had been sharper in front of goal, it could have been a much worse result Our defense has sucked since start of the season, and hasn't really improved since..clean sheets are rarer than rare at this point.

So true Tomo, never can underestimate the impact of full-back who has a flair for attacking... Ashley himself started out as a forward if I'm not mistaken...

Yaya Toure what a glory hunting player....their keeper practically won it for him and his first thought is to run away on his own to claim the spotlight for himself... Compare this to Drogba whose first thought was to run to Cech after the Munich game... And to be honest, I don't know if I can stomach City winning over Liverpool...it gives us a shot at Europa which in itself is a double edged sword...other than that...

I think a lot of supporters will agree with the emboldened portion of the quote. There is no clear cut identity to our style of play at the moment, so the next window will be crucial to see if we can finally get it right....both with manager and with players.

DAFUQ?

And who would've thought it would've come against Southampton, the 2nd most in-form team atm, at their home stadium..

Haha, did he finally cut his long hair?

Choulo, when I see some of your posts regarding Mikel I wonder whether you genuinely like him or its just sarcasm showing...

First piece of news with quotes from someone who could actually be in the know? http://www.football-italia.net/80149/moratti-mourinho-manchester

C'mon mate, not all on the same page

Hazard needs more love than he gets from some of the fans... I find it hypocritical for the same people to diss Hazard, and reserve special praise for Mata. Let's not forget, when the chips were down for Mata under Mourinho, he was the one who didn't bother to stay and fight for his place or try to improve his poor form at the time. He was the one who actually left in the middle of a season, and that too when there was a chance to fight for the title. Not Hazard. Just because he has never had a prolonged bad spell, or because he writes a blog about how he likes the fans of the club, I don't see why he should be put on a higher pedestal. And unlike Hazard, he has never driven the team to go and win a league title. In case anyone is curious, I'm a big fan of the Spaniard and am very grateful for his time here..., but if he can get special rounds of applause every time he sets foot in Stamford Bridge, then Hazard deserves as much if not more.

Sarcasm aside, who else would you have chosen to play in defensive midfield from our squad? Especially with Matic also suspended..

Not to mention the timing of this article....they always put stuff like this out before crunch games.

Depends on the criticism. Criticizing form is one thing, saying that the player has limited ability and should be offloaded is another. You are right when you said Costa got harsh treatment. There were people who said he should have been offloaded as well. I wonder what their opinion is now, based on his form after playing regularly under Hiddink

The players might have deluded themselves into thinking they can go all the way in this competition, which could also explain some of the lax performances in the league. No Drogba this time around, and we don't even have Kalou with his spider haircut.

I hope I can eat my words, but I honestly don't know who we can get (managers or players) to challenge City next season....but then again, our priority might be to just break into the top 6 again. If only he had shown up a season earlier...maybe the boys would have shown up at the start of the season a lot more motivated under Jose and wouldn't have slipped so far down the table.

Well.,.if you were ever wondering what was going on in the player's heads this season..

Real bad time to lose him indeed.... Essien's right knee suffered one freak injury after another if I'm not mistaken...ACL, medial ligament and ACL again....it was the second one that triggered his slow decline and the 3'rd one killed his chances of playing at the highest level

Started poorly in the first 30 mins, but grew into the game afterwards to create more chances. Mikel and Matic in the starting lineup was not needed for this game. Should be used only against teams that are really dominant with possession.

Haha, I swear its only because Mikel and Matic gave him acres of space to operate in the first half to make him look good. EDIT: Just saw Jason's post on Lingard.