Blue Armour

And what are those fans going to do...shout at him from the stands? lol...its not as if they were loud enough to be heard in the first place... Anyway, seriously, I'm pretty sure most fans will be understandable towards what he meant..

Why? Its harmless..and this thread is about the player, is it not?

Can guarantee the story would be different if Chelsea had scored the first goal in the first half or at least very early in the second. No way would the manager have let them withdraw so early on in the game.

Gary Neville on that Hazard shot: "It would have been better for all of us if that had gone in... Graeme Souness catches him off guard: "Did you really just say you wanted that one to go in...?" Lol...I'm more and more convinced that Gary Neville's a closet Chelsea fan...

Shrewsbury town up next in the League cup, so very likely to see either Zouma/Ake take on that RB role

Haven't had such a full-back that's so adept at going forward for a while now (even though Ivanovic has improved considerably in this aspect),. Could be a real selection head-ache when Azpilicueta returns.

Could have really used him today...United had more control over the midfield than they should have.

Ah crap.... Time for lunch...

I thought on the whole, him and Willian combined decently to keep Janusaz and Shaw, and later di Maria and Shaw quiet in the second half. Could have easily got on the scoresheet, and should have one the penalty. FAR from poor for me. EDIT: Posted on the wrong thread, was referring to Ivanovic, actually!

Couldn't really notice live, but was it really a foul on Di Maria? The winger seemed to dive to win the free kick..

In the second half, it was just like having Drogba of old...Mourinho must have really talked something into him during the break.

1 point gained over City instead of 3. Moving on..

I'm not sure if weak link would be the right word..but as usual, (and this has been stated many times before) he kept backing away from his opponent, this time with Campbell. He allowed Campbell to run into the penalty box where it becomes to dangerous to put in a tackle. He could have scored if his shot had been on target in the first half. Thing is, his role is to be covering defender for JT and he does a decent enough job of mopping up with his last ditch tackles and clearances. Once JT's time is over with the team, we will need some one in a similar mold to be the replacement, because its certainly not going to be Cahill.

Well he is an outlet for the midfielders. Not an outlet that directly leads to a goal, but just enough to hold the ball and give it back to them when they are no longer under pressure. I feel he would be more useful when we play on the counter and he has space to run into, but against the deep sitting teams like Bolton and Palace we would have to expect the goals to come from midfield.

Any news on his return?

If that's the case, Mikel has more than earned the right of captaincy

Fair play to Cech....am just grateful that he came on and played the way he would have when he was undisputed no.1.

Funny thing is... after all that, the both of them became best pals, and started going to Oktoberfests together. Wonder if we'll ever see Mourinho and Wenger do something similar..

I wonder if its ever possible to change that aspect of his game at this stage...should be wired into his instincts right now. I think he will forever play the role of the "covering" defender....making that last ditch tackle, or last ditch clearance

On a side note... Martin Tyler doesn't really like Chelsea, does he? When he Lampard scored he was like "Oh YESS!!!.." .and then followed by subdued "no.." seemed pretty jubilant after they had equalized. Not the first match too, when I've seen him do something like this

Some people need to calm down.. Draw away from home against a tile rival, and playing defensive football? Good, because that has been the objective always, and that's what happened last season. I don't care about playing against ten men...Playing against ten men in their own stadium is always a challenge. The people who started watching football yesterday can go on bleating about how City "dominated" the game...but the only thing I will take away from it is that Lamps scored against us. But from looking at his face, he was probably just as upset as I was about it..

I'm not too worried...Cahill is neither performing above or below expectations. He always has had a tendency to back away from players that run at him (like Aguero) ...and this is nothing new. The reason I'm not worried is that Mourinho has gone away from the system that expects to be water-tight at the back, to an expansive, creative and riskier style of play. That's why there's not so much onus on keeping clean sheets. Because, we are creating more chances, and unlike last season...we are finishing most of them. Unfortunately this did not happen on Wednesday's game, because Costa didn't start and everyone else was wasteful

Good guess, mate!

Haha..don't think there's any doubt about that. But all the same, am happy for it...hope it gives football more exposure than it already has in India, and consequently improve Indian football itself.

And guess who did it twice in the past...don't know what they're trying to convey from that article.