Blue Armour

Great post, and loved the sandwich analogy at the end. Though, if I had to choose, Pedro would be the pickle. Not everyone's first choice. Would rather have an extra slice of bacon in Kennedy.

But when would be a good time to sign? At least now you can fool new signings into thinking top 4 is a possibility, or at least offer them a chance to play in the CL knockout stages... Not all our solutions can be found in the youth squad, and I'm pretty sure we're not going to get squat in the summer window. The best thing we can hope from the summer window is for Madrid's transfer ban to be upheld. However, I will admit if targets like Scott Dann are what we are being linked with, I'd rather we get no-one.

You pointed it out yourself. Costa going out almost killed the game for us as there was no one up front willing to drag us back into the game. The mentality of the team is so fragile at the moment, that they let their heads drop a little after Costa hobbled off. The team has far too many passengers in the squad.

How ironic that those figures were reading almost the complete opposite last season, when most of the losses happened only when he was absent from the lineup. His confidence has taken a beating this season, and it will probably take something like scoring the winning goal in a big match to restore a significant portion of it. He definitely should not start games again any time soon, but he's not as bad a player as most are making him out to be right now. This is clearly his worst ever season, and I don't like judging players based on seasons like that. A few months ago, people were trashing Costa no end, and now he's the figurehead of our anticipated revival.

You have to wonder if someone is protecting Ivanovic's position in the squad with him being the first 30+ yr old player getting this kind of contract extension ahead of others...the fact that we haven't even attempted to go in for a second RB ever since Bosingwa left adds to the conspiracy theories. The most annoying thing to watch in the game was him ball watching for the 3'rd Everton goal...seemed like he had all the time in the world to react but did nothing

No potentially good young RB in the squad ,..clearly Hiddink isn't confident in Baba Rahman. Really hope the board/Hiddink dives into the market and pulls up a quality full-back. Will not be considered an impulsive buy in my book.

The more the chances of top four slip away and we slip into the doldrums in the league table, the more I hope players like RLC and Kennedy will start matches. Time for a reincarnation of sorts...

Please don't send out on loan...please don't send out on loan.... I know he probably won't get too many minutes here, but sending him out on loan would just mean the beginning of the end of his Chelsea career

Not complaining about this, but why was this looked into ahead of JT's? Really peeved about that one....

Hah, we play where we want.

Haha, hope there are a few Arsenal fans squirming over that one. Gets pretty annoying to hear them bleat about Sanchez over Hazard.

Really spared Cahill's blushes there

This. At least for the sake of rotation, Baba deserves a look-in from Hiddink. Today, Kennedy, RLC and Traore finally got their much deserved game time..., so step forward in the right direction perhaps with Baba getting in on the act?

Can't agree more..haven't had this much personality and talent rolled up into a Chelsea player since Drogba. The club has to try its best to hold onto him as long as they can, even if it means excusing poor seasons like this one. (And before someone comes back to me saying that Drogba had a never-say-die attitude unlike Hazard, I said 'personality', not 'character')

It will be hard if that happens, but on the flipside, Ashley Cole and Fabregas togther have won the PL, CL, FA cup and Carling Cup with us.

Haha, hopefully not to the point where Costa starts swearing at the camera! :-D

Won't criticize the starting lineup because he's only been 2 matches in charge and he had limited options due to injury. But looking at this from a neutral perspective, the football on display was truly horrendous. A side like United has nearly 70% possession against us..and plus, if the game plan was to simply sit back and soak up pressure, that wasn't great either. They still managed to get past the defense and were only prevented by the crossbar from taking the lead. There were a few bright moments after the interval, but removing Willian instead of Oscar for Ramires was seemed pointless. In the end, we were just playing for a draw and the players clearly accepted that after the Ramires sub. In fact, a draw was probably the only thing on their mind from the start of the game, which was probably why Matic was surprised to see himself through on goal and skied that shot of his. I'll accept the draw, although I feel it was a better point for United who needed damage control, whereas for us it's only going to help us limp away from the relegation zone.

Haven't you figured it out? It's Emanalo choosing the lineups. Jose obediently followed for the first few months and Emanalo was fine with it. Jose one day got fed up and said he had it with the team and that's when Emanalo told him to get the f out. Crappy joke I know, but fitting for a crappy season

I don't care what he does in Europe, but in the league at least I hope he eventually starts games with 2 strikers in the lineup. Our number 10s are too slow in decision making to make any useful contribution to our attack

. Hmm, I think the last time he was here he deployed Iva at RB against Liverpool in the CL? That was the time when Ivanovic showed potential to become a first team member

Hit the nail on the head FB. I was okay with the JM chants, and the taunt against the overall team, but booing specific players makes no sense because no one really knows what goes behind the scenes. The real snakes are in the press, who probably are looking gleefully towards Mourinho joining United.

Since we are in the season of change, would like to see something interesting and have 2 strikers in the starting lineup

A bit pointless bring up an old post right now, but what's laughable is that you completely misinterpreted the fact that I was in agreement with what you said earlier on in your post...in other words, I was implying: "Yes just like one stat alone doesn't define greatness., in this case...Mourinho's win record does not make him a better manager than Ferguson...but his win record is something to consider before you just toss him out without a second thought'

Wanted to highlight something at the 1:52/1:53 mark, which is not really about Oscar, but about our attacking mids in general including Hazard... That run from Costa, and the fact that Oscar didn't quickly slide the pass through to his feet...seems our mids miss these sort of quick runs from our strikers. (happened a lot when Torres was here)...of course in this particular example Costa dragged the defender away to create more room for Willian and Oscar,...but probably would be best to make these passes and create more clear-cut opportunities.

Yes, as is with anything you can't judge quality by one factor alone, but what it does highlight is Mourinho's strong point. Basically what it should teach is that you shouldn't be so quick to get rid one of the strongest assets you possess. Anyway, the one thing I really liked about that video anyway was seeing how many Chelsea and ex-Chelsea managers made up the list...