francozola

This is fucking ridiculous. Fergie does the exact same thing every other week and no one says a word. I'm really sick of this now. All week long they've been harping on and on about this. Cunts.

Definitely needs to go out on loan in Jan. His technical attributes are very very poor right now. With consistent playing time he'll improve a great deal in 6 months. I think if we keep him here and just have him play 15 minutes every other week it'll do him no good at all.

Hmm he said that if we progress in the Carling Cup, he will continue to play kids all the way. Compared this to Jose's methods in the Carling Cup which he described as "aggressive" to "win the first available trophy" and he said that his approach is not the same. He wants to use this to give kids some playing time.

Everton are in a shit load of debt, I'm not sure he would cost 20m. Anyway I doubt that we're actually interested.

was it for his comments in the 9/11 thread?

Confirmed by AVB: Josh, Lukaku, Bertrand and Romeu will be starting and Drogba will also get some playing time

There's going to be a press conference in about 20 minutes, for those who are unaware http://www.chelseafc.com/page/LivePressConferences?WT.mc_id=livepressconf-newspromo

Once we get Torres scoring consistently (which I believe will happen), and the team gets used to this new rhythm we are playing at, we should be ok. We do need a couple of new players though. Ramires' miss was just a case of wrong person at the right place. He should have had the awareness to realize that Sturridge was behind him. I'm sure they will work on that. Sturridge meanwhile will get more involved in games (I hope) as he plays more so he'll be more effective as well.

He was definitely offside. They showed it on the replay. He ran back deep which made him look like there was nothing wrong, but the replay clearly shows he was offside when the diagonal ball was played

Welcome!

I always thought he would cost more than Modric... around 45-50 million ish. anyone else can confirm/deny this?

Hamsik? He's going to cost a fortune.

lol at the music he made more intelligent runs in this match than the previous 18 months combined

The stat for penalty conversions this season is ridiculous! The commentators didn't mention it but anyone know what it is after the granny shaggers miss yesterday?

Great report as always Alex! IMO Phil Jones was much better for them than Nani but anyway, it doesn't matter. Very good performance and even though we have come away with nothing, there are more positives than negatives. Our football is improving game by game. Compare the amount of creativity and smart running that we had in this game to last season - very impressive. We're on our way! Best performance at Old Toilet in the Roman era!

I really don't think that that's a given. He reacted ok after that miss, he was chasing after balls etc trying to rectify it. but the whole team gave up after that and we didn't attack any more so he couldn't get involved in that sense. I think we should wait and see how he performs in his next game before claiming that he's lost all his confidence again. Plus we have AVB who has managed Torres well this season and I trust him to keep Torres' head focused on the positives from the game etc

Don't think the miss will affect him that much. He will move on and AVB won't let him linger on it On another note, great to actually see some EMOTION from him. Taunting the Utd fans after he scored (), the scream of frustration after he blazed it over the bar, even the couple of times where he went to complain to the ref.. at least he fucking cares

Exactly!!!! I was thinking the same thing. The presenters here were going crazy, analysing every single detail about that chance and commenting that "he's back to square one" and all that rubbish! If that was Ramires again or something there's no way they would have made such a meal of it. He will take a lot of heart from yesterday's performance and AVB will continute to motivate him.

Well done AVB. Really pleased with mostly everything that went on. Only thing I was disappointed with was the Lukaku sub. but other than that, that was the first time in... years that we reacted like that. We have always lacked passion in such situations but we were excellent yesterday up. Pity that Torres missed the chance or I would have bet my house that we would have gotten a point. But even after the final whistle, I was smiling because I was delighted with the way we went about our football. KTBFFH! Me too! Especially after seeing that fucker grin at the referee/his players right before taking it

Kind of disappointed that mikel isn't playing, but I trust Raul to do a good job there

Well done AVB! That's how it should have been handled by Carlo. A manager should protect and defend his players. Luiz has a great deal to work on and AVB surely knows that but it can be done in training etc.

Oh okay, thanks. I'm biased because I'm really not a fan of his. I hate his attitude and I'd prefer to give a youngster a chance rather than just keep him to be a super-sub (I mean next season onwards). I know that he can be quality and can potentially contribute by coming off the bench but 90% of the time he can't be bothered to run or do anything useful and I just dislike the way he goes about everything

What do you mean? What was said?

He's been using the media to try and 'force' the club to give him a new contract. He has said in practically every single interview that he wants to 'end his career' at Chelsea, etc. The fact that nothing has been done in so long has to be a sign that he's not going to get one!